80's Asian Horror Part Three

HUMAN LANTERNS
(1982)
Dir - Chung Sun
Overall: GOOD

Another Hong Kong horror/martial arts hybrid produced by the Shaw brothers, Human Lanterns packs in a plethora of physics-defining kung-fu battles and cocksure, laughing bad guys, neither of which is a bad thing.  If you are not the biggest martial arts movie fan, generally the highly choreographed, drawn-out fight scenes can easily bog down everything, which of course begs the question "Why watch such a movie in the first place?".  Yet here, all of the jumping, flipping, superhumanly acrobatic swordplay accompanied by ridiculous sound effects are pretty excellency paced, as is the entire film.  This is impressive since the audience is let in on the mystery fairly early and the structure could be seen as somewhat monotonous, but it still manages to rev up to a satisfactory conclusion.  Along the way, a cackling monkey man wearing a skull mask abducts several women in a creepy enough way and the premise, (as the title easily suggests), of making lanterns out of human skin effectively fits the "horror" tag quite nicely.  It is not reinventing any rules and one can giggle at some of its silly plot points fairly enough, but it gets the job done all the same.

EVIL DEAD TRAP
(1988)
Dir - Toshiharu Ikeda
Overall: MEH

A few things contribute to how astronomically boring the first in the Evil Dead Trap series is.  Director Toshiharu Ikeda seems to be making his Japanese answer to Italian giallos in some respects, particularly with the use of a reoccurring musical theme and a slasher framework where the masked killer's identity reveal is meant to be as cockamamie as possible.  He even manages to pull off a few creepy, be they illogical moments such as said killer flashing a Polaroid camera that one of his victims dropped to announce his presence.  There is also a scene that the Saw franchise stole, (either intentionally or not), which is obviously a shortcoming.  While it does not help how predictable the plot plays out and Masaki Tamura's cinematography is uneven with some scenes being atmospherically staged while others are too brightly lit, (which only highlights the actual low film quality), the film's pacing is enormously poor.  Lots and lots and lots of scenes seem to never end and it becomes increasingly comedic how Ikeda either seemed incapable of yelling "cut" in an orderly fashion or his editor was just hell-bent on getting the whole thing past the ninety-minute mark.  It would have ended up being a cliche-ridden slasher dud with an unnecessarily stupid ending anyway, but since it also flows like molasses, it is best left alone.

MEN BEHIND THE SUN
(1988)
Dir - T. F. Mou
Overall: WOOF

What can easily be described as torture porn disguised as a historical war film, Men Behind the Sun is questionably unnecessary by its very design.  If one feels so compelled to read pages upon pages of historical text, books, and documents that divulge all of the horrific details of Japan's Unit 731 and their atrocious war crimes committed until the end of the second world war, why watch a nearly two-hour exploitation movie that unflinchingly portrays a small handful of such atrocities?  This takes some of the educational merit away from the film as well as any artistic merit since it is so thoroughly unpleasant to sit through.  Besides the nauseating violence and human suffering shown, alleged autopsy footage and animal murder, (as well as child nudity), also helped make it enormously controversial and heavily censored in most countries.  It is positively more uncomfortable due to how the Japanese military is portrayed.  Going far beyond being simply desensitized to their duties, the fact that they seem generally pleased and enthusiastic about torturing and murdering so many people makes the entire movie sit very unwell with virtually any audience.  Not to say that the images and scenarios brought to the screen here are inaccurate or even glorified, but it still does not change that one would prefer watching almost anything else instead.