...and then there's the wrong way to mix kung fu, horror, and comedy.Let's give Eternal Films and director Li Chao a little credit for something, though.With tonight's review, they failed epically.As a Billy Chong fan for decades now, I couldn't help but be embarrassed for the guy to have lent his name to this.Three years earlier, he scored himself a kung fu horror-comedy hit with Kung Fu Zombie(1981).He obviously should have quit while he was ahead.It's no wonder he returned to Indonesia afterwards to salvage his career there.After a porcelain bomb of this magnitude, it's remarkable that he was even able to do it.Grave is kinda like reinvisioning Ghostbusters(1984) as a kung fu flick centered around one impressive martial arts expert with a crew of incompetent fuck ups, a supporting cast of orange belt forgettables, Woolworth-level Halloween costumes, special effects that'd get trumped by a high school production of Mary Poppins, and an overall budget of, I dunno, how much you have on you right now?
The problem that Chong, aka/"The Bruce Lee of the 80's", frequently faced in his movie career, squaring off against unworthy opponents, having to rely on camera trickery to make the fights seem interesting, is never more glaringly apparent than right here.Though Lo Lieh has always been a fantastic cinematic villain, and he turns in an appropriately demented performance here, he's simply too old to keep up with Chong's hyper-flexibility and acrobatic style.Add an insultingly fucking ridiculous plot to the mix, and you're in the neighborhood, alright.
Place onion, garlic, and two hearts of humans killed at the point of orgasm with Worchestershire sauce or marinade into wok, cook with magic for thirty seconds or until they break down into a bubbly red paste...
A narrator tells us that this is the seventh month of the lunar calendar, where the dead rise from their graves, and on the 14th, townspeople make offerings to the ghosts, or visible fishing line, that clumsily lifts pineapples and fried chicken into the air, and ghostly green hands.Whichever you wanna believe, man, it's all good to me.Pissing all over the notion of staying indoors while the listless dead walk the earth, Chun Sing(Billy Chong) gung fu-trains out in the courtyard, no superstitious 'fraidy cat he.A ghost that drops in on him gets wicked kicked upside the head and knocked over a wall.Incredulous, the ghost says "Whoa!", and reveals himself as the spirit of Chun's pop, urging him to bring a blood vendetta against the dirty mischiever what sent him to Hell(he bribed his way back to earth to visit his namesake).He tells his concerned mother that he's off to get revenge.Cut to two kung fu wizards gliding across the ground in the midst of an epic sword match, complete with shoddy fireworks, over a fabled book of magic.The baddie spits poison into the eyes of the righteous pugilist, blinding him before introducing his tai chi blade to his labonza.Chun stumbles upon the body before the evil wizard can score the magic book from it, and, pissing all over proper crime scene etiquette, buries it in a shallow grave right then and there.While hollowing the earth, the pommel of the sword he's using comes loose and reveals ...the magic book(didn't see that coming).He puts it back in the sword, leaving it near the grave.Wait.What?Meanwhile, the victorious black wizard prepares a magic spray derived from two human hearts, stolen at the point of orgasm(he cooks it down in a wok), which he spits all over Kam(Lo Lieh), one ruthless-assed motherfucker looking to become impervious to all weapons.For now, though, he's just fucking gross with blood all over him.The wizard tells his two cronies that he needs another two human hearts in three days to finish the process.
Wait, what's Dick Cavett doing here, and why's he dressed like Dracula?
Chun shows up at Kam's crib with the tale of his father's ghost, kicking the asses off of all of his bodyguards and demanding that the murderer reveal his father's burial spot, give away all his money, and finally, kill himself.Kam declines, allowing Chun to go knuckles up with his magical lazy-eyed wizard, instead.After losing two rounds to the magician, due to his uncanny ability to make himself be seen through a kalaidoscope lens(which apparently makes him unhittable and his blows unstoppable), the young expert surmises, after also having to put the spinning wheel kicks to some undead zhosts(zombie-esque hopping ghosts), that there must be some magic behind all of this.Remember that book of magic you discarded earlier, mamalucco?Yeaaaaaah, that one.After meddling with the dark arts inside a courtyard yin/yang, Chun calls the attention of some nearby ghosts, who happen to be listening for magical activity with a bamboo antenna jutting out of their coffin.I'm not shittin' ya.Aligned with the living dead(and a hunchback), he revisits Kam, who's wizard summons two demons in black and white dunce hats with impossibly long tongues, on the defensive.Chun incinerates the duo with cheap laser effects that shoot from the book itself, forcing the wizard to retaliate the only possible way at this stage:throw a handful of American cash into the air, and as it magically catches fire, call Count Dracula to come to your aid.One effeminately sassy Dick Cavett-looking vampire with dimestore fangs and cape screaming, "I'm coooooooommmmmmiiiiiiing!!" while flying in on visible wires later, Chun is forced to resort to the old standbys(crosses and garlic)to thwart the pint-sized blood drinker in his tearing apart of the zhosts.Will the young martial expert somehow manage to vanquish Count Dracula, the evil wizard, and Kam in completing his blood vengeance and returning his chi to perfect balance?You'll have to do the unthinkable, and see it for yourselves to find out...
If that's his contract that Chong is holding, he should have burned it while he had the chance.
There's a lot of you who eat up low budget craptaculars like this one as if they were deep-fried s'mores and you were E. Wilford Brimley in the throes of a sugar diabeetus attack(I'm occasionally that motherfucker in question myself when it comes to rotten flicks).You might find yourselves guiltily digging this, in that case.If you're a Hong Kong snootmeister who grooves on only the finest martial epics, you'll feel soul-raped by the time this ejercicio en el absurdo draws to a close.So it's your call.From a technical standpoint, this is embarrassingly hokey shit that's difficult to endure.On the scale, it merits but a single wop, for the Chong presence alone.
Billy Chong uses poor old Lo Lieh as an escalator.
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