Three-Head Monster (1988)

There’s something about things with two heads that fascinates us.  When we see genuine Siamese twins, our heads fill with thoughts about how they live their lives.  How do they get around if one side wants to go a different way than the other?  What is that total lack of privacy like, to be forever physically linked with another person?  What do their arguments go like?  Sure, we’re also entranced by the biology of it, the uniqueness (call it freakishness, if you like).  But more than that is the fantasy of a life so alien to our own.  In cinema, things with two heads are almost universally maleficent.  There’s The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant, The Thing with Two Heads, Dioskilos/Orthrus from Clash of the Titans (the good version), The Manster, that purple, beardy Muppet from Sesame Street, and so on (yes, that last one is actually fairly good-natured).  They are typically portrayed as two sides of the same coin, at conflict with one another, each struggling to be the dominant personality and maintain control.  They are, in effect, the dual nature of man.  Now, bring one additional head into the equation, and the dynamic changes.  King Ghidorah is likely the first creature most people think of when they think of three-headed monsters.  All of his noggins work in concert toward a common goal, because Ghidorah, the body, is the one who needs to be sated.  By contrast, in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, the three-headed knight is indecisive and bitchy, immobile and ineffectual.  It’s no longer about grappling with the twin sides of a man’s soul but about the ability or inability to act at all.  It’s an answer to the old saw about “too many cooks spoiling the broth.”  So, the Three-Head Demon King in Wang Chu-Chin’s Three-Head Monster (aka San Tou Mo Wang aka Ginseng King) knows exactly what he wants, and his heads act in concert toward that goal.  With this in mind, when somebody says that two heads are better than one, feel free to disagree.  But three heads?  Hoo, boy!

Hsiaoming is off collecting herbs for his ailing mother when he is bitten by a cobra but is saved by the affable (if creepy-looking) 1000 Year Ginseng King.  Turns out, the Ginseng King is also in need of some saving when Princess Hsiaoli (Cynthia Khan) captures him for the titular beastie to devour and become immortal.  Hsiaoming quests it out, both for his new, Man-Thing-ian pal as well as for the sake of his mother.

Three-Head Monster is a fantasy for children, but, like many filmic fantasies for the pre-adolescent/adolescent set produced in the Seventies and Eighties (and especially when hailing from places like Taiwan), there is enough gruesomeness to make the Brothers Grimm quite happy indeed.  For example, a Nazi zombie (possibly a Jiangshi) terrorizes the young boy and his mother, destroying their hut in the process.  He pauses at multiple times to Sieg Heil, and he is stopped in his tracks by the swastika on a young monk’s satchel (never mind that it’s facing the wrong way).  Every supernatural character, with the exception of Hsiaoli and Grampa Earthgod, is hideous, their skin mottled and peeling off.  There are more bloody squibs and explosive body impacts than one might expect in such a movie.  But this is also part of the appeal to kids (and, let’s be clear, to many adults).  It has the simultaneous sense of wonder and imagination that captivates a young person’s mind and the violence which not only ups the ante but also satisfies as something which is partially taboo to stare at and partially exactly how the scenario might play out in a kid’s head (death, not imprisonment or banishment, is the ultimate fate of bad guys).  

Like fairy tales and parables, the film also contains a valuable lesson, and it is that greed is bad, and self-sacrifice is good.  The Demon King is concerned only for himself and the prospect of his own immortality.  He imprisoned his own wife (who looks like a grade school play’s version of the Wicked Witch of the West) because she stood in his way.  The Ginseng King is kindly and helpful to people in need.  He heals Hsiaoming’s snake bite.  He gives the lad a “whisker” to heal his mother (this backfires in a big way when the Nazi zombie drinks the broth with the root in it; the Nazi zombie also being a symbol of greediness in both his worldly and otherworldly natures).  He helps Hsiaoli escape from the Demon King’s minions, unaware that he’s actually falling into a trap.  He will even sacrifice himself to save them all, if that’s what it takes.  Grampa Earthgod starts off greedy, thinking only of his own safety, reluctant to admit what he is or to help Hsiaoming on his journey until he’s shown that this is his purpose.  Hsiaoli also skirts this line, at first seeking the Ginseng King with all her resources.  Later, she sides with Hsiaoming and the forces of good, because her genuine motivation lies in helping her mother, not in the betterment of her father.  Therefore, the more we can do for others while ignoring our own needs, the better we are as people.

