Starring Yee Tung-Shing, Cherie Chung, Ku Kuan-Chung, Lung Tien-Hsiang and Ai Fei. Directed by Chu Yuan. Produced by Mona Fong for Shaw Brothers.
He’s got superpowers!
Shue Sang is found as a baby in an ice cave and later discovers that he is actually Yuen Ying (Yee Tung-Shing), a being from the Da Lor fairyland, a place situated between the spiritual and physical worlds. Imbued with special powers, he falls in love with a princess (Cherie Chung) and battles an evil villain, also originating from Da Lor fairyland, who has reincarnated on Earth.
Don’t point that sword at Yuen Ying!
There are the usual spacious Shaw Brothers sets on view in this fu flick, but these don’t really make up for the shoddy direction and lacklustre action choreography. Some of the effects are pretty poor too, including store-bought dolls on wires used to represent transcendence!
This is a Shaw Brothers film, so there are many, many fights!
Even so, there’s stuff that keeps you watching, like the unexpected, ghoulish introduction of the Intelligent Kingdom, where young children on conveyer belts are checked over and, if it’s deemed their brains are too small, are nonchalantly tossed away into a furnace!
The bad guy leader of the Intelligent Kingdom decides this child is not intelligent enough… so a guard hurls the youngster into a flaming furnace! Yikes!
Plus there’s Yuen Ying’s bizarre selection of powers to look out for: he can fly, of course, he has the ability to turn into a giant pair of scissors, can duplicate himself, and he even transforms into a large axe to chop down the villain, who, during one fight, becomes a monster tree! Wild!
The villain splits into two versions of himself, then turns into this tree…
…and the villainous tree attacks the hero…
…so the hero transforms into a large axe and chops the tree in two… and then the tree and the axe catch fire!?
There’s also the novelty of seeing a Chinese mythological riff on the Superman/Clark Kent/Lois Lane story, complete with a clumsy alter-ego for the hero and his own version of the Fortress of Solitude.
The princess looks on
There are loads of shots of people flying around in this movie, plus we see lots of power-beams being fired from the hands of characters!
If nothing else, DESCENDANT OF THE SUN really pulls out all the stops for an ending chock-full of cell-animated hand beams, flame-breathing, flying, stormy winds, and an attack by ghostly corpses that chew on the golden-garbed hero. This finale is not quite well enough done but, damn it, the result overflows with a crazed energy that manages to make it entertaining to watch anyway, especially when Yuen Ying makes all the zombie-ghosts explode!
Starring Chin Siu-Ho, Kara Wai, Philip Kwok, Kei Kong-Hung, Jason Pai Piao, Yuen Tak and Lung Tien-Hsiang. Written and directed by Lung I-Sheng. Produced by Mona Fong for Shaw Brothers.
Feng Ling (Wai) is sent by her master to locate the special fiery bow and arrows that are the only treasures that can stop a mystery villain from using the lethal Six-Stringed Demonic Lute to wreak havoc everywhere. Along the way she teams-up with her brother Old Naughty (Tak), a likeable thief (Kwok) and his son, a good guy called Yuan Fei (Siu-Ho) and a powerful martial artist known as the Woodcutter (Tien-Hsiang).
This dude’s got a huge chopper!
DEMON OF THE LUTE’s director, Lung I-Sheng (aka Tang Tak-Cheung), was primarily an actor in the Hong Kong film industry. He was also a martial arts director on many films, and he was the action designer on the very wild BUDDHA’S PALM (1982). This fantasy wuxia, you’ll be pleased to know, is equally over the top! It really is lots of fun, crammed with loads and loads of exotic characters! Let’s look at just some of them: there’s Red Haired Evil, who rides a small chariot drawn by german shepherd dogs and hurls his Thunder Flying Wheel weapon like a frisbee, Eagle Man, who can flap his costume’s wings to fly like a bird, Long Limb Evil, who can super-extend his arm, and Fatty Elf, who can entangle folks in his lengthy beard.
Red Haired Evil, riding his chariot pulled by dogs!
Eagle Man!
