The Ghost Hill (Taiwan, 1971)

If I made a Wuxia film, this would be the plot: A much coveted weapon of great supernatural power -- a magic sword, let’s say -- is stolen from a righteous sifu by an evil king and his grotesque minions. The old master is killed in the course of the theft and, in order to retrieve the sword and deal out vengeance, the surviving members of his clan, skilled martial artists all, must brave the evil king’s labyrinthine, booby trap filled fortress. One of them is a cute girl.

What’s that? Yes… yes, you’re right. This also describes the plot of roughly 80% of all existing wuxia films. Now let me tell you why: If, like director/writer Ting Shan-Hsi’s The Ghost Hill, you have an abundance of style, a charismatic cast, and nonstop violent action, that’s all the plot you need.

In the case of The Ghost Hill, the coveted super weapon is something called the Purple Light Sword and, until certain sticky fingers see otherwise, it is in the custody of a blind kung fu master named Yen (Chan Bo Leung). The culprits are a band of murderous weirdies (bearing awkwardly translated handles like “Cow Head”) commanded by one King Gold (Sit Hon), whose royal badness extends to him taking baths in boiling oil and eliminating unmotivated underlings with a spear launching metal prosthetic.

King Gold spirits the Sword away to his digs on the faraway Gold Mountain, requiring that Master Yen’s surviving family members make a long trek across much picturesque-yet-inhospitable terrain in order to retrieve it. Along the way, they pick up allies, such as blade-for-hire Shadow Tsai (A Touch of Zen’s Tien Peng), and a mangy bunch called the Beggars Gang. All the while, they fend off attacks from the King’s forces, including his also evil daughter, Princess Gia (Hon Seung Kam).

This motley lot eventually succeeds in capturing Yen’s adult son and daughter and imprisoning them in the King’s lair. Thus does our heroes’ mission of vengeance become also one of rescue, requiring them to withstand the many Dante’s Inferno-like travails of the King’s “Hell Castle”. This, as one might expect, does not prove easy, involving lots of acrobatic sword fighting, vigorous one-against-all hand to hand combat, and every manner of exotic weapon the Martial World has to offer. Fortunately, just as all seems lost, Yen’s daughter, Swallow, a formidable swordswoman, is freed to play a decisive role in the final confrontation.

Swallow is played by 4DK favorite Polly Shang Kwan. Kwan, still a contract player with Union Pictures, had become a literal overnight sensation with her debut in King Hu’s Dragon Gate Inn just a few years earlier, and still had the star power to carry an obvious prestige production like The Ghost Hill on her diminutive, but no doubt powerful, shoulders. Mind you, in keeping with the persona she established with that earlier film, this is a much steelier version of Polly than the one we would see emerge a couple years later, clowning around in goofball oddities like Little Hero and Zodiac Fighters. As likeable as she is in those roles, there’s something to be said for seeing her in a part that relies more on her considerable skill, athleticism and grace as a fighter. In keeping with that, Polly is never pitted against just one opponent when she can instead face off against several, or even a dozen. The result is that her fight scenes here make up most of the high points in a film that in no way lacks for well-staged and breathtakingly paced brawls.

The Ghost Hill offsets its gritty physical action with a woozy dose of dreamy, haunted atmosphere. This and its employment of fog enshrouded, hyper-real sets give it a striking resemblance to the many adaptation of Ku Long’s Wuxia novels that director Chor Yuen would film for Shaw Brothers over the course of the 70s. It also shares with Chor a pronounced debt to Sergio Leone, especially in the restless, sweeping camera work of cinematographer Chiu Yao Hu. However, Chiu also marks a departure from Chor in that, where Chor would increasingly rely on indoor sets for his exterior shots, Chiu uses the widescreen frame to capture yawning natural vistas, often dwarfing the film’s protagonists as they proceed toward their destiny across the wastelands.

Complimenting this epic air are those fanciful touches and tricks of art that we’ve come to depend upon from old Taiwanese fantasy wuxia movies. The first level of King Gold’s devilish lair is a psychedelic netherworld of brightly colored giant fauna that has all the gaudy artificiality of a roadside dinosaur park, within which the King sits upon his equally verdant throne like a malevolent bloom. Beyond that, there is the Palace of Ice, with its frozen sentries and prison cells carved from snow. And then there is the spiked chamber to end all spiked chambers, in which one imagines even the men’s room offers no relief from stabby appurtenances.

