Luo xie (1969)

... aka: 裸血

... aka: Law huet

... aka: Raw Passions

Directed by:

Chen Lo

A lot of movies, regardless of the era they were made in or country of origin, are now being retroactively referred to as giallo (most are really regular ole murder mysteries, suspense or crime films just like they made decades before giallo even existed), which usually has me defiantly raising my eyebrow as the stickler for defined terminology that I am. However, the opening sequence of this Hong Kong production from Shaw Brothers screams giallo, so I don't necessarily mind comparisons in this particular case.

Things open with quiet, picturesque panning shots of a still lake, starting high up in the pine trees. Only a single bird can be heard. As the shots progress, they start to move down, gradually closing in a small lakeside cabin. And then the camera looks up at the trees and starts doing 360 degree spins because it spells incoming trouble. We then get the closest look at the cabin yet and a scream is heard. Inside, a young woman is in the process of being attacked and we get lots of quick cuts of a gloved hand holding a shimmering knife. The woman is finally stabbed and a hand reaches down and rips off her necklace. Those few minutes all capture the essence of what a true giallo is in my opinion, with off-kilter camerawork and editing, the unknown black-gloved killer, the light-reflecting blade, the beautiful, sexualized female victim (this one has her shirt torn and bra exposed) and the immediate introduction of a mystery element the rest of the film will play off of.

We then meet our four principal characters; two married couples. We have the Tao's; Wai Kong (Hsieh Wang - THE WEB OF DEATH) and his wife Ai Jun (Hsiang-Chun Li), and the Lin's; newlyweds Sau Ming (Yuen Kao - THE PAINTED SKIN) and wife Man Ying (Ivy Ling Po). Out for an evening of drinks and some adult-oriented entertainment at a fancy nightclub, the couples watch sexy chanteuse Sa-Sa (Li Meng) sing and then strip down to a sequined bikini to perform a belly dance. Afterward, she goes right up to their table. The wives don't seem to like Sa-Sa, but Mr. Lin blushes at her presence and it's soon made clear that Mr. Tao is already very well acquainted with her when this cuts to the next scene and the two of them are in bed together. They've been carrying on a long-time affair, but now Sa-Sa wants more, especially since she's three months pregnant. Ultimatum time: Leave his wife to be with her, or give her 200,000 dollars and she'll go away quietly. Problem is, Mr. Tao's business has barely been staying afloat recently and he doesn't have that kind of money on hand.

It's not all smooth sailing with the newlyweds either. Prior to getting married, Sau Ming also had a brief fling with Sa-Sa. Now his suspicious spouse suspects that they may be continuing that affair. One day out of the blue, Sa-Sa calls Sau Ming and demands he come to her apartment. There, she unsuccessfully attempts to seduce him and then attempts to blackmail him. If he doesn't pay her 100,000, she'll tell the wife they're still seeing each other and do all she can to destroy his marriage. I tell ya, this lady is one hell of a schemer! An outraged Sau Ming storms off.

Rather hilariously, Sa-Sa secretly arranges to perform at Sau Ming's birthday party and shows up to serenade him with a love song! Later that night, Man Ying's suspicions are put to rest when he husband explains that nothing is going on between them, but she's then put in another awkward position after overhearing Sa-Sa and Mr. Tao discussing their affair. Soon after, Sa-Sa's corpse is discovered in the lake house by a young couple as this comes first circle to the opening scene. Since Sau Ming was spotted in the area fishing, he's hauled off to the police station, questioned and, because of his recent encounters with the victim, becomes the prime suspect. However, the necklace yanked off the corpse, perhaps in an effort to hide a connection to her, was one that Mr. Tao had given to her as a gift. Philandering husbands and betrayed housewives aren't the only possibilities here either...

To complicate matters further there are not one but two other blackmailers trying to capitalize on what's going on. The first is Sa-Sa's mentally unstable loser brother, Dai Kang (No Chai), who is first seen swinging by his sister's place trying to bum money, which is apparently a regular occurrence for him. Since she's dead now, how's he going to get by? Why trying to extort 50,000 from Sau Ming in order to "leave him alone," that's how! His plan doesn't quite pan out after Sau Ming beats him in a fight, so he later sneaks into their home and attacks Man Ying with a switchblade. Another mysterious man, Fei Ma (Feng Ku), is lurking around as well, making claims he has audio and photographic evidence about who the killer is. He too has an asking price: 100K, and he offers it to both the Tao and Lin couples.

This is a pretty standard mystery from a writing standpoint. I wish I could say I was taken by surprise or thrown for a loop by the red herrings at any point in this film, but I was able to accurately guess who the killer was in the first 20 minutes and nothing I saw after that ever made me second guess myself. In fact, what I saw afterward only made me even more certain I was correct. You can see it from a mile away based on what they choose to show and what they don't, and who they try to make you suspect and who they leave at the periphery.