Watch out for Fatty Elf’s super-long beard!
One of my favourite fantastical characters in this outlandish fight flick is Skinny Elf, who has a misshapen forehead – he likes to sit on the hero’s shoulders and can’t be shaken off!
Above: two pics of Skinny Elf!
Utter strangeness abounds throughout this production, with warriors erupting from a giant silver ball, Feng Ling using her rainbow sword like a guided missile, a horseless wagon whizzing around with the deadly lute inside, some trees momentarily becoming monsters, Old Naughty riding his horse backwards, and a kitschy killer lute that glows with LED strip lights when it’s played.
Monster trees attack!
The lethal magic lute’s strings are made from dinosaur ligaments!
Though some of the music and on-screen antics become rather too childish (this film dedicates itself to children in the opening credits), DEMON OF THE LUTE has much to offer, including Kei Kong-Hung, who is surprisingly good as the thief’s plucky young son Xiao Ding Dong.
I dig this hairdo!
Let’s end this review with another look at Skinny Elf…
…including a scene where an evil spell-caster scoops a bowlful of blood from an urn that’s full of dead babies, viscera, and fluids!
Starring Ai Fei, Huang Chin-Shen, Lily Chan Lee-Lee, Fanny, and Hussein Hassan. Written by Sze-To On. Directed by Kuei Chih-Hung. Produced by Mona Fong. A Shaw Brothers production.
Cool poster!
A possessed nurse!
Stephen Lam (Fei) is arrested for the murder of his daughter, admits to driving a nine-inch nail through her head, is found guilty, and afterwards asks Bobby (Chin-Shen), the policeman overseeing the case, to listen to his story, swearing that it was Thai witchcraft that compelled him to do what he did. Intrigued, Bobby looks into these claims and is soon the target of black magic rituals himself.
Above: five shots from the film
An extended flashback reveals how Stephen went on holiday to Thailand, had relations with a local woman called Bon Brown (Lee-Lee), returned to Hong Kong and promptly disregarded his promise to return to her, prompting the woman to seek supernatural revenge via Magusu, an evil spell-caster (Hassan).
At one point green fluid spurts from evil Magusu’s face
We’re soon witnessing various rituals, including a ceremony invoking a Vegetable Basket Spirit, which is enacted in silence and stillness, helping the scene to stand out when compared to the usual hectic, noisy rituals seen in most Hong Kong horror films. There’s also a grisly sequence in a temple mortuary, where the chanting Magusu sticks a spike into the foot of a dead pregnant woman to make her sit up, then uses a candle to make oil drip from the fake-but-grotesque corpse’s nostrils. Yet another novel instance of weird witchcraft involves the dark sorcerer burying a needle-transfixed lemon under the tarmac of a street: every time a pedestrian steps on the buried object it triggers stabbing pains in Bobby’s chest!
Magusu burns the face of a dead pregnant corpse so that dark oil will drip from the corpse’s nostrils
The standout supernatural sequence, however, is the remotely-fought confrontation between Magusu and a Buddhist monk. Director Chi-Hung nicely contrasts the bright, clean, expansive look of the monk’s Thai temple with the sorcerer’s dimly-lit, shuttered shrine room, as the two men utilise different arcane methods to counteract each other’s mystical might. With Magusu’s veins filling with green gunk, the black magician prays to a bat effigy on the wall, which becomes a ‘real’ bat creature that flies off and kamikazes into the monk’s ceremonial fan to wreck his ritual! This whole duel of mystic men is really well-handled.
The moving bat sculpture, before it becomes a ‘real’ bat!
A close-up of the glowing-eyed bat ornament that somehow comes alive
When the film’s finale comes, it is reliant on the sudden, handy intervention of the monk at an airport. The monk causes Magusu to become all slimy and develop blisters, which inflate like balloons and pop…
Above: three shots of Magusu falling victim to a monk, who makes the evil magician’s skin blister and melt!
…and then, somehow, the monk makes Magusu transform into an old woman…
Magusu, for some reason, turns into an old hag!
…and then… a bat-creature puppet crawls from the old crone’s mouth!
