By 1975 a few genre threads were coming
together for the Shaw Brothers to create Cinema of the Extreme. Nudity had
become common in a rush of soft porn films beginning in the early 70s. A
more graphic gut churning violence too was moving into films as it was in
all film industries by the 70s. And horror had evolved from the polite earlier
ghost driven films like The Enchanting Shadow to a more visceral style. Films
such as Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan, The Bamboo House of
Dolls, The Kiss of Death, Sexy Playgirls, The Killer Snakes and Legend of
the Seven Golden Vampires all advanced these trends. Shaw was just keeping
up with Japan and America.
Black Magic brought all these elements into
a happy home of evil spells, maggots and squirting breast milk. It is helmed
by Ho Meng-hua who had begun his directing career with Shaw in 1958 and had
been behind films of every genre since then. It seems that most of his very
early films for Shaw were never released on digital, but among those that
have been are Chinese opera (A Maid from Heaven), melodrama (Between Tears
and Laughter), adventure (Crocodile River) and the Journey to the West trilogy.
Then of course, he became involved in martial arts films but ones primarily
with female protagonists - Killer Darts, The Jade Raksha, Lady of Steel and
The Lady Hermit. And then with The Kiss of Death and The Flying Guillotine,
his films moved into extreme territory. Leading up to his horror trilogy
- Black Magic, The Oily Maniac and Black Magic Part II.
The reputation of Black Magic likely exceeds
the results. But it goes into new territory for Hong Kong horror. Physically
and thematically. Most Hong Kong horror still relied on the culturally familiar
subject of ghosts as the recent Ghost Eyes, Night of the Devil Bride and
Evil Seducers had done. But Ho Meng-hua takes his film into the black magic
of Southeast Asia - soon to become a staple of Hong Kong horror though usually
in Thailand but Malaysia here. Leave Hong Kong and die.
Ku Feng plays a practitioner of black magic
- a role that he was often to perform - who basically has a list of services
and prices like a barbershop does. Love and death are his big sellers. In
the opening scene, a woman asks him to kill her husband and his mistress.
A double killing. That will cost extra. Ok. Easy enough. He cuts off a chunk
from a corpse that he conveniently has in his hut and roasts it. Then the
corpse's head for good measure. A little chant, a needle in a wooden doll
and the naked couple die writhing in pain. But this sort of killing leaves
fingerprints and Master Fu Yong (Ku Wen-chung) knows that it is the work
of Ku Feng and uses his more powerful spells to chase him deep into the forest.
After this promising beginning, the film
settles into drama and spell mode for much of the film. Lo Lieh wants to
marry Tanny Tien for her money, but she knows garbage when she sees it and
will have nothing to do with him. Then he hears about Ku Feng and makes the
long trudge into the forest. Make her love me. He sees Ku perform a ritual
on a naked woman - rubbing powder between her legs and squeezing her breast
for a cup full of milk. Some snake venom, a man's hair and blood that she
has and you have a black magic rice ball. A love snack. Lo Lieh wants Tanny
but Tanny loves the hunky Ti Lung who loves the sweet Lily Li. So, a love
quadrangle with supernatural spells being the currency. Not nearly as grotty
as I was expecting though it has its share of worms, centipedes and disintegrating
faces. And true love. This will feel tame to modern audiences, I expect.
It wasn't really till the 1980s that Shaw had to lean harder into extreme
horror with films like Human Lanterns, Seeding of a Ghost, Hex, Bewitched
and Corpse Mania.