Aside from that, this is well made and produced. The direction and acting are both fine, the camerawork and shot compositions are sharp and, best of all, the late 60s clothing, cars, interior décor and overall style are eye candy in the extreme. From a contemporary standpoint, much of the entertainment here actually comes from the art direction, with shots specifically framed to showcase loud wallpaper, swanky home furnishings and colored lights. Did people really decorate like this back then? If so, someone need to bring it back! There are also some nice exterior locations used and red-tinted and b/w flashbacks thrown in toward the end.

Since this was made during a transitional period in world cinema, while there's some nudity (all provided by Li Meng), it's of the very fleeting variety. You get lots of legs, bare backs and cleavage and a brief flash of an exposed nipple here and there. For a 1969 mainstream release, this was probably considered pretty risqué, but just a few years later, the sex and nudity would be much more prominent in these kinds of films, which probably rendered this comparatively tame affair pretty obsolete soon after it was made.

The two original songs on the BMI-issued soundtrack album - "The Night Before" and "Mad About You" - are performed by Mona Fong, who was a top recording artist at the time. Less than a decade after this was made, Fong would become a regular producer and production manager for Shaw and racked up well over 150 credits with them, including working on many of their major cult horror releases, like BLACK MAGIC (1975), BEWITCHED (1981), HUMAN LANTERNS (1982), THE BOXER'S OMEN (1983) and SEEDING OF A GHOST (1983).

Understandably, the demand for this particular title hasn't been quite as high as many others from the extensive Shaw catalogue. There was a customary DVD release from Celestial in 2005 (with English subtitles), but it came and went and not many were particularly interested. While this is perfectly fine to sit through once, it's still just kind of mid / forgettable in the grand scheme of things.

★★1/2

Di san lei da dou (1980)

... aka: 第三類打鬥

... aka: 殺出地獄門

... aka: Fight Through the Gates of Hell

... aka: Heaven and Hell

... aka: Heaven and Hell Gate

... aka: Sha chu di yu men

... aka: Shaolin Hellgate

Directed by:

Cheh Chang

I'm so used to seeing amazing art direction from various Shaw Brothers productions that the opening scene here really threw me for a loop. This set, which is supposed to capture the splendor of heaven, looks incredibly cheap by their standards, with an obvious matte temple backdrop that looks like it could have been painted by some school kids. They do try to spruce it up with swirls of colorful fog, but it doesn't quite get the job done visually. What does work here is its amusingly atypical depiction of heaven that flies in the face of what a lot of folks are led to assume the "real" heaven would be like. A joyous place of eternal peace and contentment? Nah! This heaven is just as shitty as Earth; perhaps just as shitty as hell even!

I've always felt that if every sanctimonious, hypocritical, judgmental, pseudo pious, phony asshole who claims to believe made it through the pearly gates, and didn't receive a lobotomy or some kind of personality overhaul on their way there, that heaven wouldn't be all that it was cracked up to be. The makers of this film appear to agree with that notion. As depicted here, heaven is the usual assortment of haves and have nots, with the peasantry having to obediently serve the demanding, pampered jerks at the top of the hierarchy or else face the consequences. I'd imagine living through your earthly existence only to find the afterlife is essentially the same exact thing with the same exact problems and the same exact people you had to deal with as a mortal would be quite depressing. Make that doubly depressing; now you're also stripped of the possibility of death to finally put you out of your misery.

This also has a female ruler of heaven and the uptight and constantly scowling "Queen Mother" isn't such a nice lady. After participating in a silly choreographed dance, maid Zi Xiao (Maggie Li) finds out the hard way that you don't wanna upset the Queen. She's tasked with delivering a "magic peach" on a silver platter to her highness for her birthday, but accidentally trips, falls and drops it. Palace guards are then ordered to "punish" her by giving her 300 lashes and then locking her away in a cell for the rest of eternity. Peasant boy Zhou Bao (David Chiang), who's in love with Zi Xiao, steps in to save her and the two run off toward the South Gate, where they can escape heaven and return to Earth. Since heaven doesn't allow for marriage, getting out will also enable them to finally be together. For helping the two escape, royal guard Xin Ling (Yi-Min Li) is likewise stripped of all his supernatural powers and exiled from the kingdom.

Down on Earth, things get even stranger if you can imagine something even stranger than God demanding you be tortured and jailed for dropping a giant piece of fruit. For starters, we learn that the curiously subpar art direction of the heaven sequence is an intentional stylistic choice from the director, who is trying to make his film resemble a stage play, but only in the first 20 minutes. I'm sure there was some kind of artistic reasoning for this but whatever it was is completely lost on me. The same goes for the inclusion of several awkward musical numbers, which are also just in the first 20 minutes before the film completely forgets it was ever trying to be a musical. As for the characters, we meet entirely different sets of them at random intervals and continue to meet different sets until we get sick of meeting new characters and everything and everyone just becomes one big blur.