The bat-thing pushes itself out of the hag’s mouth!
The monk proceeds to pick up the (rather sweet-looking) bat and slip the lil’ critter into his pocket. End of story! This is a brilliantly bizarre finish to the film, utilising garishly fun, lo-fi effects, that drives home the fact that BEWITCHED is a continually diverting, enjoyable, and colourful Shaw Brothers horror yarn.
The giant ‘living’ statue is standing behind you, buddy!
Starring Lo Meng, Lily Chan, Lau Dan and Ma Chao. Directed by Kuei Chih-Hung for Shaw Brothers.
Lo Meng’s painted face is featured in the opening credits
A ghost (Chan) purposefully causes a car crash so that she can inhabit the body of the dead neighbour of Ma Su (Meng). Calling herself Pok Pok, she begins a relationship with the muscly Ma Su, who is at first unaware of her supernatural origins.
Poster
HEX AFTER HEX begins immediately after the events of HEX VS WITCHCRAFT (1980), which was itself a sequel to the much better, much more serious first film HEX (1980).
Lily Chan plays Pok Pok
HEX AFTER HEX contains the same kind of broad humour, slapstick and silly, jumbled, undisciplined storyline as the previous movie in the series. Cross-eyed actor Ma Chao, who is never one to knowingly underact, returns for a third time, playing an arsonist who has the Shaw Brothers logo branded on his backside!
Darth Vader, er, I mean ‘Black Knight’ appears at one point
After making a bunch of demolition workers turn naked by hitting them with his (plastic-looking) lightsabre, the Black Night disappears
Other briefly diverting moments involve Pok Pok taking on the likeness of a lo-fi Yoda, then invoking a Darth Vader lookalike called Black Knight, who strikes at demolition workers with his green lightsabre, magically making their clothing vanish!
Pok Pok licks a lollipop…
…then she transforms into this Yoda-like creature to freak out the demolition workers!
The film’s main subplot focuses on the heartless, stingy boss of a property business, who Pok Pok sets out to bankrupt after he evicts everyone from the building that she and Ma Su were living in. Pok Pok’s scheme involves becoming the company secretary, hanging out with the boss when he gambles, then making him think the worthless horse statuettes he is purchasing are actually made of solid gold. This storyline, unfortunately, is protracted, not particularly interesting or funny, and sidelines the Ma Su character for a big portion of the running time.
Pok Pok briefly decides to look scary
Matters become more engaging after Ma Su discovers that Pok Pok is a ghost, studies skills to allow the Tai Sheung God to enter his body, and tries to banish his spirit girlfriend.
Ma Su (Lo Meng) during his ritual to bring the Tai Sheung God into his body
Ultimately, Ma Su retains feelings for Pok Pok and saves her from a ritual which causes a statue of Thomas Jefferson to become animated, controlled by a priest’s movements, forcing Ma Su to invoke the Monkey God into his body so that he can fight the automaton.
The statue mimics the priest’s movements!
The Thomas Jefferson statue (which resembles Lee Van Cleef if you ask me) reaches out for Ma Su
This scene, using a quite impressive statue costume, is way more professional looking than the special makeup effects seen earlier in the movie, such as Pok Pok’s cheap ghost mask and the crummy Yoda puppet.
Ma Su jumps onto the statue’s shoulders and uses Monkey Style kung fu!
To cap off this man-vs-statue encounter, the Thomas Jefferson statue, bizarrely, reveals itself to be a kind of slot machine and starts spitting gold Krugerrand coins out of its mouth?!
Loads of gold Krugerrands start to spill from the statue’s mouth!
Starring Danny Lee, Terry Liu, Dana, Wang Hsieh and Yuan Man-Tzu. Written by Ni Kuang. Directed by Hua Shan for Shaw Brothers.
Our hero Rayma, played by Danny (THE OILY MANIAC) Lee!
Surfacing from within her lair inside the volcanic Mount Devil, evil Princess Elzebub (aka Princess Dragon Mom) vows to conquer Earth.