Like an after school special, Three-Head Monster is simplistic and obvious, almost to the point of pandering.  It is also repetitive, not in the sense of the overcoming of similar obstacles and circumstances but in the facility with which the protagonists’ problems are dispatched.  “We need to convince Magic Eyes and Magic Ears to help us.”  “Okay, let’s ask them, but they probably won’t do it.”  “Hey, guys, would you help us out?”  “Sure.”  When the characters need to find something or escape from somewhere, the solution is always right at hand and/or achieved with a minimum of fuss.  It takes any tension out of the story.  Yes, we know from the outset that the heroes will prevail, but without any real resistance or effort, it deprives their victories of resonance.  The action scenes are edited with jump cuts and shot with enough shakycam to make modern action filmmakers drool.  I can at least rationalize in my own mind the jump cuts as playing to the supernatural nature of the characters and as some vain attempt to display the speed at which these characters move.  The rest of it is simply messy filmmaking.  The film also ends abruptly, engendering shrugs of disinterest rather than reinforcing the sense of wonder the filmmakers likely set out to capture.  Ultimately, the audience is left with the question, “Why?” and the offhanded reply, “Eh, why not?”

MVT:  The ambition of the filmmakers.  

Make or Break:  The Nazi zombie scene comes out of the blue and threatens to derail the whole affair with its conspicuousness.

Score:  6.25/10          

Wolf Devil Woman (1982)

In 1984, DC Comics introduced the world to the character of Dan Cassidy.  Cassidy is a movie stuntman, and he’s hired to play a monster in a very state-of-the-art costume that would likely make the late Stan Winston weep.  While shooting on location, Nebiros, an insectoid/dinosaurian demon is unleashed from his temple/tomb.  Believing that Cassidy is another demon, Nebiros attempts to drain the magical power from the man, but instead the creature winds up fusing the tech suit permanently to Cassidy.  Created by Dan Mishkin, Gary Cohn, and Paris Cullins, the newly christened Blue Devil had his own series which ran for thirty-two issues.  One of the more interesting things about it was that Cassidy became what was dubbed a “weirdness magnet,” because of the fusion of technology and magic he embodied.  This communion was appealing to me as a kid for a couple of reasons.  One, I loved monster movies, so anything that touched on that subject, even briefly, was attractive.  Two, the character’s meshing of science fiction and fantasy was appealing in much the same way that things like Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane stories were.  Of course, eventually DC decided to just make Cassidy a plain, old demon, robbing him of his more intriguing aspects but leaving his Average Joe outlook on most things.  I bring this up because Pearl Chang’s Wolf Devil Woman (aka Lang Nu Bai Mo aka Wolfen Queen) has a villain whom the subtitles refer to alternately as Red Devil and Blue Devil.  While I guess you can say inspiration struck me at that moment, you can equally make the case that I just threw any old thing together to fill up space.  Much like Chang’s film.  

Red/Blue Devil tortures some guy on a crucifix in front of his gathered gang of grim ghouls.  Horrified, Warrior of Steel Sparrow and his wife Jade flee with their infant, but the parents die, and the infant is carried off by a white wolf.  Raised in an ice cave by said wolf (as essayed by a German Shepherd), the baby grows into a woman.  Meanwhile, gormless Lee and Wong search for the mystical ginseng root that can defeat the Devil.  They encounter the eponymous Woman, teach her to read and write, name her Snowflower, and get her tangled up in all this nonsense.

Wolf Devil Woman posits itself as a standard Kung Fu revenge film.  Like many of the martial arts films released around this same time (or just Taiwanese genre cinema in general), it ramps up its odd elements to add some flavor to the proceedings.  So, Red/Blue Devil wears a mesh KKK hood with a jolly roger on it.  The majority of his lackies are red-garbed ninja.  A couple of his henchmen are outright demons (or maybe they just dress the part; Their faces are actual, immobile, store-bought Halloween masks; Yes, really).  Snowflower lives in a stylized ice cave with weird, bubbling, green springs.  She also dresses, at first, in wolf skins (this would be like a caveman dressing in caveman skins, but waste not, want not, I guess), and she sports an honest-to-God stuffed dog doll on her head (the first time I saw it waltzing across the crest of a snow drift, I thought it was supposed to be a wolf as played by a puppet, and this brought forth pleasant memories of Danger Five).  Master Chu is the wise and wizened wizard who knows all and whose machinations the other characters serve. 

