Rating: 3/5
Hooptober XII | 4/31 | Decades 3/9 | 1980s | Zombie 3/5
The Ghost Festival occurs on the 15th night of the seventh month on the lunar calendar. The realm of the living becomes open to Heaven and Hell, and ghosts roam the Earth. On this night, the howls and cackles of the dead fill the dark streets as they eat the food left out for them. Chun Sing trains in the courtyard when a ghostly figure descends on him. The figure is his deceased father, calling on his son to get revenge on his father’s murderer, Kam Tai Fu, who resides in Yellow Dragon Town. Wasting no time, Chun Sing tells his mother of his experience before leaving for Yellow Dragon. His mother warns him that the town is haunted.
While traveling, Chung Sing comes across an agent of Kam Tai Fu and a wizard battling one another. The agent demands the wizard’s book of magic and kills the wizard for it. But when the agent searches the wizard’s body, he cannot find it and runs off. Chung Sing pulls the wizard’s sword from the ground, intending to use it to dig a grave, but when he pulls, the handle comes off, and he finds the magic book inside the handle. A dark storm picks up, but Chun Sing finishes burying the man before carrying on to a nearby inn for the night.
Meanwhile, Kam Tai Fu is participating in black magic rituals to become invincible. Chun Sing goes to confront Kam Tai Fu, giving him a list of demands: disclose his father’s burial place, give away his ill-gotten earnings to charity, and kill himself. Things are looking up for Chun Sing until Kam Tai Fu uses black magic, forcing Chun Sing to retreat. Chun Sing consults the book of magic so he can learn how to defeat Kam Tai Fu and ends up recruiting some nearby hopping vampires as assassins to aid him.
The plot and structure are pretty chaotic, with two Kam Tai Fu confrontations back-to-back in the first act alone. I blinked, and there was a romance subplot 50 minutes in. Thank god Chun Sing’s father had six fingers!
The film gets several jokes out of anachronisms—for example, when Chun Sing starts learning from the book of magic, a coffin sets up an antenna to capture Chun Sing’s broadcast, seeking aid from the gods. Or, when Kam Tai Fu is in a particular bind, he burns some joss paper and summons Count Dracula to fight for him. A government agent joins the fight at one point, who is investigating the murders.
The ghost effects, while cheap, are effective. The use of neon green light to illuminate the ghosts works well to mask some of the makeup imperfections. Also, it isn’t a supernatural kung fu movie if there aren’t analog lightning effects, which always rule, even when they’re this haphazard.
The Chinese title 陰忌, as best as I can tell, translates to something like “Fear of the Nether World.” Google Translate says “Yin Taboo”, which makes some sense since it takes place during Yin. I would love to hear from someone who actually speaks Cantonese.
Following the success of Sammo Hung’s Encounters of the Spooky Kind, many HK film producers jumped on the 殭屍 (jiāngshī) train, all to varying degrees of success. At the same time, Sammo Hung went on to make more crime and action comedies, returning briefly to the genre with his Mr. Vampire series.
This film is one of many that don’t match Spooky Encounter’s quality, but it has plenty of ideas and ambitions. I had a good time and would gladly watch again with the right friend.