Princess Elzebub always wears a golden, horned helmet
Princess Elzebub addresses her monstrous minions
Elzebub, wearing her special ‘reptile head’ glove, uses an electrified whip to fight Inframan during the finale
To stop Elzebub’s world domination plans, Professor Liu initiates the BDX plan, using special devices and hormones to transform Rayma (Lee) into the saviour of mankind. The logic and science behind this process is sketchy at best, but Rayma is duly turned into a red-suited hero with a bug-man robo-face… yes, it’s Inframan!
Rayma begins to transform on Professor Liu’s operating table…
…and he turns into Inframan!
Professor Liu gives Inframan instructions
The foes that Inframan must contend with include Witch Eye, a scantily-clad villainess with a cone bra, horned helmet, knee-high boots and clawed glove-hands with eyes in their palms, Mutant Drill, a blobby dude with one shovel hand and one drill hand, Fire Dragon, a fire-breathing bad guy with a red moustache, green scales, fangs and a gold helmet, and Plant Monster, a man-in-suit creature with tendrils and the ability to sink into the ground. One monster, looking like a manic version of Cousin Itt from THE ADDAMS FAMILY, has long hair, can fire laser beams and cackles a lot.
Witch Eye!
Plant Monster!
Mutant Drill!
Fire Dragon!
Cackling villain with long hair fires lasers from its hands
Visually, the film is a riot of over-the-top art direction, with some wonderful comic book-esque sets featuring dragon fountains, skeletons, skull-faced decor and machinery with blinking lights. The carved entrance to Elzebub’s HQ, for instance, resembles a monster’s mouth.
You gotta love these Shaw Brothers sets, right?!
Inside Elzebub’s underground base
There are loads of fun sequences to watch out for in this film, one highlight being Plant Monster’s attack on Professor Liu’s research building, where the vegetable-beast becomes a mass of giant, fast-growing rubber vines! The massive plant envelopes the place and the battle that follows is a real hoot, with Hong Kong stunt guys getting knocked around by the terrible tendrils!
Giant vines wrap around the heroes’ HQ!
Battling the wriggling plant tendrils!
Inframan vs Plant Man!
Another cool moment features a red bug-dude who rapidly enlarges, so Inframan (just like his Japanese Tokusatsu hero counterparts) grows in size too! This is all done using forced perspective, seen from a low angle, with some slo-mo shots, making this giant showdown an effectively-handled, standout scene in the film.
This bug-dude has three compound eyes…
…and he grows in size…
…and the gigantic bug-dude tries to squish Inframan…
…so Inframan grows in size too!
Fight!
The plot may be inconsequential, but that doesn’t really matter, as THE SUPER INFRAMAN is non-stop fun from beginning to end. You get to see a mass fight between the silver-suited good guys and Princess Elzebub’s Skeleton Warrior minions in a studio set full of skull carvings and creature skeletons. When the Skeleton Warriors get shot they tend to explode!
The good guys start shooting…
…and Skeleton Warriors start exploding!
Goodies and baddies fight it out in a sound stage set full of giant ribcages and skulls
Then we get to witness a fight between Inframan and two mechanical monster-men, who can launch their extendable heads and propel spiked mace-hands at him on retractable metal springs!
Inframan squares off against the two mechanical men!
These metal dudes each have a red-painted mace-hand
The mace-hands are spring-loaded and can be fired at Inframan!
At one point Professor Liu is kidnapped and whisked away in a speedboat, accompanied by a Skeleton Warrior and Mutant Drill
Inframan has his own special tricks too, of course: he can eject his Thunder Fist gloves, enabling him to punch stuff from a distance, plus he can fire laser blade beams, which, during one confrontation, slice off both of Witch Eye’s hands!
Witch Eye uses a large laser-firing weapon to attack Inframan…
…but Witch Eye gets her hands cut off by Inframan’s crescent-shaped laser blade beams…
…and Inframan kicks the handless villainess through a trapdoor, into a lava pit! Ruthless!
