If you can get past this film’s lousy opening minutes you’ll
experience one of the wildest of all Hong Kong horror movies--and
considering the unfettered nature of most such films, that’s no faint
praise.
The Package
SEEDING OF A GHOST (ZHONG GUI; 1983) was one of the
final entries in the Shaw Brothers (Run Run and Runme) horror cycle.
Others include BLACK
MAGIC and its
sequel, THE KILLER SNAKES and the
mind-roasting BOXER’S
OMEN. SEEDING OF A GHOST, often identified as a second sequel
to BLACK MAGIC, is not, as the Image DVD mistakenly alleges, the “most
extreme Hong Kong cult film of them all” (that honor in my view goes to
BOXER’S OMEN), but it is a blast, containing everything that makes Hong
Kong horror fun.
The Story
A mild mannered taxi driver’s casino dealer wife is
cheating on him with a married rich man. When the woman tries to
convince her lover to leave his wife, she’s killed by a couple of
scumbags
who also beat up her hubbie. Luckily, the latter is in contact with an
ancient sorcerer he accidentally hit with his cab. He asks the sorcerer
to help enact revenge on his wife’s murderers, and also the guy she was
banging. The sorcerer warns against seeking vengeance but the taxi
driver is insistent.
The fun begins with the sorcerer digging up the
murdered woman’s corpse and reanimating it in such a way as to guarantee
that those who harmed her will have no peace--in other words, the
sorcerer turns the corpse into a “love deity.” Scary hallucinations
start things off, followed by exploding toilets and the bodily
possession of the wife of the dead woman’s former lover, who kills her
husband by pushing him off the top floor of their apartment building.
The insanity really kicks in when a good sorcerer shows
up to take on the other in a magic duel. The bad sorcerer is vanquished
but the darkness isn’t staunched by any means--in fact you might say
it’s just beginning, as a nasty critter with sharp teeth and tentacles
is about to be birthed…
The Direction
The opening scenes of this film flat-out suck. They
make it out
to
be a trashy sexploitation flick with only minimal hints of the horror to
come; it doesn’t help that the frequently nude performers frankly aren’t
very attractive. But once the scary stuff kicks in around the half-hour
mark the film transforms into something much darker and wilder. And it
only grows more outrageous as it goes on, topping itself at every turn
in grossness and sheer audacity.
Violent death is just the start of the outrages, which
come to include hallucinations, possession, necrophilia, a mutant birth
and a good ol’ monster on the rampage in what is unquestionably one of
the most jaw-dropping conclusions of any horror movie. Director Chuan
Yang may not be too proficient in things like subtlety or craftsmanship,
but he knows how to put on a bold and unapologetic scare show.
Those unfamiliar with the particulars of Hong Kong
horror (a brand of cinema as distinct as nearly any) may have a
difficult time. The worm barfing depicted in one scene is a long-held
Eastern horror convention (with the worms just as often substituted with
snakes or eels), as is the music score consisting of (unauthorized)
lifts from other soundtracks. As with other such films, a large part of
SEEDING OF A GHOST’S enjoyment comes from a tradition so foreign to our
own it seems downright surreal. It’s a mistake, I believe, in taking
this rotgut epic too seriously (as some have done), but dismissing it as
merritless sleaze (as many others have) is also wrong.
Vital Statistics
SEEDING OF A GHOST (ZHONG GUI)
Shaw Brothers
Director: Chuan Yang
Producers: Runme Shaw, Run Run Shaw
Cast: Man-Biao Bak, Jaime Mei Chun Chik, Norman Chu, San Nam Hung, Maria
Jo, Phillip Ko, Sah-fei Ouyang, Mi Tien, Ga Man Wai, Yee Yan Wai, Yung
Wang
