Wednesday, July 7, 2021

Movie Thoughts: White Fang and the Gold Diggers (1975)

  • Released: 16 August 1975
  • Directed by: Alfonso Brescia
  • Running time: 1 h 38 min
  • Rating 1/5

Synopsis

A man named Sandy and his son Rick come to an town in the north in hopes of finding gold, only to end up with a lot more trouble than they bargained for.

My Thoughts


Trigger warning for rape mentions in this MT.

The title of this thing is hugely, immensely misleading. As is the poster. You guys know I'm a huge fan of Jack London's book White Fang, right, and how I like to check out adaptations of it? So, yeah, needless to say the title and poster got me excited. 

But it has absolutely nothing to do with White Fang. Heck, the "wolves" in this thing are even barely in it, and none of them are White Fang, they're just a pack of wild randos. There is a central main character dog, but his name is Whiskey, not White Fang.

The story has absolutely nothing to do with it, either. It's about a man and his son on this property that's worth a lot and them dealing with a gang trying to get the claim on the land. There's also a major subplot that involves Sandy's to-be wife being violated several times and him in turn going on a revenge murdering spree.

I didn't like this movie much at all. The filming was decent, but the acting and dubbing was absolutely terrible. I could hardly tell what some characters were saying. The voices are also ridiculously over the top sometimes, feeling more at home in a cartoon than a live action semi-serious movie. Then there's the person who dubbed Rick, who did the worst job of all. I don't know who picked them for the role, but not only is their voice unfitting, they also have the emotional range of an orange. Seriously, even when he's in danger or sees his dog being nearly mauled to death he sounds like he's only mildly surprised at most. 

The horrible voice acting aside, the sound design was also just terrible. Sound effects would constantly be re-used to the point of annoyance, they would sound unfitting or over the top (especially when someone gets hit), it's just a mess. This needed a real revising job on the voice acting and sound design part.

None of the characters were likable, sans one, maybe. I couldn't care less for Sandy, Dollar was an obnoxious running joke, the villains were flat and boring and Rick has absolutely no personality other than "child". There is only one female character in this entire thing, and she gets relentlessly raped and then suffers a miscarriage. She has only a few scenes where she isn't being treated like shit, and honestly, those are the ones where she really shines and show that she's a good and lovable person who deserved none of this. I wish we got to see more scenes of her just living in the woods with her dog and her interacting with Rick, she actually had a decent chemistry with the lad. But no, she gets treated the worst out of all of the characters. What a joy. She also has absolutely no chemistry, heck, hardly even any moment, with Sandy before getting together with him. The two don't talk to or even see one another for the majority of the flick.

The cinematography was poor and sometimes confusing, like it cutting from one scene to the next before it felt like the former scene was actually complete. 

As for the usual "what animal are the wolves this time"-ramble of mine, they got huskies. While I'm obviously not a fan of this choice, I do like that they got another dog breed to play the sled dogs (Samoyeds to be specific) to make the difference between dog and "wolf" in this universe clear.

I also really don't like how Sandy is just willing to let his dog fight to death just to get his revenge. He's supposed to be our hero, yet he's willing to bet the life of his son's beloved pet just to satisfy his taste for it. Not a cool move, man. 

White Fang and the Gold Raiders was a bit pile of obnoxious voices and characters I didn't care about doing things. It has no connection to Jack London's White Fang and is so far the worst movie I've seen in 2021. Let's hope the next film is better.






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