One of the good guys, Zhu Min, is captured by the mad menagerie of villains and is brainwashed
For fans of Japanese-style Tokusatsu action, this Chinese take on the genre, which is also known simply as INFRA-MAN, is an awesome addition, with the folks at Shaw Brothers really putting a lot of effort into this: you get kung fu fights galore with acrobatic flips, somersaults and loud punching sound effects, pyrotechnics, cell-animated laser beams, brainwashing, some iffy flying shots, lots of extras in costumes, a fiery lava pit, a glacial cave set, and a finale in which Elzebub turns into a winged monster that can regrow its head when Inframan cuts it off!
During the end skirmish Inframan gets deep-frozen, but he defrosts himself to carry on fighting…
…so Elzebub turns into her true form: a red-bellied, green-winged dragon-monster!
Dragon-Elzebub has got laser-breath!
Inframan fires his red laser blade beams and cuts off Dragon-Elzebub’s head!
But Dragon-Elzebub keeps growing her head back!
Inframan keeps cutting off Dragon-Elzebub’s head and she keeps regrowing it! Soon there’s a whole bunch of severed dragon heads on the floor!
Off with her head!
Inframan changes tactics: he fires his Thunder Fist gloves at Dragon-Elzebub, then melts her with some hand-fired laser beams!
The villains’ lair explodes!
THE SUPER INFRAMAN is colourful fun, so give it a watch!
Here are some posters and other assets…
Italian poster
Chinese poster
French poster
Italian poster
Publicity photo
88 Films Blu-ray cover
An art print by Joe Badon
This cool faux poster is by artist Zornow
Finally, here are the monsters, all lined-up and ready for action…
Starring Danny (THE SUPER INFRAMAN) Lee, Evelyne (LADY DRACULA) Kraft, Ku (THE WEB OF DEATH) Feng and Lin Wei-Tu, directed by Ho (THE OILY MANIAC) Meng-Hua for Shaw Brothers.
Evelyne Kraft and Danny Lee
Smash!
An expedition brings back a gigantic ape-man to Hong Kong, where he (surprise) runs amok. His jungle girl companion (Kraft) tries to help the hairy vandal, but it all ends in tears.
He ain’t gonna stay captive for long
C’mon, these Tonka Toys will be no match for our hairy hero!
The Peking Man romps around downtown Hong Kong
Gotcha!
Shaw Brothers released this fantasy flick, also known as GOLIATHON, in the wake of 1976’s KING KONG remake and did rather a good job. Though the special effects have been ridiculed in such publications as The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film, I found the sets and model work to be on par with similar scenes in Toho’s Godzilla movies. The Hong Kong city set is pretty large and decently detailed, with the usual pyrotechnical destruction occurring at the movie’s climax.
Sizeable miniature sets
Wreckin’ stuff!
Smashin’ more stuff!
Though the titular Peking Man is obviously a man in a costume, of a standard far below that of Rick Baker’s simian creation seen in the ‘76 KING KONG, the model face used for close-ups of Peking Man’s visage is up to snuff.
Beauty and the beast
Okay, sometimes the ape-man does look a little goofy
Peking Man plays peeping tom…
One of the movie’s plus points is Evelyne Kraft who, as the loincloth-wearing amazon, is a fetching addition to the cast. Other ingredients include an elephant stampede and a man who has his leg bitten off by a tiger!
The jungle girl…
…who likes playing with her leopard!
Surprisingly, a certain amount of pathos can be found in Peking Man’s plight because, generally, the ape-man is shown to be friendly, at least in the company of Kraft, thus adding to the tragedy of the finale, as the furry fury and his diminutive dame companion come under fire from buzzing helicopters.
Scream!
Here are some posters…
Japanese poster
Also known as GOLIATHON
Turkish poster
German poster
US one sheet re-release poster
Here’s a final shot: the jungle gal sitting in the Peking Man’s hairy paw…
Starring Yu Lung, Ching Li, Tina Chin Fei, An Ping, Wei Hung and Chen Hung Lieh, directed by Tetsuya Yamanouchi for Shaw Brothers and Jih Mao Film Company.
Poster
At one point Na Cha grows multiple arms!
