That old black magic has
me in it's spell
That old black magic that you weave so well
Those icy fingers up and down my spine
The same old witchcraft when your eyes meet mine
Yes, it is black magic time again as three Hong Kongers go off to Thailand
for an archeological expedition. And instead find death. That is what you
get for leaving Hong Kong. This is a super cheapo horror film that has a
Hong Kong director and a couple Hong Kong actors but feels very much like
a low budget Thai horror film. Which means really lame special effects and
a nonsensical story. And yet I kind of enjoyed this. Black magic is a real
thing here in Thailand. An ongoing business. The tattoos and amulets you
see on people are supposed to protect them. When they don't, the reason is
your fault for leading a bad life. You can go to a practitioner of the arts
and get love spells and death spells. I am reasonably sure my girlfriend
uses it to get me to clean the dishes. So I tend to enjoy this sort of thing
because it feels so Thai. But it is pretty bad. I would guess that this played
here in theaters more than in Hong Kong where it doesn't even show up in
the top 100 Box Office for 1989.
Terrance (Lau Siu-kwan), his sister (Tsang Siu-yin) and Peter (Peter) go
off to Thailand and after a scene at the hotel swimming pool in order to
get Tsang into a bathing suit (Miss Asia Runner-Up) they go to visit Anna
a cousin of Peter who is also an archeologist. She lives in a small rural
village and everyone is practicing a dance for an upcoming festival. But
trouble rears its ugly head because one of the village men named Tiger has
a thing for Anna and is pissed that she has turned him down. So instead of
working on his very poor social skills he goes to dad who is a sorcerer and
asks for help. Sure son and he eats a gecko (which often frequent my apartment
doubling my suspicions about my girlfriend) and spits it out in a ball of
light and brings a dead man back to life. A zombi or zombie.
He kills a few villagers and so the head man goes to another sorcerer - a
two sorcerer village - this one a female and asks for help. She says burn
the other sorcerer - whether to get rid of the competition or because that
is what her dolls tell her to do, I am not sure. They do (end credits showing
him on fire and being doused) but this really pisses off Tiger and he does
the blood ritual. Holy Moly. The Blood Ritual. It entails among other things
in eating a mouthful of grub worms - which in truth they do eat up north.
This gives him lots of powers and he kills the entire village except our
heroes who were out killing the zombi. Then they get powers from Mama Sorcerer
and there is all this kung fu and flying through the trees. Which I didn't
expect with their budget. It is lame and yet a little lovable.