The setup ostensibly tells the story of Snowflower's thirst for vengeance from the cradle to the grave.  Yet, Chang (who also wrote the script and plays Snowflower) gives us a narrative that flounders in three parts, none of which fully satisfy.  The first third is the story of Snowflower's discovery and her introduction to semi-civilized society.  This section drags on endlessly, with only the Wuxian straightening of her spine as any sort of gratification.  The second section moves the central plot along a bit with the Devil carrying out his plan for world mastery in the most tangential ways possible.  The third section, then, is Snowflower's ineluctable blooming into a superhero, signified by her learning to dress in actual cloth, gaining her own specialty weapon (a couple of oversized claws strung together with a tether of fur), and defeating the villains.  For as dull as the first third is, the last two are equally bewildering in their staccato pacing and confused editing (no real surprise for movies of this era and area, so a part of me accepts this while a part of me still finds it a task to sit through).  Chang loves her smash zooms, and she also loves to repeat the same shot multiple times in rapid succession for effect (the only one is achieves is ridiculousness).  The possibilities for greatness are here.  They just have no controlling hand to guide them. 

The overriding concept of the Sunflower character herself is the division between the animal and the civilized worlds.  Her origin lies in the world of Men and the evil that resides in it.  Her parents are aghast at the lengths to which the Devil goes (possibly because of the presence of their daughter and their desire to maintain her innocence, but we also have no inkling why they were there in the first place).  The wolf that adopts her is pure, natural, and true to herself (in the same way that the wolves who adopted Mowgli were).  Snowflower grows up and gains powers through the naturally growing ginseng root.  Nevertheless, because she behaves in a way antithetical to the mores of civilized men, she has to be changed, tamed against the social ignorance she has known (biting people is a no-no, for example).  As a result, she finds love, but she also has to face the fact that this maturation (for want of a better term) could lead to her death.  In the same way that the blood of her parents shielded her as a baby, so too does her blood protect the world.  It's actually all quite biblical in a few ways.

I admire Chang for getting Wolf Devil Woman made and with the seeming degree of control she maintained on it.  Unfortunately, it's just not that good.  While it has the garish look and ludicrous premise which make films like these fun, it also muddles the action beyond the verge of disappointment.  The characters are colorful to look at, but none of them have any sort of compelling personalities or really do much of interest.  Bizarrely, Wong, the painful comic relief gets more focus than anyone else, and man, that's just a pitfall that no wolf woman can dig her way out of.

MVT:  Chang gets all of the credit and the blame for this one.

Make or Break:  The lengthy sequence of Lee and Wong hanging out with Sunflower in her ice cave stops any momentum dead in its tracks.

Score:  5/10

Child of Peach (1987)

If you were a comic book fan in the Eighties, you may have noticed a few titles which came out under the banner of Jademan Comics.  There weren’t very many, but they were all great (the titles, not necessarily the books), like The Force of Buddha’s Palm, Iron Marshal, and Blood Sword Dynasty.  To my knowledge, all but one of the titles were written and drawn by Tony Wong (Blood Sword, not to be confused with Blood Sword Dynasty, was written and drawn by Ma Wing-Shing, perhaps best known for his Storm Riders which was turned into an abysmal film in 1998; Personally, I’ve always been partial to his Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre), and his aesthetic is at once both gorgeous and kind of primitive, hyper-stylized and childishly cartoonishly stiff.  

The American Jademan books, unfortunately, suffer from some seriously bad editing and translations.  Word balloons often don’t line up with the characters speaking, the balloons are out of order, so you’re not totally sure what a character is referring to until after you read the next balloon, and there are typos that require some serious reading between the lines in order to not get completely lost.  For example, the very first issue of The Force of Buddha’s Palm elides about ten years in one page break, and in that time, we’re expected to catch up with such events in the life of the hero, Nine Continents, as the passing of the love of his life (whom we never get to meet) and the growing bond between himself and White Jade Dragon (whom we only meet after they’ve been besties for years).  This amateurishness is despite the supposed English scripting duties of Mike Baron and Roger Salick, no strangers to comic book writing (I can only assume the problem lies in the translation of the translation by the publisher).  

