Banana Spirit
 
      
Director: Lo Kin
Year: 1992
Rating: 7.0

First, I should mention that the Banana Spirit is a real thing or at least a real myth. Otherwise the film just seems to be making up stuff - which it is but based on some beliefs. It is primarily a Thai legend though other Southeast countries share it as well. In Thai it is called Nang Tani or Lady of Tani. Or Phi Tani - phi being the Thai word for ghost. Wikipedia has this about it - "This ghost inhabits the clumps of wild banana trees and is popularly represented as a beautiful young woman wearing a green traditional Thai costume. Most of the time Phi Tani remains hidden, but she comes out of the tree and becomes visible especially on full moon nights. Owing to their connection with ghosts, people prefer not to have them growing near their homes and they are not found within village compounds. However, clumps of this tree are found not far from inhabited areas, often at the outskirts of villages or at the edge of cultivated fields by the roadside." This film does not take place in Thailand but they have imported the idea from there.

This is a bizarre but effective film that may give you whiplash. The beginning will send a chill up your spine. It is evocative and perverse and unfortunately nothing in the rest of the film equals it. Francis Ng has a naked dead body on a table of a voluptuous female and he is rubbing it down, caressing the breasts, stroking her hair, picking it up over his shoulder and moving it to a different room like a sack of potatoes. He plops it down on a table and her eyes suddenly open up. Ng nonchalantly tries to shut them a few times and then takes tape and puts it under her eyes and shuts them. For good. He pops her mouth open and throws a coin into it. Money for the crossing. At first you think this is going to get really sick and he is planning on having sex with her - but it turns out he is working in a mortuary and he is the make-up artist getting her ready for showing. It is a strange but powerful cinematic scene - and has absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the film! It is like the idea came to director Lo Kin (Heartbeat 100) and he just wanted to get it into a film. I have no idea who the actress is but kudos to her for not moving. Do they have awards for playing dead?

The film is all over the place - like buckshot - much of it works but it is hard keeping up with it. In his off-hours Ng works with Ngai Sing as ghost busters with Ngai using Taoist spells as Ng holds the possessed by a ghost down. Business is so-so though and Ngai has a large debt to a brutal moneylender (Tommy Wong) and Ng is in the same hot water because he is the guarantor. They see a way to earn enough money to pay him back when Richard Ng makes a bet that they can't capture the Banana Spirit that killed his brother. On a full moon night they go into the banana plantation and call forth the ghost. But some mad dogs chase them off before they realize that they were successful. Part of the spell was for Ng to picture a woman in his mind and he flashes on a woman  that he saw at a club who is named Iris (Josephine Foo with only one other film credit).

The ghost who calls herself Chang possesses Iris's body and shows up at Ng's apartment - naked - and feeling indebted to him. She tells him that they have to send her back by the next full moon or Iris will die. Not surprisingly Ng falls in love with this beautiful woman who can help him win in the casinos and saves his life a few times. And walks around naked. But there is a time limit and Wong wants to kill them both. Thankfully, downstairs their neighbor is the uncle of Ngai Sing and is a more powerful magician - played by Lam Ching-ying of course! He is terrific in this with a little kung-fu and some new spells to me. The ending goes completely bonkers with body parts coming together again and gets unexpectedly emotional.

I almost forgot to mention that at times it falls into comedy - not very good comedy for the most part - like after Ng and Lam have taken a potent brew to keep their sexual energies going - they get up from the table and the table rises with them on the end of their penises. That was sort of funny actually but the film would have been more effective without the comedy and just sticking with what at times is a tense narrative. But that is the bane of so many Hong Kong films. This is fairly obscure I think and my murky vcd made subs hard to read at times but this was weird and wonderful. In its way.