Black
Magic
1975
Director- Ho Meng Hua
Cast- Ti Lung, Lo Lieh, Tien Lie, Lily Li, Ku Feng, Ku
Wen-chung
Shan
Chien-mi is a rather vile necromancer for hire that specializes in death spells
and love spells. As such, much of his clientele is jilted and jealous lovers.
As the story begins Shan is hired to kill a young couple in love. He does so
but is discovered and run out of town by the local good sorcerer, Master Fu.
Shan relocates to the big city and is hired by a con man to make a rich widow fall in love with him. Shan casts the spell but the con doesn’t pay his bill so Shan smites him with a death spell (note: always pay your debts to necromancers). As it happens, the widow, who is rather hot and hot to trot, has unrequited love for another young man so she employs Shan. Shan casts the spell but decides he wants her for himself so he puts a spell on her. Deception and intrigues abound until Master Fu finally catches up and saves the day. The final battle between Fu and Shan is way over the top silly, involving psychic lasers and force fields, but Shaw Brothers isn’t exactly Lucasfilms, so I think we can forgive the campiness since the film ,up to that point, is pretty solid.
The
intrigues make the film feel a bit like a soap opera but luckily the story is
saved by some colorful scenes. Though not gory throughout, it does have some
surprisingly effective horror imagery, usually involving the necromancer’s
spells. He carves off flesh, sets corpses’ heads on fire, worms appear under
people’s skin, etc.
Shan is
also a bit of a perv. It seems like one of the main ingredients in his spells
is breast milk and he likes to get it straight from the source of his female
clients. There isn’t a lot of nudity, this is Hong Kong in the 70s after all,
but there is enough to add a salacious edge to the film.
The most
interesting part of the movie to me was the occult lore involved. I know next
to nothing about Chinese sorcery, so I don’t know how much was genuine folklore
and how much was Shaw Brothers creation, but it was bizarre enough (from a
Western point of view) to seem like it was at least legitimate folklore. Things
like, melting a corpses’ face to extract spell components, inserting bamboo
into a pressure point to allow worms to escape, or eating centipedes to cure
insanity make a welcome change to the Western horror that usually just involves
splashing some Holy Water and waving a crucifix.
Fans of Shaw Brothers films
will see a lot of recognizable faces, but otherwise it doesn’t feel like a Shaw
Brothers film. There is no kung fu and I don’t think any of the Deadly Venoms
make an appearance.
Fun fact- This wasn’t the Shaw Brothers only venture into
horror. Though known for action films, they made several other horror films
over the years. Their best known horror movie (in the West) was their collaboration
with Hammer studios, Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires. They also made The
Enchanting Shadow, the first movie adaptation of the Nie Xiaoqian story, which
was the basis of A Chinese Ghost Story.
