College student Scott Edwads (Mitchell Gaylord) is trying to make ends meet by covering his injured best bud Daniel’s (Glenn Maska) shift as a rickshaw driver while his broken leg heals. One rainy day, he helps a kindly Chinese woman named Madame Luna (Michi Kobi) and her Siamese cat get from the bus stop to her destination. This was no chance encounter! That night, Scott tries to give a sexy stripper named Joanna (Victoria Prouty) the full rickshaw experience on a yacht but he catches a pervert videotaping them. After a bit of a skirmish, he takes off but returns to get the tape of his bare butt only to find that the pervo has been murdered. Scott now finds himself caught up in a web of intrigue as only he has the key to a locker containing an ancient magical treasure that a famous televangelist (Donald Pleasence) and his hitman (Daniel Greene) will stop at nothing to retrieve.  Now, only Madame Luna can help him survive this deadly adventure and he’s going to need all of his rickshaw powers if he is to survive.

I’ve seen over a dozen films directed by Sergio Martino over the years, but nothing could have prepared me for how truly weird American Rickshaw (AKA American Tiger) gets. This wild effort jumps between at least three genres: thriller, fantasy, and horror but it’s the little odd details that are just so baffling. People running around Miami Beach in rickshaws (yes, that’s actually a thing), a glowing boar statue, gay stereotypes, a wisecracking detective sidekick, gratuitous strippers, eastern mysticism, magic battles, psychic visions, Donald Pleasence playing the face double for his own body double, dirty hypodermic needles, and dream sequences, all packed into the same film makes for a pleasantly disorienting viewing experience.

The gorgeous cinematography by Giancarlo Ferrando (Torso) keeps everything slick and bright. The film kind of has the color scheme of an episode of “The Golden Girls” and coming from me, that’s a huge compliment. The quirky score by Luciano Michelini (The Suspicious Death of a Minor) only adds to the film’s offbeat nature. Folks scavenging for obscure Italian oddities will have no doubt gotten to the live sound era of Italian genre films. For years, we were used to the odd quirks and bizarre line deliveries of dubbing actors trying to make a mouthful of dialog fit into a short amount of time. With the post-dubbing era, things got even weirder as Italian casting directors often put the most attractive and young American people they could find in lead roles and worried about their inexperience at being in front of the camera later.

Our hero Scott, as played by Mitchell Gaylord, is a bit of a bastard but damn it all, I guess I would be too if Daniel “Hands of Steel” Greene was after me. Gaylord is fun to watch in this insanity and I’m shocked he didn’t follow Martino back to Italy to do a dozen more films. Prouty, his love interest, is a bit stiff but seems like a good sport. She and Scott are constantly at odds and yet, they just must have a love scene. But don’t worry, he gets in the shower with her with his pants and ratty old sneakers on. Oops, is that a spoiler? Donald Pleasence was in 9 movies the year that American Rickshaw came out and he was quoted as saying that this was the one with rickshaws in it. His limited screentime is not wasted at all here and there’s even a couple of outrageous bits with him that’ll make your brain implode.

Cauldron Films brings this (obscure to some, fan favorite to others) Sergio Martino masterpiece of strange to Blu-ray for the first time and the results are incredible. Relegated to VHS for years, American Rickshaw looks and sounds fabulous. First up in the of extras is a fun and very informative audio commentary by Kat Ellinger (author of All the Colours of Sergio Martino) and Samm Deighan of Diabolique magazine. Their enthusiasm for Martino and this film is infectious.

There’s an interview with the director himself and production designer, Massimo Antonello Geleng (Cemetery Man). The interview is amazing, filled with insights into the Italian film industry and cool behind-the-scenes facts from Martino who never seems to age. There’s an hour-long segment with The Projection Booth Podcast discussing American Rickshaw, a rather short Then and Now Locations featurette filmed in Miami, and an image gallery. This special edition also comes with a booklet with funny and insightful liner notes by author David Zuzelo. The cover features luscious artwork by Mattias Frisk (as well as the Italian artwork on the reverse side).

Director – Sergio Martino
Cast Mitchell Gaylord, Daniel Greene, Victoria Prouty, Donald Pleasence
Country of Origin – Italy
Reviewer – Richard Glenn Schmidt