Bullet Points: The Secret of King Mahi’s Island

I often like to go back and watch the humble beginnings of some of my favorite action movie heroes… Arnold Schwarzenegger in Hercules in New York, Jean-Claude Van Damme in No Retreat, No Surrender and Chuck Norris in The Way of the Dragon.

Gary Daniels’ humble beginnings were in two low budget action movies shot in the Philippines in the late 80’s, Final Reprisal and the subject of this edition of Bullet Points, 1988’s The Secret of King Mahi’s Island…

• Treasure Hunters: As the movie begins we are introduced to our hero, Chuck (Gary Daniels, Recoil). Chuck and his crew are loading up their boat for a treasure hunting adventure on nearby King Mahi’s Island. Chuck is just waiting for the last member of the crew, and he is an important one, because he is the guy with the map…

• X Marks the Spot: We cut to the guy with the map as he packs his bags for the adventure ahead, including his trusty boomerang! That’s about the time some goons who work for the evil Ben Murphy show up looking for the map to King Mahi’s treasure. The head goon, Tony, was played by none other than the Real Jim Gaines. You may remember Gaines from such films as Robowar, Final Reprisal, Black Fire and probably every other low budget action movie shot in the Philipines in the 1980’s. Tony and his co-workers fail miserably at their task… the guy with the map ends up shot and left for dead and his home is burnt down (sure hope he didn’t have the map hidden somewhere inside you IDIOTS!) But before the guy with the map died, he entrusted his boomerang to his progeny, a teenage daughter named Leah and his young son Joe and tells them to get the boomerang to Chuck.
• Two Kids Go Into a Bar: Ben Murphy is pissed that Tony and the boys did not do what he asked them to do… so Ben goes to Plan B, see if the children of the guy with the map know where their father kept the map. Tony tracks down the kids, the same place the kids tracked down Chuck… the local bar. Leah frantically tells Chuck what has happened to her father and before Chuck can process the information he finds himself in the obligatory action movie bar fight with Tony and the rest of Murphy’s hired henchmen. Tony and company once again fail miserably as Chuck and his crew, plus two (Leah and Joe), make a mad dash for Chuck’s boat and it is off to King Mahi’s Island! …I should probably mention that the map was hidden inside the boomerang.

• The Natives Are Restless: It isn’t exactly smooth sailing for Chuck and his crew as they are attacked on the water just as they are about to make their way to King Mahi’s Island. Everyone is forced to abandon ship, but things don’t get much better once they get ashore as they are confronted by one of the tribes that inhabit the island. A fight breaks out but ends with a truce, when Chuck saves the tribe’s chief from certain quicksand doom… next thing you know, Chuck, Joe, Leah and the rest of the crew are the honored guests at a tribal feast. The next day the Chief and some of his best men accompany Chuck and the crew, leading them in the right direction to get to the mountain that is home to King Mahi’s tomb and treasure.
• Murphy’s Law: Unfortunately for the rest of the tribe, while their Chief is assisting Chuck, Ben Murphy and his goons show up and start killing anyone they see and then torch the village for good measure. At this moment it felt like Ben Murphy, Tony and the rest of the bad guys were people to fear and that they were going to be a major stumbling block for Chuck. That feeling continued when Tony has the dastardly idea to kidnap young Joe and use him as a bargaining chip to get the treasure map from Chuck. That plan however, like all of Ben Murphy’s attempts to get the map fails miserably (whatever can go wrong does go wrong, amirite?) and Ben Murphy and his henchmen are suddenly out of the picture, which was odd since there was still a good amount of time left in the movie. Don’t worry, a third party is interested in the treasure too and they prove to be more of a challenge for Chuck and company!

Gary Daniels’ Chuck was no Indiana Jones, he wasn’t even Allan Quatermain… but neither of those adventurers can kick like Gary, so he had that going for him. And Gary Daniels is what The Secret of King Mahi’s Island had going for it.

If you are a Gary Daniels fan you need to check The Secret of King Mahi’s Island out. It is one of the earliest entries in Daniels’ filmography and unlike anything he’d go on to do once his acting career really got rolling.

Now let’s roll into some Bonus Bullet Points…

• If You Ever: …wanted to see Gary Daniels ride a bull, then The Secret of King Mahi‘s Island is the movie for you.
• The Roles They Were Born to Play?: Leah and Joe were played by Michelle Frankenberger and Kurt Otto Frankenberger respectively. So they were either actual siblings playing siblings or it is one hell of a coincidence.
• Exploding Helicopter: I am going to have to alert our friends over at Exploding Helicopter about The Secret of King Mahi’s Island because *SPOILER ALERT* I know I have never seen a helicopter explode via exploding boomerang before.