Dir - Lam Nai-choi
Overall: MEH
Dipping his toes into softcore pornography, Category III filmmaker Lam Nai-choi's Erotic Ghost Story, (Liu jai yim taam), suffers from the usual hindrances of its genre with drawn-out and unengaging sex scenes, but there are still enough wacky moments to be of interest. Rooted exclusively in fantasy, three fox fairy sisters are sworn to a life of chastity and goodness in order to permanently regain their human form, only to get tempted by a seemingly innocent young scholar who is in fact a multi-headed Wu-Tang demon that is hellbent on doing multi-headed Wu-Tang demon shit. The story is silly on paper and in execution, but its balancing of fairy tale whimsy and eroticism makes for a consistently quirky tone. Everyone gets naked a lot, the floaty musical score only stops for a few moments of dialog, and there is a minimal amount of wire-fu as well as Lam's penchant for cartoonish gore. Sadly, the first two acts drag with scene after scene of soft, moany intercourse but once it goes full-on Witches of Eastwick, it gets more fun. Also, the ending where a Toaist monk shows up to save the day is both abrupt and hilariously wild.
Dir - Tjut Djalil
Overall: GOOD
The penultimate horror lunatic job from Tjut Djalil, (easily one of Indonesia's wackiest filmmakers), is a fitting and superior successor to the man's two most famous works Mystics in Bali and Lady Terminator. Basking in the type of low-rent absurdity and a continuous stream of "Wait, what?" set pieces that seriously call into question both Djalil's emotional intelligence and overall sanity, Dangerous Seductress, (Bio Lady), was filmed in Bali and features some out-of-body floating head shenanigans for Amy Weber's naked and constantly mugging Evil Queen to indulge in. It also opens with a ridiculous car chase for the books, where said car changes color, flips through the air a few dozen more times than physics would ever allow, and is occupied by three criminals, one of whom keeps punching his driver while he is driving. It only gets more nonsensical and laugh-out-loud hilarious from there, with porn star level acting, more car destruction, reckless misogyny, casual witchcraft, a spontaneous shaman, modelling montages, aerial photography montages, dancing montages, a guy raping his fiance mere seconds after giving her an engagement ring, and dialog that would never actually come out of human being's mouths. So in other words, this is Djalil's masterpiece.
(1998)
Dir - K.C. Park
Overall: MEH
A mix of doomsday occult horror, The Terminator, police procedurals, and Asian mysticism, (plus a main musical theme that rips off "My Heart Will Go On"), K.C. Park's debut The Soul Guardians, (Toemarok), has a barrage of familiar elements struggling for screen time together, but it casts a singular spell in fits and starts. Adapted from Lee Woo-hyuk's novel of the same name, it has a dingy, green-tinted, urban aesthetic that predates The Matrix by one year, which is appropriate for its comic book-worthy story line where a surviving infant from a Satanic suicide cult is hunted down by a supernaturally-charged warrior and is protected by a badass in a black trench coat, a troubled doctor-turned-priest, and a prodigy kid who can cast spells and make his video game opponents come to life. There are sacrifices, gritty action sequences, demonic possession with red eyes and vampire fangs, awful CGI, characters throwing spiritual energy at each other, plus a floating sword that is inhabited by a woman's soul or something. All fun ingredients on paper, but the results are bloated within Park's very late 90s, music video-styled approach that exemplifies the material's dark schlock over any intended humor.
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