Lin tou jie (1988)

... aka: 林投姐

... aka: Revenge Ghost of the Tree, The

... aka: Revenge of the Ghost of the Tree

... aka: Revenge of the Tree Ghost

... aka: Sister Lin Tou

Directed by:

Shan-Hsi Ting

Weepy servant girl Mai Hsiu (Feng-Chiao Yen) shows up to a temple late at night praying for her masters and mentioning some kind of "homicide scandal". We then immediately zip into flashback mode to see just what she's crying about in this Taiwanese ghost tale with a period setting. Master Hsi Ping Wu (Shao-Wei Sun) and his wife Hsu Yuen (Szu Shih, in her final film role) are a wealthy, though charitable, couple who do right by their servants and appear to be in good standing in their community. Hsu Yuen even takes it upon herself to educate local hooligans about Buddhism in her free time to help them change their ways. Returning from a long business trip away, Master Wu brings along an amiable new friend; Chuan Chow (David Chiang), to stay with them.

Chuan turns out to be quite the smooth operator. When gangster Liu San (Te-Sheng Wang) shows up demanding money for his Japanese boss about a shipment of camphor (a waxy substance extracted from an evergreen tree of the same name found in East Asia) they never received, Chuan concocts a bogus tale about the merchandise being damaged to drive him away. A young lady, claiming to be Master Wu's now-pregnant lover, and her brother then show up demanding money. This gives Chuan a chance to show off his formidable martial arts skills by kicking the brother's ass and having the two of them thrown out. However, Madame Wu isn't fully convinced her husband didn't actually have an affair with the girl. Still, Chuan has quickly established himself as a welcome and trusted addition to the family.

However, not is all that it appears to be. Chuan, who's secretly plotting against the family, wants Wu's money, property and everything else in his life. Mr. Ito (Kuang-Ning Lin), a corrupt local politician who's conspiring with him, is cool with that as long as he gets the wife in their bargin. After plying him with sake, Chuan gets Master Wu to sign an important paper allowing him to collect a debt for him but in reality opens the doors for him to steal money. Master Wu's dedicated servant Yau (Cheng Ku) tries to warn him about funds disappearing, but he won't hear of it as he's convinced his new friend is the bee's knees. Wu then accompanies Chuan out of town and ends up falling down drunk at a brothel. This gives Chuan the opportunity to have him murdered. He's stabbed in the heart and his body is tossed over a bridge into some crocodile-filled waters. A dismembered leg is found the following morning and a piece of clothing identify it as belonging to Wu.

Immediately after his death, Madame Wu is visited by her late husband's ghost. Doors swing open, wet footprints form on the floors and the place on the bed where the master slept is soaked. She also spots his reflection in a mirror and in a framed portrait. Because rumors start circulating around the village about Chuan still living in their home, Hsu Yuen kindly asks him to leave. He then produces a forged deed with her husband's signature letting her know that he's now the owner of the property. One thing leads to another and Yau the servant takes his own life. Madame Wu then plots to kill Chuan herself, but his goons pin her down on the bed, smother her with a pillow and then take her body into the forest and hang it from a tree. Chuan probably should have reigned in his murder count because he now has not one, not two but three potential ghosts who'll be looking for revenge.

Madame Wu's mournful ghost soon materializes. She really only wants what's best for her three young surviving children, who are constantly at risk from Chuan, who can't decide whether he wants them all killed or merely shipped off somewhere else. Servant girl Hsui, her fiancée Ah Wan (Ya-Tung Sun) and Ah Wan's mother, Auntie Liu (Yin-Shang Liu), all team up to assist the ghost by finding the children and hiding them. The mother, a blind bakery owner who has psychic powers, can "see" the ghost at all times when others cannot and uses magic spells to strike out at the bad guys, who have since transformed the formerly respectable Wu household into a gambling den / whorehouse. Chuan hopes to counteract this by hiring an evil priest (Feng Tien) to help keep the ghost from enacting her revenge. Spell papers, laser-shooting magic mirrors and a "soul sucking sword" are included in their arsenal.

