Starring: Brigitte Lin, Shih Chun, Tuo Tsung-Hua, Chang Ping-Yu, Ku Wen-Chung, Chiang Wei-Min, Pai Lin
Director: Sung Tsun-Shou
This movie feels a bit like "The Magic Sword and the Magic Bag" from Pu Song-Ling's Strange Story from a Chinese Studio. That is, this feels a bit like the story that inspired A Chinese Ghost Story; The Enchanting Shadow; and any other movie based on the material.
Our hero is Young Noble (A Touch of Zen's Shih Chun), a young scholar whose mother (Chang Ping-Yu, of Imperial Tomb Raiders and Shaolin Wooden Men) has recently recovered from a severe illness. So severe, in fact, that it practically took her life. She was able to make a deal with the gods (or directly with Buddha) that her health would be restored in exchange for her (or someone by proxy) copying some Buddhist sutras some fifty times. The task itself has fallen onto her filial son, Young Noble, who finds an abandoned manor some ten miles outside of town to work in peace (and away from the influence of wome).
He settles into the manor with the company of a young apprentice, Qi Tung (Tuo Tsung-Hua, who grew up to play the main henchman whom Donnie Yen kills in Butterfly and Sword). They discover that the well is haunted by a female ghost, Su Su (Brigitte Lin, of Swordsman II and New Dragon Inn). Su Su just lies at the bottom of the well and mesmerizes men who look inside into falling in and drowning. When the Young Noble ignores her, she leaves the well and tries to seduce him outright. But he is too righteous for that and her master, the Poison Dragon, tries to possess her to kill him. That doesn't work and Su Su and the Young Noble start to fall for each other. But will their otherworldly love stand strong against the protestations of his pious mother and the evil of the Poison Dragon.
Ghost of the Mirror is a bit of a slow burner, although it gives you plenty of time to stare at a 20-year-old Brigitte Lin in period garb. The film builds to a tragic finale, although not quite in the way I was expecting. It does involve a giant dragon marionette attacking miniature buildings, so that was unexpected. My main issue with the story is the sub-plot that suggests that the ghost Su Su has an alternate personality, or horcrux (or something), in the form of a mirror that also fell into the well and has its own spirit (or something). Maybe it's Chinese Taoism metaphysics that I don't understand, but I don't think it added anything to the story.
Starring: Wong Jing, Joey Wong, Stanley Fung, Hsu Shu-Yuen, Joyce Mina Godenzi, Michael Chan Wai-Man, Shum Wai, Charlie Cho Cha-Lee, Tony Leung Hung-Wah
Director: Lam Nai-Choi
Action Directors: Yuen Bun, Wong Chi-Ming
Crazy Ghostbusters-inspired horror-comedy directed by Lam Nai-Choi, who later went on to direct the famous The Seventh Curse and The Peacock King. This sort of over-the-top WTFery is really up Lam's alley. That said, it pairs Wong Jing and Stanley Fung in front of the camera, so I assume that this movie is part of Fung's life's shame.
So, there is a building in Hong Kong that has some very bad Feng Shui. It was built on the execution site of a garrison of Japanese soldiers at the end of WW2 and their spirits are gaining strength from the fact that the building has "too much Yin" (and not enough Yang). In the first scene, a pretty lady (Hsu Shu-Yuen) is at a big office party when she gets assaulted (and stripped nude) by a corridor of "scary hands" (similar to when Sigourney Weaver gets attacked by Zuul). She shows up later on, now possessed by the ghosts.
Our main character is Bong (Wong Jing), a ne'er-do-well who somehow has managed to bag a hot girlfriend in the form of Hsueh (Joey Wong). His friend, Fan (Stanley Fung), manages to get him a job as a security guard at the same building from the first scene. Lots of weird things start to happening: Bong witnesses the pretty lady sucking the blood of the building owner (Shum Wai), a TV sprouts arms and legs and attacks him, his fellow guards start to get killed off, etc. They bring in an interior designer/Feng Shui expert, Ling (Joyce Mina Godenzi, looking her most va-voom-tastic), who is also a ghostbuster of sorts. She figures out that they have until July 14th to stop the Japanese ghosts before their power gets so big that they kill all the Yin individuals, including Bong and Fan.
