Tarzan in Asian Cinema Part 2

Here comes Part 2! This one refers to Tarzan's brief cinematic impact on The Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore and PR China, plus Turkey and Taiwan.

The first Chinese language Tarzan film, a Singaporean coproduction with both Mainland China and (more directly) Hong Kong, was called The Adventures of A Chinese Tarzan, which was spoken in both Mandarin and Cantonese, but flopped on its release day, the 3rd of December 1939, which was close to both the 1930s’ end and the 1940s’ beginning. Like the second film, it is already not much known outside of the main Sinosphere and may be partially lost. It featured Pang Fei as a pale Tarzan imitation and Zhu Zhou as a Jane expy (albeit usually a Jane Parker expy in this case). It is clearly public domain in pretty much the whole world, even though it’s still lost unofficial Tarzan media. 

The second Chinese Tarzan film, simply titled The Chinese Tarzan (but the first one spoken natively in Cantonese, a Sinitic language), was released in 1940. Even though it was perhaps a Hong Kong remake or retelling of that one shown above, it's a bit more faithful to the first Tarzan book. Considered lost or perhaps mostly forgotten forever. Its plot is also quite different from its forebear; it rather has two scientist parents being dead while an Asian Tarzan survives as a young child, resulting in him being adopted by the local jungle animals in order to become their king. 

Tarzan In Istanbul is pretty much the first Tarzan movie in Turkey. Released in 1952, it has lots of footage stolen and unofficially copied from various 1930s and 1940s Tarzan films. It even has a sluggish companion novel, which was made for the Castilian Spanish market, where the film itself was once a popular Mockbuster watched by budget conscious Spaniards. 

Balci Tamer’s disgusting yet insanely book-accurate portrayal of Tarzan made it possibly one of the most ethnically discriminatory of all time for a good reason. Some parts of the plot representing the film’s beginning are also copied from the Hong Kong Cantonese film shown above, making it a Turkish copy of both a Hong Kong copy and the Weissmuller films. 

The Malaysian-Taiwanese Hokkien film Tarzan and The Treasure, which got released in 1965, is perhaps the only surviving one of them all. It kind of helps that it’s a spiritual predecessor to, of all Tarzan related things, the Barry Prima jungle films. It also features the multitalented late Kao Ming as a localised Tarzan Expy raised by jungle animals in the Malaysian Peninsula, after a plane crash killed off his parents when he was very young. It also has a Jane Parker imitation, three feuding ladies and a Boy Expy goofing around.

Tarzan the Mighty Man was released in 1974. Directed and written from a queasy 3-page script by an eccentrically kitschy director, who is still the living king of live action MockBusters outside of PRC, Germany and America. Like Tarzan in Istanbul, it also has had a lot of footage stolen from various old Tarzan films (mostly featuring Johnny Weissmuller), and is itself a mild continuity reboot of Tarzan in Istanbul for some reason. Character actor Yavuz Selekman got his so okay it’s average portrayal of Tarzan after playing a Santo imitation in the so bad it’s bland 3 Mighty Men, due to his uncanny partial resemblance to Joe Kubert’s Tarzan illustrations. His own Tarzan also has a girlfriend named Ayse (pronounced Ayshe) instead of Jane Porter, played by a veteran Turkish actress who’s little known even to young Turkish people today.

The Story of Tarzan and Jane (Ang Kuwento Ni Tarzan At Jane) was released onto tv screens in the 8th of April 2018, about two years and three quarters before the whole core Tarzan canon became public domain in much of the world except Guatemala (until 2026), Spain (until 2031) and the USA (until 2062). It is a second season episode of Daig Kayo Ng Lola Ko (2017-23), an incredibly popular Pinoy anthology Teleserye, watched by kids from all over the Philippines and its own diaspora. Featuring the handsome half-Spanish Gil Cuerva as Tarzan and brown eyed beauty Julie Anne San Jose as Jane Porter. 

Since it also has a couple of fellow cast members as gorillas (wearing what are essentially unofficial discount Flintstones costumes), it mixed up elements of the Disney instalments and the Weissmuller films, as well as bits of both Greystoke and Tarzan and the Lost City. It’s also thanks to a pretty lady playing someone who is likely an escaped tigress that an early edition of the first novel in the entire ERB Tarzan canon was referenced in the episode. 

Tarzan in Asian Cinema Part 1

Tarzan in Asian Cinema Part 1 refers to Tarzan's Impact in India from the Weissmuller era onwards.

The John Cawas Era
This Era of Tarzan films began with Toofani (Stormy) Tarzan in 1937, starring John Cawas. This film, also inspired in part by The Call of the Savage serialised film from 1935, led to 3 spinoffs (the Tamil language Jungle King Karzan in 1938, itself a loose part-dub, the first Hindi Jungle King in 1939, and the first Jungle Princess in 1942) and the first Tarzan Ki Beti, an Urdu language spinoff sequel which is now considered pretty much lost forever. The first one released post-WW2 is Jungle Goddess, a loose sequel to both the first Hindi Jungle King and the succeeding postwar Jungle Queen of 1959. There is the also lost Bama, which featured John Cawas as the eponymous character, who is closer to Johnny Weissmuller’s portrayal of Tarzan in this film, than in his own first appearance as a Tarzan in name only. He got replaced by Zimbo for legal reasons later in the decade. 