The first little subplot details artist Chen Ding ([Alexander] Fu Sheng) trying to save his bank secretary girlfriend Shi Qi (Fu's real-life wife Jenny [Tseng]) from brutal gangster Huo (Tao Chiang). While she's at work, some thugs show up to rob the place and kidnap her. She's then taken back to the gangster's home, raped and held hostage until her boyfriend can finally break her out. After Chen Ding defeats the thugs, the gangster enlists the aid of an experienced assassin (Lung-Wei Wang) to do him in and recapture Shi Qi. This leads to another brawl, but this one also involves Xin Ling, who's back on Earth working as a taxi driver. He manages to defeat the assassin but is also shot and killed in the process. Next stop: Hell!

Ditching the more minimalist approach of what has come before, hell here is actually a comic book-like visual treat in the expected Shaw Brothers way and filled with lots of gaudy colors, mutant guards, crazy tortures and maxed out set designs. While in heaven you're destined to be part of the slave class and have your eternity ruined for the most minor of infractions, hell's moral code is much more along the lines of letting the punishment fit the crime, only fairness and justice are absent because the residing judge (Miao Ching) is a bad combination inept and corrupt.

Interestingly, this hell has separate, specific departments, like one just for gamblers, who are forced into mahjong, domino and card games with cheaters and thus always lose; denying them of the gratification that once used to fuel their addiction. They then get their fingers chopped off, which miraculously reappear soon after and get to repeat the process over and over again. Greedy folks have to drink molten gold. Drunks are forced to ingest rivers of liquor. Gossips get their tongues ripped out. People hang from chains over beds of spikes, are frozen into ice cubes, bisected with giant saws, skinned alive, run over with plows, pulverized with grindstones, you name it! While heaven certainly isn't a treat, hell isn't such a fun place either. The impression given here is that perhaps it would be preferable for there to actually be no afterlife at all. Human contagion would probably manage to somehow screw it up.

Xin Ling befriends the beautiful Hung Chin (Chen-Chi Lin, who's completely wasted here in a decorative role but was used much more effectively by Tsui Hark in Dangerous Encounters of the First Kind this same year), who died after taking hallucinogens at a party and falling out of a window. After fighting back and causing some problems for the hell staff, Xin Ling is given a second chance at life after "The Buddha of Mercy" (Yung Henry Yu) shows up to answer his prayers. The merciful God allows him to assemble a posse of strong fighters to do battle with the hellish higher-ups. And, as if we needed even MORE characters, all four of these guys are given brief flashbacks to how they ended up in hell in the first place.

While engaged in a friendly battle, swordsman Tien-Yang Cheng ("Chui Kuo" / Phillip Kwok) was betrayed and then decapitated by his rival, Jia-Xiang Chang (Feng Lu). After avenging his father's murder, Tin-zan Yan ("Yen-Tsan Tang" / Bruce Tong) was captured and murdered while in prison by having a large metal rod pushed down his throat. Teenage ruffian Han-Ting Wei ("Mang" / Meng Lo) was shot in the back after a dispute with a corrupt cop who almost ran him and his friends over. Finally, Wei-Kang Lin (Chien Sun) was killed while trying to defend his girlfriend from some thieves / rapists. As you can probably tell, all of these guys unjustly ended up in hell just like Xin Ling, which also seems to explain why they still have red blood instead of black and are also given an opportunity to redeem themselves. But first they have to fight their way out of hell, which includes doing battle with all kinds fiends, including long-tongued wizards (one on stilts) and various H.G. Wells-looking animal-human hybrids (some of whom were the earthly enemies of the fighters) armed with spiked clubs and tridents.

With all of the unusual sights (including a truly trippy finale) and cheap make-up designs and weird costumes and great lighting schemes and crazy production design and non-stop, expertly choreographed action scenes, it's basically impossible not to be at least a little entertained here. And thank Buddha for that because the script couldn't be a bigger mess if it tried. Supposedly the film was made in fits and starts over the course of several years, which may explain why everything feels so disjointed and why the heaven and earthly lover characters are set up as leads but then never heard from again after the first 20 minutes. Though their stories are unresolved and unsatisfying (also rather pointless), this improves somewhat after it permanently relocates to hell for the final hour.

What this really feels like is a story-chucked-out-the-window excuse to not only squeeze in as many fight scenes as possible but also cram as many marquee stars from the Shaw Brothers stable into just one film as possible, coherence be damned!

Sheng Chiang (THRILLING BLOODY SWORD), Gary Siu (POSSESSED) and Dick Wei (THE SEVENTH CURSE) co-star as guardian angels that are decked out like drag queens complete with glitter, overdone eye make-up and feathery vests and skirts (!) Also here briefly are familiar veteran actors Ching-Ho Wong, Teresa Ha Ping, Chih-Ching Yang, Hsi Chang, Ching Tin and loads of others with hundreds of credits that I could mention. The director went on to make ATTACK OF THE JOYFUL GODDESS (1983) and THE NINE DEMONS (1984), which are both also strange and feature many of the same actors (a number of whom were Five Deadly Venoms vets) seen here.

There were several English-friendly DVD releases, including one through Image in 2007, who only offered the Mandarian language audio track with English subtitles. A characteristically awful English dubbed version is also available, though not recommended.

★★1/2