This is one of those movies that I just have to write a paragraph about some of the weird things that happen and you decide whether or not you want to watch this. Do you want to see a man pull off his own face and rip out his own heart? Do you want to see a climax involving a protracted fight with an animated skeleton? Do you want to see Wong Jing run into a porno theater and stand in front of the screen for 30 seconds while looking for one of Stanley Fung's three (out of ten) souls? Do you want to see Wong Jing win at mahjong with the help of a low-rent Alf-looking imp? If you say "yes" to any of those questions, then Ghost Snatchers is for you.
Starring: Pauline Wong, Hsu Shu-Yuen, Wu Hsiao-Kang, Ku Kuan-Chung, Cynthia Khan, Peter Mak Tai-Kit, Chan Lap-Ban, Yang Yuan-Zhang, Yang Tuan-Sun
Director: Fred Tan
Okay, after the nuttiness of Ghost Snatchers, here's a supernatural revenge drama that takes itself quite seriously (for the most part). The film revolves around two women: Lu-Ling and Hwei-Chu. Lu-Ling (Pauline Wong, the pretty ghost in Mr. Vampire) is a huge figure in Hong Kong on the modern (or interpretive) dance scene. She has been dumped by her lover and is contemplating suicide. Hwei-Chu (Hsu Shu-Yuen, who was the possessed girl in Ghost Snatchers) is romantically-linked to a playboy named David Bao (Ku Kuan-Chung, of Web of Death and Clans of Intrigue). Bao has cheated on her before, although he now promises that he will end his philandering ways.
NOTE: This is one of those toxic relationships where he openly has cheated on her. But she tells everyone that she believes he has turned a new leaf and will now be faithful to her. But in private, she acts so suspicious toward him that you wonder why she forgave him in the first place.
Anyway, it is suggested that Lu-Ling was the woman that David Bao was cheating on Hwei-Chu with. And when he goes to Taiwan with Hwei-Chu, Lu-Ling tries to kill herself by overdosing on pills. She is saved by her nosy secretary, Amy (Chow Ai-Lei). While Lu-Ling is recovering, David Bao has Hwei-Chu killed and her spirit "sealed" in her place of death by a sorcerer named Master Li (Yang Yuan-Zhuang). However, their accomplice accidentally break the spirit mirror, meaning that Hwei-Chu's spirit is free to roam. Due to a huge coincidence and happenstance at the Taipei airport, Lu-Ling (who has recovered and is preparing for a special Taiwan performance) is marked for possession by Hwei-Chu. Hwei-Chu uses Lu-Ling's body to execute the men responsible for her murder.
And when Hwei-Chu decides that she wants more from Lu-Ling than just a temporary vessel, it wil be up to an observant photographer (Wu Hsiao-Kang), his spiritualist girlfriend (a young Cynthia Khan in a non-fighting role) and her mentor to save Lu-Ling.
Split of the Spirit will probably be creepy to people who don't watch a lot of horror. And even if it doesn't spook you, it gets points for being a Hong Kong horror that doesn't become a kung fu movie or broad comedy (or both) halfway through. The finale does get a bit crazy, though, with eye lasers and eye flamethrowers and badly-composited scenes of spirits flying through the heavens. And the film ends on an ambiguous note, although I don't like the sort of twists that suggest that everything you just saw did not happen the way you just saw it. When you the viewer are expecting one outcome and the opposite happens, the preceding event needs to be shown in a way that is ambiguous enough that you assume things happened a given way before "X" is revealed. A good example is the surprise ending of the film Life. This one doesn't pull it off like it should have.
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