Director/Producer – Cirio H. Santiago, Screenplay – Howard Cohen, Story – Leonard Hermes, Photography – Ricardo Remias, Music – Ed Gatchalian, Main Title/Additional Music – Susan Justin, Special Effects – Jess Sto. Domingo, Production Design – Pol Dimalanta. Production Company – New World Pictures.
Steve Sandor (Stryker), Andria Savio (Delha), William Ostrander (Bandit), Michael Lane (Kardis), Julie Gray (Laurenz), Ken Metcalfe (Trun), Joe Zucchero (Bazil)
It is after the nuclear holocaust and the world has become a desert wasteland where water is a scarce resource fought over by the survivors. Stryker drives the wasteland roads accompanied by his sidekick Bandit. He comes to the aid of Delha who is being pursued by the warriors of the warlord Kardis. She is sought because she knows the whereabouts of a spring of water. Stryker takes Delha on to shelter at the peaceful community run by his brother Thun. Delha agrees to show them the way to the spring. However, they are pursued the entire way by Kardis’s men who want to obtain the water.
Mad Max 2 (1981) was one of the most influential films of the 1980s. It created its own mini-genre of the Post-Apocalyptic action film. There were numerous copies, most of which came from Italy, although a good number from other shores too. Stryker is a US-made production from Roger Corman’s New World Pictures peopled by minor US actors but shot in the Philippines by Filipino director Cirio H. Santiago.
Cirio H. Santiago (1936-2008) was one of the key names in the notorious Filipino exploitation film industry of the 1970s and 80s. Santiago directed 78 films between the 1950s and his death in 2008. These include classics such as TNT Jackson (1974), Cover Girls Murders (1975), The Muthers (1976), She Devils in Chains (1976), Hell Hole (1978) and Caged Fury (1983). Santiago was also responsible for a number of genre films, including the likes of Vampire Hookers (1978), Naked Vengeance (1985), Wheels of Fire (1985), Future Hunters (1986), Demon of Paradise (1987), Equalizer 2000 (1987), The Sisterhood (1988), Dune Warriors (1991), Raiders of the Sun (1992), Vulcan (1997) and the animated Aladdin and the Adventure of All Time (2000).
Cirio H. Santiago is not a name that gets a lot of praise but he was an action director who should have been granted bigger budgets and opportunities than he received. Early on here, he conducts a vigorous, albeit more low-scale, version of the tanker chase climax from Mad Max 2. What makes Stryker somewhat more interesting than the average low-budget Mad Max copy is the colourful characters packed around the edges that at least enliven an otherwise standard plot. These include a community of dwarves and another community of Amazons who all wear leather hot pants. The film also comes with an entertaining array of vehicles with people variously driving around in Jeeps, tankers, motor tricycles and even tanks.
I do have somewhat of a plausibility issue with the film’s set up – of how such a world would be able to sustain itself with the apparent scarcity of water it seems to have. The bandit community seem to have limited supplies, while the place that Andria Savio comes from has found a source via a spring. In desert countries, there are assorted oases and communities that find means of sourcing water from aquifers, rainwater traps and the like. Do we take it to mean that all rainfall in this region has stopped? If so, it seems hard to believe that Kardis could maintain an army of men in fighting shape if water was in such scarce supply.
Trailer here
Full film available here