After eating a sacred peach and accidentally knocking the other seven peaches down to the mortal world, young Na Cha must deal with the human-looking devils that have appeared on Earth after various animals have chowed down on the mystical fruit.
A toad eats one of the sacred peaches
This seems like a kids fantasy film to begin with, but soon we’re presented with shots of groping couples making out and scenes of folks being killed by the devils, who have a penchant for turning themselves into the likenesses of loved ones.
A dragon looms up above a village…
…and the beast starts burning down the place!
There’s a decent kaiju moment when a giant dragon burns down a village, plus a subplot involving the devils attempting to prevent a military fleet from setting sail, and an airborne skirmish between Na Cha, a devil eagle and the dragon. To even the odds in this fight with the puppet predators, Na Cha grows in size and becomes multi-armed for a while!
Na Cha throws a sword into the devil eagle’s wing
Goat dude
NA CHA AND THE SEVEN DEVILS is a watchable Hong Kong-Taiwanese fantasy adventure coproduction that, just like similar mythical tales, continually introduces extra characters as the story progresses, including a snake dude, a bull dude and a goat dude, plus an immortal hero with a third eye called Yang Jian, who is aided by Celestial Dog: a canine companion wearing its own natty yellow costume!
Starring Tai Liang-Chun, Ai Fei, Lily Li, Wang Lai, Eric Chan and Yu Tsui-Ling, directed by Kuei Chih-Hung for Shaw Brothers.
The creature from the well assaults its first victim
The story takes place in a mansion in a quiet back alley, where the members of the dysfunctional Shi family and their servants act very superstitiously on the 1st and 15th day of each month, because this is when freaky stuff can happen, due to the fact that thirteen members of the family were killed by bandits and thrown into a dry well many years ago. When a weird, pink, toothy ‘bloody frog’ is encountered, this is seen as a bad omen for sure, as this amphibian always presages ominous events. Terrible things do begin to happen, with a slimy, horned monster crawling out of the well, intent on raping and killing.
Pink goo and tentacles
A slime-coated victim of the tentacle-monster
Kuei Chih-Hung, director of luridly memorable Hong Kong horror opuses like THE BOXER’S OMEN, CORPSE MANIA, BEWITCHED and THE KILLER SNAKES, clearly decided not to hold back when making this demented, gooey weird-fest, choosing to merge murder mystery plotting with creature feature imagery, adding exploitative sexual abuse scenes to make the movie that bit more sleazy.
Lots of goo dribbles from the tentacled creature onto its victims
Another ‘bloody frog’
The story somehow manages to combine a subplot involving certain relatives trying to kill off the Shi family’s wheelchair-bound matriarch (Lai) in order to inherit her house, with footage of a demon-headed well-monster with two tentacles instead of hind legs that sexually assaults its female victims and kills them with its flesh-ripping steel teeth, with shots of a mystery figure secretly feeding offal to a pit full of spiky bloody frogs, with scenes of abusive cousin Jinhua (Fei) hypnotising one of the maids so that he can have sex with her, resulting in an unwanted pregnancy. As you can see: Kuei Chih-Hung obviously believes that enough is never enough!
The well-critter rips chunks of flesh from people with its steel teeth
After seeing this poster you wanna see the movie, right?
We get close-ups of the tentacle-monster’s extendable appendage as it sucks out the eyeballs of elderly manservant Quan and see the critter cover its female victims with pink, gelatine-like slime… and yet… it’s eventually revealed that this beast is actually fake, just a guy in a suit! This is all an elaborate set-up, of course, involving fake identities, obscure secondary characters and the matriarch herself, who is not really disabled and can become an unstoppable maniac… until she is beheaded! The unimaginably preposterous denouement would have us believe that all of the strange happenings were fabricated and nothing supernatural actually occurred, yet the film never provides a real-world explanation for the existence of the flesh-eating bloody frogs, which chow down on several people, including a bound-up maid. Did these amphibians mutate purely because they were fed lots of offal? Does it matter, really? This is a loopy film where logic takes a backseat, so that the director can focus on batshit crazy stuff like a mad granny secretly sewing costumes for a kid’s skeleton in the attic, perverted amateur hypnotism, and outrageously far-fetched murder schemes.