Apparently based on a famous and oft-filmed folk tale, the first half of this is bogged down by endless overwrought melodrama (lots of crying, wailing and suffering!), though this eventually finds its footing in the second half. The ghostly revenge is highlighted by the usage of a "Lin Tao Tree" (the same one Madame Wu was hung from), which has mystical powers. The ghost's soul becomes linked to the difficult-to-destroy tree and also grants her some tree-related powers, like the ability to hurl giant, boulder-like "fruit" at people, using a smaller fruit to trip someone and make them fall to their death, etc. Madame Wu also uses her vine-like hair like a noose to strangle someone, several characters are forced to slit their own throats, a body explodes when it falls in water and the statue of some god called Emperor Kwan (played by Shan Charng) comes to life as a giant to assist our ghostly heroine.

Seemingly completely forgotten, this has been readily available for quite some time on Youtube and other websites, yet has not even managed to generate the five votes needed to register a score on IMDb, nor has it been rated a single time on Letterboxd (though I'll be changing that here shortly). Because of that, I went into this expecting cheap and terrible... but that's not the case here at all. While this is certainly uneven it terms of story and pacing, it's also surprisingly well-directed and handsomely produced. Colors are vivid and there are good sets, costumes and art direction, plus the lighting, camera angles and shot framing are nice throughout. The soundtrack is also good. Then again, it should be since most of it was stolen from A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET! I actually wouldn't even mind revisiting this some day if a remastered version with proper English subtitles ever turns up.

I was only able to find a couple of releases for this one. The first is a VHS from South Korea (above, left) and the second is a 2005 DVD from Central Motion Picture out of Taiwan. Seeing how the latter doesn't come with English subs and the widescreen version I watched had them, there had to have also been a release or two in Hong Kong as well. 

The director made a number of other genre films, including the anthology BLOOD REINCARNATION (1974), the difficult to find The Seven Coffins (1975), the likewise hard to find Love in the Twilight Zone (1977), the ghost comedy Host for a Ghost (1984) and a pair of Joey Wang vehicles: SPIRIT LOVE (1989) and (his most widely viewed genre film) The Beheaded 1000 aka The Executioner (1991).

★★1/2

Krasue Sao (1973)

... aka: กระสือสาว

... aka: Ghost of Guts Eater

... aka: Krasue Girl

... aka: Will-o'-the-wisp

Directed by:

S. Nawaraj (Sanit Kosaroth)

One of the only fully surviving pre-80s Thai genre films, this has been preserved for posterity thanks to a couple of enterprising men in Sweden who traveled to Thailand right at the dawn of the home video revolution, acquired the rights to a handful of films not released anywhere outside of the country and then issued them to VHS in the early 80s. The original Thai language soundtracks were retained but the films were given new English titles and hard coded Swedish subs. These acquisitions, less than 20 in total, were then distributed through two different labels: HB Video-film Norrköping and Video World. Ghost of Guts Eater was sadly the only horror movie of the lot and the rest appear to be action films. Because the same VHS-sourced copy has been bandied around so much in recent years (the quality is dark / poor but it's surprisingly in widescreen), the most common print you'll now find has American subtitles on top of Swedish subtitles on top of smaller Swedish subtitles!

The film centers around a well-known ghost in Thailand called a krasue. This same ghost has equivalents with different names depending on the Southeast Asian country you're in, but the spirit is usually the same: a detached, flying woman's head with internal organs (heart, stomach and a lump of intestines) dangling beneath that has a taste for flesh and blood, typically that of fetuses and babies. There are dozens of films involving this creature, which are still being made regularly to this day, and this appears to be one of the earliest films of this type.

One of the titular creatures is terrorizing a small village, scaring the bejesus outta everyone and slaughtering chickens. The ghost has taken possession of an old woman named Chim (Sulaleewan Suwanthat, who's also featured prominently in the Italian exploitation classic MAN FROM DEEP RIVER) and, having used up her body for all its worth (one of the unfortunately side effects of such a possession), is about to pass itself onto a new carrier. Thankfully Chim's syrupy sweet granddaughter Bua Klee (Pisamai Wilaisak) happens to be living with her. Prior to passing, Chim gives Bua Klee a ring, but only under the condition she promise to never take it off. She also insists Bua Klee cremate her body immediately and not tell anyone about her "murder." Bua Klee's boyfriend Boon Muang (Sombat Metanee, who passed away this past August) and his best friend Phi Chood (Choomporn Theppitak) happen by their hut just in time to help. They also must help Bua Klee fend off the unwanted advances of the thuggish arse Chatr (Man Teeraphol), who also has romantic designs on her.

