The Beheaded 1000
   

Director: Ting Shan-hsi
Year:  1991
Rating: 6.0

AKA - The Executioner

Everyone likes round numbers. The Top 100 or Best 20. This also goes for public executioners. Ren De Tie is an executioner for the government and he is planning to retire when he hits 1,000 executions. He is getting close. As the film begins he has three beheadings for the day - a trifecta as crowds come out to watch and cheer him on - all members of the Blood Gang - and this will make it 997. Ren is an artist though and a man who takes pride in his work. He makes the chopping painless to the victim - one clean slice - and makes sure the head doesn't touch the ground with some nifty moves. One of the detached heads compliments him for a job well done. Yes, that's right. Giving a slight indication of how bizarre this film is.



This Taiwanese Hong Kong 1991 production is as nutty as a Christmas fruitcake. It is a supernatural fantasy period film that swings wildly between pathos, humor and action that keeps you entertained to some degree but at the same time you are always aware just how idiotic it is. It is full of special effects that are so bad that a teenager in his bedroom with a computer today could do a better job. It has a lot of green bolts across the screen, ghosts and some flying that stayed up longer than a Boeing jet - but the best special effect isn't really a special effect at all - it is the face of Joey Wong with eyes so sorrowful that they feel like a chorus of crying angels.



Even though she is a psychotic killer in this one. She is Blood Lotus and the number 2 in the Blood Gang. She is so bad that at one point a man who idolizes her tells her how much he loves her and she castrates him while he is doing so - ouch - talk about rejection. Another time she does an Untold Story with some pork buns. But those eyes could melt an iceberg. Being an executioner has a certain karma attached to it and in the end the ghosts of the Blood Gang come looking for revenge and it gets even weirder with children spilling out of beans and giant green spiders. This film never wants to end though - it has like three or four natural endings but just keeps going - and going - getting to over 2 hours which is really long for a Hong Kong film in those days.



A very solid cast here - the Executioner is played by Jimmy Wang Yu, legend from the Shaw Brothers days and this was to be his last film for nearly 20 years. Joey of course who was a staple in supernatural films ever since her role in the Chinese Ghost Story films - as was Wu Ma who appears as the Guardian of Hell. Pauline Wong is his ghost sister, Chin Siu-ho is the Executioner's incompetent apprentice and Monica Chan plays the daughter. This is just a wacky film - much too long - terrible special effects but director Ting Shan-Hsi (800 Heroes, A Queen's Ransom, Magnificent 72) throws everything at the screen hoping some of it might stick. This was to be his last film.