Its hairy ape equivalent was a Tarzan/Zimbo competitor named Zambo, which lasted for only two films, both of which are lost except for the posters, even though they do have an indirect influence on the still forgettable Captive Wild Jungle Woman franchise of surreal B movies by Universal. 

The Tun Tun Era
This Era of Tarzan/Tarzanide films actually began with Zimbo in 1958 and the second Jungle King in 1959, which was the first to feature Bollywood's first major comedienne Tun Tun. This time, a female character actor predominantly ran a whole era. The main actor of the Tun Tun era was Azad Irani, a portrayer of both Stormy Tarzan (from the kind of official Azad tetraology starting with his own eponymous movie, which is the second film to bear that name) and Zimbo (of the successful Zimbo trilogy) as well as Tony (of Tarzan and the Sorcerer fame) and Hawana (of Jungle Ki Hoor fame), who was - like John Cawas - an actor of Zoroastrian Irani/Parsi Origins. It ended with the original Kadina Raja (aka Kadina Rahasya, the third Jungle King and the first Jungle Love), released on March 25 1969 and the first full colour Tarzan film in India, Tarzan 303 in 1970, which starred Punjabi wrestler Chandgi Ram as Tarzan and Azad Irani in a supporting role. The only two full siblings in history who unofficially played Tarzan are the infamously machismo brothers Dara Singh and Randhawa, both of whom appeared in a single film called Tarzan versus King Kong (the wrestler, not the prehistoric primate giant!) as different characters, although the former portrayed Tarzan in Tarzan Comes to Delhi a few years earlier anyway. 

The Hemant Birje Era

This is the longest running era of live action Ripoff and Mock Buster Tarzan films so far the world. Starting with a surprisingly successful movie classic, the first Adventures of Tarzan in 1985, plus the Kannada film reboot of Kadina Raja in the same year, so is the hammier Telugu film Adavi Donga featuring superstar Chiranjeevi. The film has spawned lots of semi-official sequels, reboots, remakes and spinoffs, many of which bombed so hard on their first runs and some of which have featured Hemant Birje himself (although not always as Tarzan). 

After the first Adventures of Tarzan, Hemant Birje has also been featured in at least a feminine counterpart, called Junglee Tarzan, which in turn, is both a cooler sequel and a soft reboot improvement of Jungle Beauty, and the second Tarzan Ki Beti, a long awaited but equally trashy (and kinda non-canon) alternate universe spinoff sequel, also acting as the Hindi language, mix and match colour reboot of the eponymous film released in 1938. 

Although its legacy remains big, it is currently in retirement, since a proposed sequel to Adventures of Tarzan got cancelled nearly two decades ago, mainly due to how notoriously hard to work with Hemant Birje really is. A remake of Adventures of Tarzan was to be made a couple of years ago, until it also got scrapped due to troublesome production issues. 

A Kannada competitor called Kadina Raja, whose same name predecessor acts as the actual but unofficial remake of the Zimbo films, was released in the same year as Adventures of Tarzan, but eight months early, while its more memorable Telugu counterpart Adavi Donga got released just seven months afterwards in November that year. 

The first Jungle Love, partially made in 1986 but fully released in 1990, is a tribute to the Cold War films featuring Azad Irani as both Zimbo and Tarzan, albeit featuring Rocky Singh as a pastiche of both named Raja after the hero of Kadina Raja. Its popularity as a very adult film and with certain Generation SRK nerds led to a comical, but not quite official spinoff with an extended name, which was partly filmed in Telangana instead of the Western Ghats of Kerala and Karnataka. Called Raja Rani’s Love in the Jungle and released very late in 1994 for the year 1995, it’s thankfully somewhat closer to the Weissmuller films which inspired it rather than either Jungle Love or Adventures of Tarzan, because it featured two actors playing a snooty scientist and his daughter, as well as another one playing an Ayesha expy, while Mahendra Kumar’s portrayal of Tarzan as an angry feral man is a bit gross but also somewhat more likeable and tolerable than others.

In 1999, a mild continuity reboot of Zimbo, itself more like a bland budget part-time ripoff of the older Rambo films, was released, featuring an internationally unknown actor as Zimbo, a weary wild young man whose love of animals is prominent throughout the film. Sixteen years and seven months after Jangali Manchhe had been released, a semi official reboot of both Adavi Donga ‘85 and the latter had been released. Even though it’s known as the second Adavi Donga, it clearly takes slightly more cues from its bloodier Nepali counterpart than from the lighter but more values dissonant original. 

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Meet Tarzan's amoral rival Cas!