I know very little about director Ting Shan-Hsi, other than that he was one of those hard working and prolific directors of popular Taiwanese movies whose filmography by necessity includes silly sounding and amusingly translated titles like The Talenty Girl. An obituary for him over at Kung Fu Cinema -- he died in 1999 at the age of 74 – states that he is best known for the patriotic war films The Everlasting Glory and The Battle for the Republic of China, and that he directed at least 69 features over the course of almost 30 years. All I know is that, with The Ghost Hill, he demonstrates how a well-made martial arts programmer can be endowed with a kind of lurid pop poetry, thrilling in both its lyricism and trashy vitality. Sometimes, sifting through the dross of Asian action cinema as I do, I lose sight of that. Needless to say, I’m always grateful for the reminder.

The Eight Immortals (Taiwan, 1971)

As a vintage Taiwanese fantasy wuxia film, The Eight Immortals is both pleasantly different and pleasantly the same. It’s different in that it boasts a fanciful structure that makes it something of an anthology film for its first half. This, however, does not prevent it from featuring everything that we come to such movies for in the first place -- hence, the pleasant sameness. And by that I refer to oodles of hyperbolic mystical hijinks, ranging from beast-hatching flora to Taoist whammies delivered via drawn on hand rays.

The film opens on two itinerant story tellers relaying to a gathered crowd the story of the Eight Immortals of Chinese legend. This they do aided by movable illustrated panels which are displayed in a grid-like, wooden frame. I couldn’t help but be reminded by this of the Japanese tradition of Kamishibai, which, along with other such proto-comic-strip modes of narrative, makes up part of a long tradition of Asian picture storytelling. The tale spinners gleefully introduce the Immortals one by one, via a series of vignettes in which each performs an act of kindness for the benefit of some hapless mortal. In most cases, the immortal introduces himself by singing a whimsical song.

In simplified terms, the Eight Immortals are Chinese mythology’s equivalent of saints, celestial beings of supernatural power who watch benevolently over the affairs of men and intervene when necessary -- which, in the interest of a robust mythology, is quite often. The movie introduces the leader of the immortals, Lü Dongbin (Lui Woon-Suen), in an episode in which he intercedes to unite the star-crossed lovers Tu (Chang Ming) and Pai (Chang Chi-yu). The impoverished Tu hopes in vain to buy Pai’s freedom from a brothel to which she has been sold by an unscrupulous relative, but what this ultimately requires is for Lü Dongbin to assume the guise of a boorish customer and slap Pai silly, leaving dark black palm prints on both of her cheeks. Her market value thus depleted, she is returned to Tu, whereupon Lü Dongbin magically removes the marks before disappearing into a print of himself on the wall.

From there we meet Iron Crutch Li (Oi Yau-man), whose crutch we see serially transformed into a sort of aerial floatation device, a powerful magic weapon, and a peach tree with supernaturally healing properties. Elder Zhang Guo (Lu Wook-Suen) rides a donkey backwards and helps the owner of an ale house unearth a particularly exquisite cask of wine. The handsome Chang Hsiang-Tzu (Fung Hoi) uses his enchanted flute to help a displaced family make their way across a foreboding tundra, using it to make a magnificent golden bridge appear across the span of a deep ravine. Immortal Ching, we are shown, carries with him a magic fan, while Immortal Tsao favors magic castanets.

Last but not least, we are introduced to the lone female immortal, Fairy Ho (Sally Chen Sha-li), who looks down from her perch in the heavens and sees that all is not right on the mainland (searchers for political allegory make of this what you will), thus setting the non-episodic portion of The Eight Immortals in motion. It seems the land has fallen into the despotic hands of a cannibalistic demon king (Cho Boot-lam) and his sorceress queen (played by an actress whom I could sadly not identify) who take great pleasure in literally feeding on the populace, while, of course, taking time out for defiling the women. Pai and Tu from the beginning of the movie also come back into play at this point, she having been thrown into the King’s dungeon, where she is tortured mercilessly, and he valiantly leading a makeshift resistance army against the King’s forces. Fairy Ho attempts to intercede, approaching the king under the guise of friendship and bringing with her a giant peach that splits open to reveal a snarling boar’s head. This, however impressive, does not appear to have whatever effect that Fairy Ho intended, as she is summarily captured by the king, who steals her two powerful sutras with the intention of using them as weapons.