Bloody frogs chew on Quan’s face!
Off with her head!
A tied-up maid is unable to escape an attack by a bunch of bloody frogs!
The main character is quite Norman Bates-like sometimes, only he’s more disturbed than Norman!
Starring Kam Kwok-Leung, Li Lin-Lin, Chen Chun, Lin Feng and Ko Ti-Hua, directed by Kuei Chih-Hung for Shaw Brothers.
A box full of slithering snakes
Snakes on the carpet!
Zhihong is a poor, gawky, bullied youth living in a shack next to a snake bladder store in a rundown Hong Kong neighbourhood. When an injured cobra slithers through a crack in the store wall, entering Zhihong’s ramshackle home, he decides to stitch up the serpent’s wound and look after it, triggering a set of circumstances that will lead to Zhihong using his killer cobra, plus more reptiles liberated from the store, to avenge himself against those who have treated him badly.
Shaw Brothers horror at its sleazy best
A bloody-mouthed lizard
Unlike Willard (1971), however, which this film is obviously inspired by, Zhihong is a far more disturbed protagonist compared to the rat-obsessed main character in the American original. In a scene where Zhihong carries a prostitute who’d tried to mug him back to his shack, The Killer Snakes queasily merges Zhihong’s desire to get back at his tormentors with his disturbed sexual urges, showing him take advantage of the woman by tying her up and licking her. Though Zhihong himself has been a victim of bullying, he does far worse, allowing his snake friends to violate his captive in a sweaty, seedy scene that uses black and white flashbacks to suggest Zhihong’s dark urges stem from childhood memories of abuse and voyeurism.
Zhihong allows his bondage fantasies to get out of hand
Starting with mondo-style footage of live snakes having their gall bladders cut out, this film is sordid and repellent in many ways, but it is well shot and lit, juggling its exploitative components expertly. Bondage fantasies, scenes of Zhihong letting monitor lizards scratch his latest tied-up female victim, a set piece involving an abusive character chopping up snakes for real with a sword before he’s constricted to death by a huge python, plus other grindhouse elements, show how this movie set its sights on offending and disturbing its viewers, a goal it obviously succeeded in achieving with sleazy ease.
Zhihong lets monitor lizards attack one of his captives
Starring Yueh Hua, Lo Lieh and Ching Li, directed by Chor Yuen, for Shaw Brothers.
DVD cover
Members of various clans hunt for the hiding place of a legendary weapon. One of these warriors is swordsman Fei (Hua), intent on finding this deadly device before it gets into the hands of someone who will use it for evil purposes.
Fight!
THE WEB OF DEATH, directed by Chor Yuen, is a tangled tale of rival sects, including the 5 Venom Clan, Qingyi Clan and Holy Fire Clan, who are all immersed in a plot featuring such fantastical elements as acid pit traps and characters with the power to unleash energy beams from their hands.
Some of these martial arts masters can fire power beams from their hands
Poster
The highlight of the film is undoubtedly the secret weapon at the centre of the tale, known as the Spider. This is a hand-held smoking lantern containing a glowing tarantula that makes roaring sounds, emits deadly poisonous gas and creates massive webs that can trap its victims. The use of this curious device, which causes some casualties to develop blackened faces as they expire, adds a layer of surrealism to the film and helps make the finale very strange, absurd and spectacular.
Lo Lieh unleashes the Spider weapon!
The tarantula within the lantern is normal-sized
The faces of some victims of this otherworldly arachnid go black as they die
Everyone gets trapped within an electrified web
Although the plot can be overly convoluted at times, the film is entertaining, with colourful costumes and wonderful eye candy sets, the most impressive of which is a voluminous chamber containing stone balconies and a large, red spider sculpture.
A very, very nice set
Devoted to every kind of movie and TV monster, from King Kong to Godzilla, from the Blob to Alien. Plus monsters from other media too, including books and comics.
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