Welcome to my site visitors and fans, this is my post of the night!

In my remake, Tarzan's mysterious, amoral, much older rival is called Castilon. Cas currently owns a tadpole tailed boat, which once belonged to his own rivals.

Here's my sketch of the tadpole tailed boat! I hope that many of you Jungle Lovers would like it. That same boat was originally going southeast but - as I crudely sketched its weird tail with trial and error - I decided that it had to go northwest instead.

Disney’s Tarzan reboot: Cryptids

The Manganis

Big Footed Mangani - Bigfooted Manganis are partial relicts from the prehistoric period. They are Bigfoot sized and they eat veggies, fruits and meat. 

Common Mangani - Common Manganis are furry fictional Frazetta Men + Killer Nonhuman Primate type hominids who live in various habitats. They are large and gorilla like 

Crested Mangani - These guys are somewhat chubbier than their Big Footed cousins and who tend to live in woodlands more often than not. They are based on Joe Jusko’s earliest Mangani designs. 

A character named after Kellan Lutz is based on one of Russ Manning’s later designs. His sons are named after a Gary Larson character and another Mangani character created by Gary DuBois, but otherwise based on two of Russ Manning’s early designs. There is also a rarely seen wife and a daughter based on another two of his own. 

Two of the exclusive characters, Iris and her mate Torik, (who is named after a Mangani character created by Gaylord DuBois), are loosely based on two character designs in a Benito Gallego artwork. Four members of Iris’s family are based on four character designs in each two of Neal Adams and Sal Buscema’s artworks.

Even though Gufta and her mate Zelgor walk in a Bigfoot like way, they are based on two of John Buscema’s designs. Gufta’s children are based on another two of his own. 

Thorag and his daughter Teeb are both named after two Gaylord DuBois characters, but based on two unnamed pseudo Mangani characters from Tarzan and his Mate and its prequel, the first Tarzan the Ape Man. A minor character, perhaps Thorag’s mate Ndosi, is based on yet another pseudo Mangani character from those two films as well.

The rogue characters Etienne and Coralie are named after two of the first Disney instalment’s producers, but are based on two Neal Adams designs. 

Jax and Zukora, two Mangani MallGoth characters, are based on two character designs in Pablo Marcos’ fantastically creepy art. 

Being based on a bunch of Joe Jusko’s cool early and later designs, a dysfunctional family consisting of a mum named Irina, a dad named Max, a bunch of kids (Casper and Lin) and two grandparents named Joyce and Todd are amongst the most frequently seen of the Manganis. 

The Mud Apes - The Mud Apes are two species of distantly related cryptid great apes. 

Lesser Mud Apes aka Sipandjees - Even though they are based both on Joe Kubert’s mundane designs and Joe Jusko’s fairly early designs, the Lesser Mud Apes are more like a behavioural mix of gorillas, chimps and orangutans. There is a recurring clique of them who inhabit a thicket, and whose members are mostly females, as males are generally mean and who tend to be solitary for the most part. There are also males living deep in the jungle, but they strongly prefer to live out of the spotlight and, when growing old, they mostly tend to grey like the females. 

The Swamp Apes

Lilac Swamp Apes aka Dediekas - The Swamp Apes’ cousins, the Lilac Swamp Apes, are a fascinating bunch of huge primates living in the West Central African savannah, chomping on grasses and leaves as well as insects. They are the ones who chase out gorillas in their yard. 

Cat Eared Swamp Apes - The Cat Eared Swamp Apes are a cunning menace to agricultural loggers and commercial bushmeat poachers everywhere. They occasionally eat bugs in woodlands, jungles and swamps and are the ones who also love eating honey and berries. 

Tarzan comic editions

Not rewritten until November 2022

In the USA, Dark Horse seems to treat Tarzan: the Joe Kubert years with more respect than it did to Tarzan: the Russ Manning years in any way. Thanks to all the legal limbos, it’s invevitable that a Buscema years omnibus collectors edition for the Tarzan comic books, drawn primarily by the Buscema brothers John and Sal, has pretty much been nulled out anyway. 

France’s Graph Zeppelin made a French version of Tarzan: the Russ Manning years, while its competitor Delirium made a French version of Tarzan: the Joe Kubert years collectors edition, itself translated from English like the Brazilian Portuguese one. 

Even though Brazil’s Devir has finally produced a complete Tarzan: the Russ Manning years omnibus collectors edition, it similarly has quite a lot of problems with the digital recolouring, whereas it treats Tarzan: the Joe Kubert years in a considerably better light, which is still interesting, considering that the latter was translated from English. 

Devir’s competitor, Pipoca e Nanquim, did a decent (but not quite great) recolouring of Tarzan: the Buscema brothers years omnibus collectors edition, which, although expensive, is much more affordable than the forever zombified Tarzan: the Buscema years omnibus collectors edition by a large margin. Unfortunately, it’s only available in Brazil for a moment, but it can be exported out of it.