As depicted here, the Eight Immortals are a jocular bunch, wiling away their time not spent bailing out humans by hanging out in the gazebo of their floral garden and trading good natured insults. However, once they catch wind of Fairy Ho’s fate, they prove themselves none too jolly to dole out violent payback. The Eight Immortals, thanks to its fairytale tone, indeed seems at times like a children’s film, until you consider all of the bloody slicing and dicing that takes place in its final act, not to mention a harrowing scene of Pai’s torture at the hands of the demon king. Perhaps it’s just that the Taiwanese produce a more hardboiled breed of child than we do here in the States, where you can’t even punch a little kid in the face without someone making a big deal about it (jk). In any case, suffice it to say that, with that final act, The Eight Immortals gives us everything we ask for from movies of its ilk in terms of amped up violence and cheap but colorful fantasy spectacle.

Happily, The Eight Immortals was directed by Chen Hung-min, whose credits include Little Hero and the Taiwanese portions of Mars Men, the international version of Sompote Sands’ Giant and Jumbo A, so you know we’re in good hands when it comes to the aforementioned “cheap but colorful fantasy spectacle”. This could be said to include a scene of the queen conjuring a giant puppet bird of prey to attack the resistance forces before emitting a stream of pink poisonous gas from her navel. Hand rays are of course employed, as are flamethrower palms, while people die and turn into weird weasel-like creatures and the king uses one of Fairy Ho’s sutras to emit a mighty wind from a gargoyle head perched atop his headdress. Meanwhile, the filmmakers try to distract you from the silliness of some of these effects with pure onslaught, placing brightly garbed, sword-slinging extras slashing, leaping and tumbling in every available corner of the frame. This tumult reaches apotheosis with a death duel between Lü Dongbin and the demon king that takes place high in the heavens, the opponents leaping about in the clouds.

The Eight Immortals elicits a lot of good will with the performances of all of its titular players, all of whom bring the Immortals’ benevolence and good humor to palpable life, as well as with its charming framing device. The best of these films display a generosity amid their cheapness, a desire to deliver maximum thrills despite a minimum of material means, and, as with its two story tellers, who so manifestly delight in the spinning of their tale, I think I detect a similar glee within The Eight Immortals. Yes, I hereby decree that, like mirthful, benevolent gods, the Taiwanese film industry of yore has once again gifted us from on high with a trove of beguiling dime store wonderment.

The Infernal Brains Podcast, Episode 13

It's been three weeks since we posted the first half of our discussion of Pearl Cheung Ling. In the interim you've had to distract yourselves with trifles like The Dark Knight Rises and the Olympics. But now the wait is over. This time around, Tars Tarkas, special guest Durian Dave and myself get into the specifics of Pearl's films, with an emphasis on such self-directed efforts as Wolf Devil Woman and Matching Escort. As per usual, you can either download the podcast here or watch it with a workplace approved slideshow below.

The Infernal Brains Podcast, Episode 12

Durian Dave of Soft Film and his impeccable Mandarin pronunciation return to The Infernal Brains for a spirited discussion of the goddess Pearl Cheung Ling. It turns out that Dave, Tars Tarkas and I had a lot to say about Pearl -- so much so that the episode had to be divided into two parts, with Part II to be posted in a couple of weeks. But for now, please enjoy Part I: Down the Rabbit Hole with Pearl Cheung Ling. As always, you can either download the podcast here or watch it accompanied by a captivating parade of images below:

General Invincible (Hong Kong, 1983)

To the extent that I can understand it, the basic plotline of General Invincible is fairly generic. Of course, in these old school wuxia films, the plots tend to matter less than the grace -- or, failing that, the insanity -- with which they’re pulled off. That said, General Invincible succeeds in pulling a little bit from both column “A” and column “B” -- provided your definition of “grace” can be stretched to include Chinese period costumes that draw equally for inspiration from the Baroque era and the Spiders From Mars.

General Invincible appears to be the final star turn of the mysterious Pearl Cheung Ling, coming directly on the heels of her lead role in Invincible director Cheung Paang-Yee’s The Elimination Pursuit (aka Three Famous Constables) and immediately preceding her supporting role in that most comically leering of all the skeletons in Jackie Chan’s closet, Fantasy Mission Force. That last, if available filmographies are to be believed, was her final major role. And it suits her that she would end her screen career on such a bizarre note, as it serves to make that career overall seem that much more dreamlike and maddeningly ephemeral.

