1980s Asian Horror Part One

ENCOUNTERS OF THE SPOOKY KIND
(1980)
Dir - Sammo Hung
Overall: GOOD

Martial arts movies are inherently silly, so when you have one that is designed to be a comedy, a great deal of fun can be had laughing with the finished product.  Encounters of the Spooky Kind, (Gui da gui, Spooky Encounters, Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind), is the only horror comedy from martial arts filmmaker/choreographer Sammo Hung and one that helped spawn a number of similar, genre mishmashes throughout the 80s.  This one gets increasingly off the rails as rivaling brother wizards seem to make up magical rituals on the fly as a chubby goofball played by Hung himself, (who here knows how to hold his own in a kung-fu bash as much as everyone else), keeps getting into ridiculously choreographed battles while zombies, ghosts, vampires, and whatever else routinely joins the party.  It is stupid plot wise, but not any more absurd than others like it.  Depending on one's penchant for such movies, the infinite fight scenes may bore you more than they are supposed to, but the horror set pieces are thankfully wonderful and unapologetically lighthearted in a ghoulish way.  While it is often more culturally odd than funny, a few jokes do hit the mark like a "Y.M.C.A" reference and the ending where a husband and wife reunite with genuinely hilarious results.

SEX BEYOND THE GRAVE

(1984)

Dir - Chun Keung Chiu/Tai-Heng Li

Overall: MEH

The Shaw Brothers sleazy and ridiculous take on Poltergeist is the fetchingly titled Sex Beyond the Grave, (Fung lau yuen gwai), which has many of the usual stylistic motifs from the studio.  While there is still a good amount of unintentional humor to be found stemming from wacky supernatural activity that has no rhyme or reason attached to it, the tone is more consistent than one would expect from something combining ghosts, rape and revenge, and eroticism.  These elements are juggled in a frantically paced manner, (another common trait in such movies where the editor seems hellbent on trimming as much fat as possible by rapidly cutting between scenes), and it makes for a goofy watch even with harrowing narrative elements taking place.  A woman has her husband and child brutally killed right in front of her and is then back-to-back raped by both the murder and a greedy yet already exponentially wealthy slime-ball, plus a child is abducted by vengeful spirits which prompts a gambling addict and former friend to take advantage of the situation by staging a ransom drop off.  Wholesome stuff for something that is also borrowing bullet points left and right from Tobe Hooper and Stephen Spielberg's family-friendly haunted house blockbuster.  When the movie is not being too miserable or goofy to take seriously though, directors Chun Keung Chie and Tai-Heng Li create some effective atmosphere and macabre visuals.

DEATH POWDER
(1986)
Dir - Shigeru Izumiya
Overall: WOOF

Actor/poet/folk singer Shigeru Izumiya has only made two films and the longest of them at a mere sixty-two minutes also serves as the first Japanese cyberpunk movie.  Cyberpunk has its own niche to be sure, but watching Death Powder, (Desu Paudā), is a miserable and frustrating waste of time in any regard.  Nonsensical to a major fault, it forgoes even setting up who its characters are or what they are doing before spending more than half of its short running time slowly and, (very, very), boringly throwing a bunch of unrelated nonsense on screen without a shred of context.  Compelling visuals and an off-kilter tone can enhance any form of avant-garde cinema, but the piss-pour, low-budget video aesthetic here coupled with how random and unexplained every set piece is offers up only frustration.  Attempting to make heads or tails from what can possibly be going on is fruitless, so all that leaves you with is trying to enjoy such baffling and incoherent drivel.  Maybe the Z-grade technical aspects and disregard for rationality enhances the experience for some, but others may like their hour back.