Sex Beyond the Grave

Director: Dennis Chiu/Lee Tai-hang
Year: 1984
Rating: 5.0
The question no doubt that many of you have on your minds is whether there is in fact sex beyond the grave – though some of us may actually wonder if there is sex before the grave but that is another issue altogether for another time. The good news is that apparently there is sex beyond the grave – the bad news is of course that you are dead and that can really kill the mood. While the last Shaw Brother’s film I watched called Sinful Adulteress managed to be better than the title suggested, this one (1984) unfortunately falls far short of all the possibilities that seemed so inherent in the gratuitous title. It is basically not much more than a standard haunted house tale of a few ghosts done wrong wanting a bit of revenge.

It begins pleasantly enough. It is Christmas time in Hong Kong and carols are being sung at the Tao Tao Mansion as the family gathers around the table for dinner. Dinner though is interrupted by a young couple and their son, who are trying to escape the Japanese invaders. Mr. Tao (Gam Biu) invites them onto his grounds and hides them in the shed where he notices that they are carrying a box filled with jewels. This induces him to turn them over to Kimura (Phillip Ko) who quickly dispatches the father and son with a samurai sword and then rapes the wife, Ah Hua (Kwong Mei-bo). Mr. Tao then follows suit by raping her again and then killing her. All in the Christmas spirit of course.

Jump ahead to the present (1984) and the grandson of Tao is a gambling addict who is in need of some good luck. He thinks he gets it when a blind fortune teller gives him a lucky tablet, but also warns him to stay away from sex and not to sell his inheritance. Good luck with that. After cleaning up at the gaming tables, Tao Ming (Goo Goon-chung) is seduced by a blonde leggy gweilo female who does a lengthy strip tease for the camera. I mean lengthy – by the time it ended I was looking through my own pockets for one dollar bills. Not surprisingly his luck disappears as quickly as her clothes did and he is soon badly in hock to the triads. So he sells his grandfather’s house to his next door neighbors, the Yang’s – as nice a couple with their young son as you could want. Unfortunately the spirits that were killed before don’t particularly welcome them.

The film finally shows a pulse with some enjoyable special effects as the family is attacked by a flying refrigerator and other assorted household appliances. When the son vanishes into a well the husband (Lau Wing) and his wife (Chin Wai-yee) fight back for their son and bring in spirit specialists to help out. But these are some pissed off ghosts and they need the family blood of their betrayer to satiate their angry spirits. To do this Ah Hua goes all red and seductive and seeks out Tao Ming for an after death sex experience.

The film jumps around way too much and spends an inordinate amount of time leading up to the supernatural happenings as it details the gambling and marriage woes of Tao Ming. It isn’t until the halfway point when it hands over the story to the Yang’s but one’s interest has already long wandered by then. Made in 1984 right before the Shaw’s closed down their film production unit, this film shows a lack of much direction or interest on their part.