70's Asian Horror Part Six

THE BRIDE FROM HELL

(1972)

Dir - Hsu-Chiang Chou

Overall: MEH

Another silly horror production from the studios of the Brothers Shaw, The Bride from Hell, (Gui xin niang), is more deliberately comedic than most, though its quirky tone may still be in part accidental.  The premise is assuredly moronic as two men accidentally see two women naked and by the rules and logic of this universe, that means that they must marry them immediately.  From there, it has elements of a typical vengeful spirit story where the bride of the title poses as being still alive in order to deliver comeuppance towards the wealthy family that murdered her twenty years prior; a family whose son is her chosen groom.  Virtually the only thing that happens throughout the running time is Fan Yang being clueless as to his new wife's supernatural nature while everyone else in the village keeps telling him otherwise, plus his servant is a dumb fat guy who is afraid of everything.  Some of the visuals use vibrant colors for eerie effect ala Mario Bava, but save for a scene where a giant shows up out of absolutely nowhere, the film is low on the outrageousness that is usually found in the Shaw Brother's other genre offerings and is remarkably dull because of this.

WOLF GUY

(1975)

Dir - Kazuhiko Yamaguchi

Overall: MEH

Though it is a marked improvement over the comparatively goofier and awkard Horror of the Wolf, the sequel Wolf Guy, (Urufu gai: Moero ôkami-otoko, Wolfguy: Enraged Lycanthrope), is still disappointing in some respects.  Once again adapting Kazumasa Hirai and Hisashi Sakaguchi's manga of the same name, the personnel both behind of and in front of the screen is entirely different and it narratively may as well be unrelated to its cinematic predecessor.  A slicker and more hip production overall, its crime genre attributes are more successful and enticing than the horror ones which are more or less an afterthought.  The concept of a raped, traumatized woman having the superpower to turn her rage into an incorporeal tiger is a bizarre one and provides the movie with its tripped-out, otherworldly slant.  Sadly the same cannot be said for the werewolf shenanigans which are aesthetically a let down since martial arts star Shin'ichi Chiba in the title role never actually transforms physically into a beast.  There is a liberal amount of bright red gore, loads of violence, naked women, fetching stylistic choices by director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, and a funky soundtrack to drive things along, but the plot loses steam during the finale.  It then resorts to a series of stand-offs, flips, and boatloads of bad guys shooting guns until everything wraps up on a mostly miserable end, all which slams home the central theme of humanity being, well, lousy.

 

KILLER BUTTERFLY

(1978)

Dir - Kim Ki-young

Overall: MEH

A bizarre indulgence in incoherence, Kim Ki-young's Killer Butterfly, (Salin nabireul jjonneun yeoja, A Woman Chasing a Killer Butterfly, Woman Chasing the Butterfly of Death, A Woman After a Killer Butterfly), has several textbook, midnight movie qualities yet also a rambling, bloated narrative.  The first act sets up the more strange incidents where the lead protagonist encounters a random woman who poisons him and demands that he die with her.  Then another random weirdo who manically insists that his will to live will keep him from dying even as he is stabbed, buried, and burned to a skeleton shows up, followed by a set of two-thousand year-old bones that come back to life as a beautiful woman who has sex with him while simultaneously demanding that she eat his liver in order to maintain her flesh.  A promising, wackadoo start to be sure, but the bulk of the running time meanders after that where an archaeologist's daughter wails and complains about love, not wanting to die, and being resurrected as a butterfly for over an hour.  It is difficult to tell if the head-scratching melodrama is supposed to be amusing or just adhering to a cultural, art-house tone that is lost on viewers who are not both South Korean and living in the late 1970's.  In any event, it can certainly afford to trim about forty-five minutes to keep viewers invested, but it is unique enough to stand as a curiosity.