In the case of General Invincible, we get to see a relatively sober and intense side of Pearl, one that contrast with the unfettered goofiness of her portrayals in self-directed efforts like Wolf Devil Woman and Matching Escort. This still leaves room for Pearl’s character to be afflicted with seizures that call upon the actress to roll her eyes around and literally foam at the mouth, so the term “relative” needs to be kept in mind. Said circumstance also leads to a recreation of the scene in Wolf Devil Woman where Pearl chomps down on her leading man’s hand. Seems you can take the Pearl Cheung Ling out of Wolf Devil Woman, but you can’t take.. well, you get my drift.

Pearl here plays the daughter of a nobleman, the lord of the “Southern Castle”, who is assassinated by a gang known as the “Black Group”, whose leader (Tien Feng) seeks to take over whatever fanciful version of ancient China we’re being presented with in this instance. A broody free spirit who wants to distance herself from the Martial World’s constant warring, Pearl at first resists when her father’s loyal aide presses upon her to seek revenge. However, that aide’s bloodily committing ritual suicide before her eyes seems to provide the necessary motivation, and she is soon hitting the vengeance trail with her mute servant in tow. Along the way, she receives intermittent assistance from a handsome renegade swordsman (Zu’s Adam Cheng Siu-Chow), and intermittent hindrance from Ruh Yuh-Bai (Ding Laam), a leggy female minion of the ruthless Black Group who Pearl soon sees as a rival for said renegade swordsman’s affections.

Throughout her journey, Pearl is dogged by visions of her white-haired old master, who constantly harangues her with opaque encouragements like “sincerity can break the gold stone!” He further instructs her, no less cryptically, to look beyond the “border of emptiness”, which, it turns out, refers to skills that can only be learned from standing at the threshold between life and death (I think). When Pearl finally accomplishes this, during a moment of extravagant martyrdom, it is like General Invincible is suddenly being directed by Jodorowsky. The sea runs red, waterfalls flow backwards, and flowers instantly wither on the vine. At the end of it all, Pearl has had magically bestowed upon her “the fastest eyes in the world”, which will prove handy, as the secret weapon of her nemesis turns out to be the barely visible “Crystal Sword”.

This being a fantasy wuxia starring Cheung Ling, you would be right in assuming that the magic weaponry and techniques don’t just end with those mentioned above. Throughout the film, both Pearl and Adam Cheng wield something called the “Shapeless Sword” and also use a technique called “Shooting Star” that causes their swords to spark like downed power lines. The villain, for his part, uses something called “Magic Diving” to hand zap his opponents, and also has a delightful, mad-scientist-style subterranean lab in which ever newer threats to the righteous are being developed. And, of course, the films sees many instances of people flying, as well as of people throwing their swords and then riding on them like surf boards.

But, as suggested above, such things are par for the course in a Cheung Ling film, just as are wildly flamboyant costumes. Though I think that, on that last count, General Invincible may have topped all previous comers. The white poodle wigs and ornate, shiny gowns with poofy sleeves -- as well as Cheung Ling’s elaborate, jeweled head pieces -- all suggest sort of a 1970s Ken Russell take on the court of Louis XIV, with a heavy debt to the sartorial excesses of British glam rock. Cheung Ling alone has several costume changes and, while the film is briskly paced, the anticipation of her next blindingly colorful and absurdly impractical outfit would be enough on its own to keep any viewer glued to the screen.

Call me greedy, but the fact is that 4DK is just too epic of an endeavor to have only one muse. Yet Pearl Cheung Ling still holds a special place of honor in the pantheon, standing proudly alongside such awe inspiring female icons as Polly Shang Kwan, Jyothi Laxmi and Maura Monti in her Batwoman bikini. To find out why, one need only pick at random from her cinematic oeuvre, perhaps by utilizing some kind of dart board and blindfold ritual. If your point were to land on General Invincible, you could certainly do worse. And by the time you got to the part where Pearl engages in a magical battle with her former master, a sequence rife with crude animation and people going airborne in the lotus position, you would totally get it.

Two crackers in search of Polly

After a brief hiatus, the joint Tars Tarkas and 4DK podcast has returned, and this time with a proper name: The Infernal Brains! (Or, as you lucha movie purists might prefer it, Los Cerebros Infernales). To kick off this new era of awesomeness, we couldn't think of a better subject than our favorite goddess of weird fu, Polly Shang Kwan. The podcast can be either downloaded as an audio file or streamed with pitchers below.