And yet, there’s an undeniable energy at work in these books that transcends the dopier plot aspects or the fact that every martial arts move looks alarmingly similar (the distinction comes in the naming of the moves, apparently).  As with the more entertaining Wuxia films, like Holy Flame of the Martial World for example, the cultural restrictions have to be taken in stride to get to what makes them work; their imagination.  Likewise, in 1987 (one year prior to the American premier of Jademan Comics), directors Chung-Hsing Chao and Chun-Liang Chen brought the world the incredible Child of Peach (aka Xing Tao Tai Lang), and if you’re already a fan of Shan Hua’s The Super Inframan, you’ll find a lot of similarities herein.  Plus, lots of people getting peed on.

In the Peach Garden high atop the Himalayas, a loving martial arts couple practice their techniques and feed drippings from a giant peach to their infant son.  The flagitious Devil King steals the Sword of Sun and kills the couple, but not before their son is sealed up inside said peach and sent off to safety.  Found by a comedically dreary old couple, the child is named Peach Kid, and, after being prematurely aged by Little Fairy, he takes off to fight Devil King and his minions and save the beauteous Apple Princess.

I said that this film owes a lot to The Super Inframan, and I meant it.  There is an opening where the monsters show up and wreak some havoc.  There is the entrance of Grandma and her colorful monster cohorts, who always appear as if they’re waiting for their curtain call and who will individually take on Peach Kid and his pals and be defeated.  There are the super-stylized sets that are just big enough for lots of martial arts action and pyrotechnics to take place (most notably the villain’s lair on Devil Island).  Come to think of it, maybe it just follows the mold of every other wuxia/Chinese genre film from the Sixties onward.  But even more than these are the parallels between Child of Peach and the sentinel of truth, justice, and the American Way, Superman.  Both were sent away from their homes in vessels just before their birth parents were killed.  Both were discovered and adopted by a couple who couldn’t have children of their own naturally.  Both had to deal with the onset of their powers as they grew.  Both decided to fight for what’s right and are the only ones who can defeat the evil that has reared its ugly head.  Child of Peach then incorporates all of the insanity that comes with the fantasy/Wuxia stories of its native culture.  As stated, there’s a lot of urine jokes in the film.  The giant peach pees on the Old Lady, after setting her ass on fire by dragging her all over the place.  Tiny Monkey and Tiny Dog pee in the drinking bowls of Knight Melon and Priest Bowie.  Bowie winds up puking.  Even Devil King is not immune from the micturating.  This is easily one of the oddest fetishes I’ve ever encountered in otherwise mainstream (this would be a subjective distinction) fare, but the Taiwanese assumedly love it.  Fair enough.  I should also mention that two of the main characters, the villainous Grandma and the more matured Peach Kid are played by people of the opposite gender.  I have absolutely no idea why.  None.  Yet, these aspects (along with a particularly groan-worthy fart joke) didn’t diminish my enjoyment of the film in any way.

The element of kid empowerment and the threatening of innocence also plays into the proceedings.  Peach Kid is harder on his parents than any child in their terrible twos, but it’s he who can take on the Devil King (his adoptive father wants to join in the fight, but Peach Kid denies him this, looking out for the people he loves and taking on the responsibility himself).  He isn’t doing this alone, however.  He is joined by Tiny Monkey, Tiny Cock, and Tiny Dog, three animals who transform into kids (or perhaps the other way around?) with wicked martial arts abilities and Knight Melon (who is more young adult than anything else), the requisite fat buffoon character, who actually turns out to be taken a bit more seriously than one would initially expect (though he is also the perpetrator of the aforementioned flatulence humor, natch).  Adults like Priest Bowie show their poltroonish natures, cowering in the face of imminent death.  It’s the youth that can conquer evil, because it’s their youth which, it can be argued, gives them their power (yes, you can say that they are mostly mystical beings, but that doesn’t really account for Melon; he’s all heart).  The kids play in the big leagues, and they are up to the task.  Uncoincidentally, Child of Peach was up to the task of delighting the piss out of me.

MVT:  The whacked-out imagination, combined with the level of the technical effects (with a couple of exceptions).

Make or Break:  The Old Lady’s initial interaction with the giant peach sets the tone for almost every scene involving her and her husband (i.e. ultra-slapstick).

Score:  7/10