Forget Taoism Drunkard, forget Fantasy Mission Force, forget Shaolin Drunkard, forget Shaolin Drunkard and forget Young Taoism Fighter. Magic of Spell, AKA "Qumotong", a 1986-89 Tiawanese/Mainland-Chinese production, which to the best of my knowledge, has never been subtitled, and that was directed by a certain Zhao Zhongxing, or, as the boards here at this movie-database would have it, a certain Chung Wu Ching, go out and find this flick --- oh, nevermind, it's not available in the Western Hemisphere.
Subtitles would perhaps serve merely to get in the way, so operatic, so wild, fantastic, visionary is the scenery disentangled before the viewers eyes. The plot: Good VS. Evil. Evil taking the form of a powerful white-haired and wild-maned sorcerer seeking for life-force enough to keep himself from degenerating into a crippled tyrant. which is countered by the chaste good of the heroine, Suichang (Lin Hsiao Lan) whose task it becomes to keep from the wizards clutches a 1,000 year old Ginsing root-child.
At length, she becomes involved with the plight of this ginseng-child-creature when her elderly mother is attacked and killed by two marauding demons, sent by the evil wizard to put young Suichang out of commission. With vengeance foremost on her mind, she and a troop of seedy but able-bodied fighters storm the sorcerer's stronghold. However, in the ensuing mêlée the tyrant is able to power himself up, sucking vital energies from various people and even jewels. (via the mystic blood-red waters of his wading pool). The resultant conflict is full of kinetic and exciting acrobatics and visualFX -- more than enough to satisfy even the most ZU-jaded fan out there. True to form, Evil is vanquished at the cost of almost all cast-members -- even the root-boy sacrifices his Magical abilities (by leaping into the blood-be-dewed mouth of Suichang and settling in her stomach) to destroy the monster.
Although the film ends somewhat ambiguously --as we are left wondering just who did survive and if this evil is actually destroyed as promised, there is still that satisfaxion that True Good has won out, even if it was itself eradicated in process.
Highlights of this obscure flick include: a titanic, demon-clobbering peach, boulder-wielding wind demons; the screwy-looking ginseng-boy trying on some dainty slippers; the zany antics of two scrappy boxing puppetoon skeletons, a living parsnip with a penchant for making toy wind-mills; Suichang being suspend by unseen wires over a rapidly rushing river as she stoops to rescue a trapped infant rabbit; fight-scenes galore, and the patchwork-quilt-like score featuring tracks taken from what must be the most popular source of bootleg HK soundtracks: the score from PHANTASM (1979). 10 stars, already.