Neraka Lembah Tengkorak (Indonesia, 1988)

What is it about a hot woman in a skull mask? Is it that her nubile body makes one pine for his lost youth while her death’s head visage mockingly reminds him of his encroaching mortality? Probably.

Neraka Lembah Tengkorak is based on a series of popular Indonesian novels credited to author Bastian Tito, all of which focus on the exploits of Wiro Sablang, a sort of wuxia-style wandering hero gifted with a wide variety of supernatural powers. Seven films in all were based on the series, all starring actor Tonny Hidayat as Wiro, and the popularity of the books would later also translate into a successful TV series, albeit one with a different actor in the lead.

The world presented in Neraka Lembah Tengkorak (English translation: Hell Skull Valley) is similar to the Martial World of Chinese fiction, complete with various feuding clans and schools, as well as every chance meeting between strangers resulting in a brief fight before anyone bothers to figure out whether they have a beef or not. This is, at least, what seems to be happening during the first half of the movie. We spend a good deal of time watching as the members of one particular school fend off challenges from whatever random lone fighters shows up at their doorstep. Thanks to their advanced martial arts skills, they don’t appear to have much trouble doing this -- until, of course, the real villains of the piece make their entrance.

These would be the aforementioned hot chicks in skull masks, who number five in all and come dressed in color coded outfits for easy identification. (The green one, for instance, is the leader, while the yellow one, we will later learn, has a romantic past with our hero.) These women each have the magical ability to dematerialize in a puff of smoke and then unexpectedly reappear in another place, which makes them considerably harder to beat than the more mortally-abled itinerant swordsmen that the clan is used to dealing with. In fact, they are impossible to beat, it turns out, as the women have soon managed to kill the entire lot of them.

It is at this point, forty minutes into Neraka Lembah Tengorak, that our hero finally makes his appearance. Thankfully, it is an entrance well worth the buildup, as it involves Wiro Sablang flying in on the back of a giant puppet eagle. I have seen the character’s name translated as “Wiro, The Crazy Warrior”, and Tonny Hidayat indeed plays him as something of an unhinged prankster. He giggles constantly, and spends a lot of time toying with his opponents before making his opening move, perhaps capitalizing on their impression of him as being a harmless nutjob. Such drawing out of the action proves necessary, for, once we see Wiro’s formidable powers demonstrated, it becomes clear that, if he were just to get right down to the fighting, the movie would be over in a matter of minutes. Seeing someone make an opponent explode simply by angling his palm at them might be exciting in the moment, but it doesn’t provide much opportunity for building suspense in regards to a fight’s outcome.

Neraka Lembah Tengorak was directed by Lilik Sudjio, a prolific director of Indonesian genre films who also helmed the previously reviewed Darna Ajaib, as well as The Queen of Black Magic starring Suzzanna. Sudjio was obviously working with very limited resources here, with the result that Neraka Lembah Tengorak comes across like a Chor Yuen wuxia film that’s been leeched of all of its elegance, intricate detail and lushness of atmosphere. Thankfully, Sudjio compensates for these missing elements in the best Indonesian tradition, delivering wave after wave of cheesy gore. Knives and swords being driven into and/or through people’s heads becomes something of a leitmotif, and Wiro’s aforementioned exploding palm technique is truly something to behold.

At the same time, the film’s very minimalism manages to provide it with something of a unique atmosphere all its own. Music is used very sparsely, with most of the fight scenes being accompanied by little more than the low, constant sound of howling wind in the background. This lends a brooding, funereal aspect to the action that stands in weird contrast to its frenetic pace and garish presentation. In this respect, the film reminded me a bit of Polly Shang Kwan’s moody gore-fest Ghostly Face, which, given my fondness for that film, is a very happy association indeed.

For Neraka Lembah Tengorak’s bloody finale, a couple of Wiro Sablang’s erstwhile sidekicks -- a crazy old kung fu master and an acrobatic, blue veiled swordswoman -- belatedly make the scene, effecting an exponential increase in the number of heads being paired and perforated by blades before it all comes to an abrupt conclusion worthy of a 1970s Shaw Brothers film. All in all, the film has that dirty, rough edged charm that I’ve come to expect from this branch of world cinema, and, while it was certainly no watershed experience, I didn’t regret losing the scant seventy-five minutes it demanded of my time. Then again, if you put a scantily clad woman in a skull mask at the center of your movie’s action, you’re pretty much guaranteed to have me for the duration, no matter how lame everything else in it may be.

Also? Dwarfs.