Tao hua san niang zi

The movie starts on a dark and stormy night. Chen Hung-Lieh wakes up from a nightmare and acts like everyone is trying to kill him. Weird stuff happens and it seems he is dead but did not get a proper burial so now his soul cannot rest. A pretty lady calls upon a spirit to help him.

The horror elements such as dead spirits, the magic of the spirits, and even the fighting all require special effects. The result is a visual experience that would be enjoyed more with your eyes closed. I acknowledge that today we have special effects that can make anything imaginable look real on the movie screen. Therefore I should not expect much from a movie this old. Still, it is hard to believe that the effects in this movie were not simply laughed off. I could not pretend I was watching this movie in 1975 and let the visual elements slide by.

My copy is a digital file that plays on a HDTV as wide screen but it is not really wide screen. There are dual Chinese and English hard subtitles. This is similar to a laser disk as source. The resolution is lower than a comparable VHS tape and the colors are washed out with a green tint remaining. I can hardly read the subtitles because of the poor resolution.

This movie is a fantasy and horror story that totally relies on the visuals. The visuals are a total flop. I found it impossible to find any entertainment value in this movie today because of that. Even if the special effects were a tad better there was still the poor resolution and washed out colors. The final death blow was the nearly impossible to read subtitles.