It's been a while since they first announced the project, but plans move ahead for the action thriller Garuda 7 (which many people are referring to as 'The Indonesian Expendables' - its leading cast made up of former action heroes from the territory including Crystal Fist's Billy Chong aka Willy Dhozen, The Warrior himself Barry Prima, Advent Bangun and George Rudy. The film is being produced and directed by Baf Sjamsuddin whose credits behind the camera include Donnie Yen's Legend of the Wolf, The Wicked City, Pink Bomb with Cynthia Khan & Once Upon a Time in China 2 & 3.
The film is set to follow the adventures of a former Indonesian Secret Service team 'Garuda 7', who find themselves drawn back into the world of action and espionage one last time to protect their nation's treasures.
The production slowly moves forward with the addition of veteran martial arts movie journeyman John Ladalski whose credits include everything from Jackie Chan's Armour of God, The Chinese Stuntman with Bruce Li, Death Cage with Joe Lewis and Robin Shou, Blood Fight with Yasauki Kurata and Bolo Yeung, Kickboxer with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Air America with Mel Gibson. Ladalski is now attached to the project as co-director, producer and action coordinator while working on the screenplay is martial arts movie historian James Marshall who worked on Kill 'Em All!
If that's not enough, the sometimes unreliable IMDB believes the eclectic cast may also include Crying Freeman Mark Dacascos, American Ninja Michael Dudikoff, Born to Fight's Dan Chupong as well as Vietnamese pinup Elly Tran Ha and already talk of sequel aptly named: Garuda 7: The Next Mission.
Now, we do like the basic sound of this project (the 'Men on a Mission' genre encompasses everything from the Expendables, Eastern Condors, The Dirty Dozen, The Incredible Kung Fu Mission - we'd love to see Prima and Dhozen back in action, alongside the cast they've announced and see what John and his team are really capable of. But if this is all good-to-go then we're a little confused by the fact that the artwork being released to promote the movie is all badly photoshopped cut and paste imagery that doesn't really sell the concept or present it professionally. We were sent the current IMDB listing for the movie and its cast by the producers, but when we inquired as to if all the cast and crew were confirmed, everything went quiet..so lets see.
The film can be followed on its official Facebook at www.facebook.com/garuda7film or Twitter at http://twitter.com/Garuda7_movie
