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What do you think of when you read the words “black magic”? Covens of witches? Cackling necromancers? Card games? Or maybe, you think of gross Asian horror. For over forty years, the black magic sub-genre has dominated all sorts of weird cinema discussions, encompassing a myriad of films from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Indonesia focused on hexes, curses, and witchcraft. Since there are tons of these films out there, it can be daunting to find where to jump in, but for my money, there’s no better place to start than at the beginning, with Ho Meng Hua’s genre-defining duology, Black Magic.

Ho Meng Hua was, without a doubt, one of the oddest directors working for the fabled Shaw Brothers studio. In the 1960s, he made a quadrilogy of fantastical films based on the legendary Journey to the West, and when the ’70s rolled around, he jumped right on...

The script starts with black magician Shan Chien Mi performing a ritual for a woman who wants her adulterer husband and his mistress dead. The spell succeeds but after a while, the magician has to abandon the village he lived in, when a good magician destroys his house.

The story then changes setting and we are introduced to sultry Mrs Zhou, the widow of a construction magnate, who is set on seducing one of her employees, Xu Nuo. He, however, is engaged, and being faithful and honest, resists her aggressive flirting. Mrs Zhou also has a suitor, Liang Chia Chieh, a fortune hunter playboy, who just wants her for her money. When the two of them have a fight, Liang learns from a friend that a black magician living in the forest can help him.

Liang eventually finds him, but soon discovers that he has received much more than he has bargained for,...

Craig Lines Jul 6, 2016

From The Boxer's Omen to the genuine unpleasantness of Calamity Of Snakes, we take a look at a stomach-churning subgenre of cinema...

In 1975, Ho Meng Hua’s Black Magic cast its spell over Chinese audiences and summoned up a subgenre that produced some of the most extreme, esoteric and stomach-churning horror films of all time. Between the late 70s and early 80s, Chinese black magic movies were pumped out en masse, feeding audiences their fill of evil sorcery and twisted moralizing. The formula usually featured some poor schmuck enlisting a dark wizard to help them achieve something (more often than not, something sexual) and finding that the forces they’ve unleashed are more than they can handle. Cue the flamboyant special effects and abundant nudity.

These films took inspiration from authentic folk magic for their various spells and rituals which, sadly, means they frequently feature real animal slaughter.

When I think of Wu Xia movies, I immediately think of Shaw Brothers and the many classic they have made over the years. What I love about this genre is many things, the Swordplay, The Characters, Story lines, Setting, Costumes and much more.

Wu Xia, traditionally is a form of literature. But after high demand over the years it’s become involoved in many art forms such as Movies, Opera, Video Games and beyond. This list of 30 Wu Xia movies listed, i hope you’ll like and want to thank my friend Richard Robinson for contributing to the list. If we missed any classics out, its most probably because we honestly forgot at that time or maybe we haven’t seen all the classic Wu Xia movies so far, anyway enjoy the list and let us know what you thought in the commen box at the bottom.

1.Have Sword Will Travel (1969)

Cast: David Chiang,...