80's Hong Kong Horror, Hopping Vampires, Martial Arts and Comedy what more could you ever want or need in a film!

It rang all my bells and blew all my whistles it was that GOOD!

This movie has legit the most bizarre and possibly the greatest freeze frame ending of all time, like I swear to god.

Sammo reluctantly fights ghosts as Krzysztof Penderecki blares in the background. This is about as seamless a combination of action/horror/comedy as you're likely to see in any realm of cinema. What's the closest American equivalent? Ghostbusters? The Monster Squad? I love them both, but yiiiiiikes.

This also ends with extremely casual wife-beating. Double YIKES.

This is so much fun.

Poor “courageous” Cheung, not only is his wife cheating on him, the guy she’s sleeping with is also out to kill him! With the help of a witchcraft scorcerer, which may not be the fastest/most efficient way, but definitely makes for a whole bunch of entertaining scenarios.

Influential martial arts filmmaker Sammo Hung stars in this “groundbreaking” kung-fu horror comedy that introduced us to the “jiangshi genre”. Basically just hopping vampires/zombies.

And there’s so much going on. The kung-fu is impressive, the horror is fun, the comedy is borderline slapstick, and somehow it all just works perfectly fine together. Possessed monkey kung-fu is always entertaining, I guess!

Also, best last 10 seconds I’ve seen in any movie in a long time, I sincerely laughed out loud. Plenty reviews here on Letterboxd “spoil” it, but trust me, it’s so much better to see it in action!

The VVitch would have been a completely different film if it took its cues from this Witchcraft - there would have been more lasers, monkey kung fu, hopping vampires and mystic mumbling. It also would've ended with Ralph Ineson gut-punching Kate Dickie 6 times before freeze-framing into the credits.

Jokes aside, this is a cracking fun fantasy comedy from a Sammo at the height of his powers as a performer and director. And who knew he had such a gift for the surreal and weird? I certainly didn't

How have I not reviewed or rated this before? I think LETTERBOXD may be eating some of my entries like a hungry ghost.

A grab-bag of everything that would come to define the 'Spooky' era of Hong Kong Cinema (mostly Hopping Vampires) It hangs loosely as a narrative, but when you have so many fun gags and such an action-packed third act, I can't complain.

I can only be scared!

Well, okay, that final shot is...problematic.

Some complaining!

PIFFFcast 41
pifff.fr/news-198-pifffcast-41-made-in-hong-kong-fr

hubris the movie
also this sammo hung baby body poster is also very good shouts out

Mixes wacky horror comedy set pieces, amazing Kung Fu (damn Sammo Hung can move for a 'big' guy!) and Black magic duels to create a ton of fun.

videodead.blogspot.com/2020/04/encounters-of-spooky-kind-1980.html

Clearly had a huge influence on countless subsequent comedies, from Wrongfully Accused to Boo: A Madea Halloween to “‘97 Bonnie & Clyde”

Warning!
Actual chicken death, and implied dog death.

That ending! The stunts!

It’s been so long since I have seen this film, so when I read on the back that it is “generally recognised as one of the possible inspirations for.... Evil Dead”, I called bullshit. However, rewatching it I can kind of see how it could have been to be honest. There is some really good action sequences, all the magic stuff is really fun to watch and I’m not a huge fan of magic in movies, I don’t mind it though. There is something special about this magic, maybe it’s the sound effects, maybe I just have a soft sport of HK cinema. I don’t know but this was a lot of fun.