WONDER WOMEN (1973)
Article 4104 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-12-2012
Directed by Robert Vincent O’Neill
Featuring Nancy Kwan, Ross Hagen, Maria De Aragon
Country: USA / The Philippines
What it is: Faux James Bond, Filipino style

An evil female genius is kidnapping athletes to use their bodies as receptacles for brain transplants from unscrupulous millionaires. A man is hired by an insurance agency to investigate the kidnappings.

Though it’s not a spy movie, it’s pretty much in the James Bond mold; our investigator’s techniques are along the same lines, and the villainess is also in the same mode. It’s pretty cheap and features some of the lousiest martial arts fight scenes I’ve ever seen; all the editing in the world can’t cover up the fact that the only thing the fighters seem to know about karate is that you open by holding your hands in a certain way. There’s some perfunctory nudity (it’s only PG, you see), and features a brain sex machine, hideous mutants, Sid Haig (who is having a lot of fun) and Vic Diaz. It’s hardly what I would call good, but it does have that certain watchable grindhouse charm to it. And I will say this much; it’s a vast improvement for Robert Vincent O’Neill, whose previous genre movies I’ve covered are THE PSYCHO LOVER and BLOOD MANIA.