Bua Klee (now pregnant) and Muang get married but their wedded bliss doesn't last too long, nor does the newfound peace and quiet in the village. The ring Bua Klee now adorns houses the spirit of her krasue-possessed granny... and she's hungry! Now possessed by the spirit herself, Bua Klee's head occasionally pops off and flies around the village late at night looking for grub. Several villagers i.d. the floating noggin as belonging to her and rumors she's a vampire rapidly spread. An exorcist, Doctor Prasit (Tat Ekathat), is called in to help. He gives the skeptical Muang a "holy rod" and instructs him to beat his wife with it. You'd think this would cause some friction in their marriage, as suddenly whipping your wife without explanation is sometimes known to do, but Bua Klee just brushes it off with a smile: "No matter what, I will forgive you! I love you so much! Please love me long!"

Seeing how the beating does not reveal any kind of evil spirit, Muang goes back to Dr. Prasit and punches him out, which prompts the exorcist to plot revenge ("Your vampire wife will die!"). However, his attempt at calling forth a demon backfires when it kills him, captures his spirit and takes him to hell. With things rapidly going downhill for them in their village, Muang, Bua Klee and Chood flee to the country to stay with Muang's uncle, Chaeng (Sawin Sawangrat), but the seclusion ends up not offering up any protection.

In a scene that sounds much better than it actually is, another old krasue lady lives nearby, which leads to a krasue v. krasue catfight over an animal carcass that concludes with Bua Klee biting the other krasue's guts. That prompts the injured krasue and her hubby (some kind of flying "demon") to get revenge, which they plan on enacting whenever Bua Klee gives birth to her baby so they can steal it and eat its heart. But that's not all!

When Muang travels back into the village to make a deal with wealthy trader Kamnan (Chao Klaewklong), he strikes the fancy of the man's spoiled daughter, Madua (Metta Roongrat), who herself is already being pursued by Chatr (the same guy who was trying to get into Bua Klee's pants earlier in the film). Chatr attempts to kill Muang, but only shoots him in the arm. After spending a few days nursing him back to health, Madua declares her devotion to him ("You know I love you so much!"). Him being married and already having a child isn't of any real concern to her. She just uses love spells to make him fall for her. The father then catches them in bed together and forces them to get married.

Meanwhile, a desperate Bua Klee is trying to find a way to get her man back. She learns of a treasure by some old ruins that's supposedly guarded by a giant. As for how to break the curse, it involves finding some fire and then stripping naked next to it. She attempts this (showing off her bare ass in the process) but is denied the treasure because she's yet to atone for her sins. A plan is hatched to break the love curse against Muang, which causes things to spiral out of control. Many people get killed.

While it may seem hard to believe by today's standards, this was a major release and a hit film in Thailand at the time, with many top box office draws in the cast and special effects work (including some brief, crude stop motion) that was considered elaborate and revolutionary by early 70s Thai standards. It was also shot on 35mm during what was considered the Golden Age of cinema in the country, so the production values are somewhat better (though still low!) than much of what came later. Starting in the second half of the 80s, similar films would be cheaply and carelessly shot on 16mm, bogged down with childish slapstick comedy, not even feature much in the way of special effects and be marketed almost exclusively to rural audiences. The films were not well-made or sophisticated enough to cut the mustard in larger urban areas and were mostly ignored there.

Running 105 minutes, this almost seems like three different movies mashed into one. It's episodic and melodramatic, sometimes tediously so. The pacing is horrendous, the soundtrack is comprised almost exclusively of overbearing (stolen) music and it ends up sidelining the very creatures we came to see in favor of the alternately mushy and messy relationship drama. That would perhaps be easier to take had we not been saddled with a lead female character who's insufferably whiny, pathetic and weak. Sometimes this hits on the right side of weird but the highlights are sadly few and far between.

The credited director is ส.เนาวราช, which is translated to either S. Naowarat or S. Naowaratch on most websites (the Swedish subs call him "S. Nawaraj"). Doing a little digging around and connecting of some dots, I was able to find out who this guy really is and about some of the other players involved. The real director is สนิท โกศะรถ, or Sanit Kosaroth, who was best known as a crime fiction writer and magazine publisher. The Naowarat / Naowaratch alias was a pen name he frequently used. He passed away just two years after this film was released at the age of just 45. The film was financed by บันลือ อุตสาหจิต / Banlue Utsahachit, who owned his own publishing house that frequently employed "Naowarat" as a writer. It's based on a graphic novel series by ทวี วิษณุกร / Thawee Witsanukorn, which was published by Banluesan Publishing House.

★★