Black Magic (1975)

Black Magic (1975)
Chinese Title: 降頭
Translation: Sorcery/Black Magic

Starring: Ti Lung, Lo Lieh, Lily Li Li-Li, Ku Feng, Tanny Tien Ni, Ku Wen-Chung, Lee Sau-Kei, Yueh Hua, Chen Ping
Director: Ho Meng-Hua

Having already watched (and reviewed) the über-grotesque horror films that the Shaw Brothers produced in the early 1980s, something like Black Magic feels almost “quaint” in comparison. I mean, it has it’s share of disgusting moments, but it is ultimately small potatoes compared to the likes of Bewitched and its more notorious follow-up, A Boxer’s Omen. Nonetheless, every sub-genre has to start somewhere and for the “black magic sorcerer in Southeast Asia makes people’s lives a living hell” genre more-or-less started with this film.

The film is set in what I believe to be Malaysia, judging by all the minarets on their buildings. Usually, it’s Thailand, but Malaysia is a perfectly-acceptable alternative and the end result is ultimately the same. We open with a woman (Helen Ko, of Sex for Sale and The Killer Snakes) going to a black magic sorcerer named Shan Jianmi (Ku Feng, of The Kung Fu Instructor and Dynamo), requesting that her philandering husband and his current lover (Dana, of Super Infra Man and Edge of Fury) be killed. She gives him an offering of gold and jewels, to which he requests 5x more if he’s going to kill two people. Nonetheless, he takes her offering as a downpayment and gets to work: using the SE Asian equivalent to voodoo dolls, he makes the illicit couple have sex before jamming needles into them and causing their demise.

The bodies are discovered the next day by the locals, who quickly alert the village shaman, Master Furong (Ku Wen-Chung, of The Twelve Gold Medallions and 5 Fingers of Death). Furong quickly realizes that Shan Jianmi is behind it and starts chanting to send a supernatural Buddha avenger after him. Shan is saved at the last moment by the arrival of most recent client (the aforementioned woman), whom he ties to a post to distract the avenger while he runs out of the house. Time to move and set up shop in the city.

We then switch to Kuala Lampur, where we meet our main characters. The first is Xu Nuo (Ti Lung, of Duel of Fists and The Revenger), a handsome construction manager who is engaged to Quying (Lily Li, of Executioners of Shaolin and The Young Master). Unfortunately for Xu, he is the object of desire of millionaire widow Zhou Luoyin (Tanny Tien Ni, of The Magic Blade). Luoyin has set her sights on Xu Nuo and will do everything in her power to seduce him. Including, black magic, you say?

Well, not immediately. Mainly because that option is initially obvious to her. What brings it to her attention is her own admirer, a leech of a man named Chia Chieh (Lo Lieh, of The Chinese Boxer and Heroes of Shaolin). Chia Chieh wants to get in Luoyin’s panties because a) he’s almost broke, and b) she’s hawt. But his attempts to woo her usually result in abject failure, that is, until a friend of his suggests he go see a black magic sorcerer to cast a love spell. And wuddiyaknow? It’s Shan Jianmi, who has set up shop right outside of the city.

The spell involves hanging a large-schlonged voodoo effigy in her house and making her drink a love potion, which guarantees him a long night of pleasure with Luoyin. But the next day, the effigy falls from its place and the spells wears off. Rather than scream “Rape!” upon discovering Lo Lieh in bed next to her, Luoyin slyly asks him how he managed to bag her, and the idiot reveals his tricks to her. She offers him enough money to pay his debt to the sorcerer in exchange for the man’s address and sends him on his way.

So, the process for magically seducing Xu Nuo begins. It involves a love potion made from Luoyin’s own breast milk; samples of Xu Nuo’s blood and hair; and hiding effigies beneath the man’s bed. Soon enough, the spells takes effect—at the man’s own wedding, I might add—and soon he has forgotten about Quying and is spending his days banging Luoyin.

This is where things start to get real complicated. First of all, Shan Jianmi has fallen for Luoyin himself and performs a love spell on her to get into her panties—though it is not strong enough to overcome her love/lust for Xu Nuo (nor does Shan mind sharing her with her beau). Second, Quying’s attempting to bring her husband back to his senses irritates Luoyin to the point she requests that Shan kill her with a spell, too. He hits her with a curse that fills the poor woman’s body with worms, but thankfully for her, Xu Nuo’s best friend had almost been a disciple of Master Furong and some point. Furong recognizes Jianmi’s handiwork and is able to save Quying. From there on out, it becomes a series of magical confrontations between the two magicians for the life and soul of Xu Nuo.

If I were to point out one major flaw in the film, it’s that the film runs out of steam in the third act. The problem is that after Master Furong sets his sights on Shan Jianmi, there’s a scene where the spell on Xu Nuo is temporarily broken. Xu Nuo is about to go back to his old life when Jianmi starts doing his craft again and Xu Nuo becomes what is essentially a rage zombie. This leads to a prolonged sequence of Xu Nuo in the hospital undergoing brain surgery and recovering and whatnot. It is a total momentum killer when the film should be confidently barreling its way toward a big magical showdown.

The film also suffers from some really bad optical effects at the climax, the sort of which will leave you pining for the colorful beams of Toho’s 1950s and 1960s science fiction movies (including the Godzilla franchise).

The magical rituals themselves would be “very gross” to the newbies, but for those who have watched the movies I brought up in the first paragraph, will probably not make you wretch quite as much. There is a scene when Shan Jianmi has to “wake up” the corpse of an old woman in order to get some sort of fluid from her mouth to use in his death spell against Quying. And one random client has a ball of rice rammed into her snatch to make a love potion for her soon-to-be husband. The animal violence is not as bad as we know it can get in these movies. People may get squeamish at the idea of worms burrowing under the skin of Lily Li, but it’s presented in a manner that suggests that the actress herself wasn’t involved in the special effect.

There is a fair amount of sex and nudity, as one expects in these black magic films. We get to see Dana naked (again), in her brief scene with the unfaithful husband. At least two of the female clients have to give their breast milk for their respective love potions. In Tanny Tien Ni’s case, despite being something of a sex symbol in the 1970s, I don’t think she did nudity herself and usually employed a body double. In the case of this movie, the double had a noticeably larger bust size than she.

In the end, I found it interesting as a curio and as part of my Hong Kong cinema education, but nothing I’d consider wanting to revisit multiple times. Mileage of course will vary according to one’s tastes and preferences.