Black Magic

"Jiang Tou," also known as "Black Magic" (1975), directed by Ho Meng Hua, is a captivating exploration of dark sorcery and the supernatural, steeped in the rich tapestry of ancient Chinese folklore. The film presents a world where spells, curses, and dark rituals shape the destinies of its characters, delivering a blend of horror and drama that is both intriguing and flawed.

The film excels in creating a vivid and immersive atmosphere. The detailed production design, from the eerie landscapes to the elaborate costumes, transports viewers into a realm where magic and mystery reign supreme. The use of practical effects, while somewhat dated, adds a tangible authenticity to the film's many supernatural scenes, giving them a unique charm despite their occasional campiness.

"Jiang Tou" struggles with narrative cohesion and pacing. The story, while rich in potential, often feels disjointed, with certain plot points lacking sufficient development or clarity. This results in a viewing experience that can be confusing and uneven, as the film occasionally meanders and loses focus.

The balance between horror and melodrama is another area where "Jiang Tou" falters. The tonal shifts can be jarring, detracting from the film's ability to maintain a consistent atmosphere of suspense and terror. Additionally, the special effects, though innovative for the time, may appear antiquated and unintentionally humorous to modern audiences, which can undermine the film's more serious moments.

Despite its imperfections, "Jiang Tou" (1975) is a film of notable ambition and cultural significance. It offers a fascinating look at the supernatural traditions of its setting and provides a narrative that, while flawed, is still engaging and thought-provoking. For fans of classic horror and Asian cinema, "Jiang Tou" is a film worth watching, offering a glimpse into a uniquely dark and magical world.

Ti Lung stars as construction worker Xu Nuo, who is the object of desire for his sexy millionaire boss Luo Yin (Ni Tien); however, despite the obvious attractions (horny woman hot for his body and bags of cash into the bargain), Xu Nuo remains faithful to his fiancé, teacher Quming (Lily Li)—at least until the desperate Luo visits evil sorcerer Sha Jianmai and pays him to whip her up a love potion...

Legendary Hong Kong martial arts studio Shaw Brothers had dabbled in supernatural horror before, producing spiritual romance movies, but it wasn't until 1975 that they started to embrace their trashier side, with Ho Meng Hua's Black Magic, a tale of evil sorcery and sex that introduced some of the more exploitative elements that would become staples of the genre in the years to come.

With Sha Jianmai's magic requiring such bizarre ingredients as a severed head, snake venom, a freshly exhumed corpse, rice that has been applied to a woman's vagina, severed fingers, centipedes, human breast milk, blood, hair and footprints trapped in mud, and the result of his spells being uncontrollable lust or sudden death, viewers can rest assured that this entertaining slice of wackiness delivers plenty of blood, gore, nudity and other assorted deviancy.

This being the first of its kind, it might not be quite as relentlessly nutzoid or as extreme as later, similarly themed films like Seeding of a Ghost, Corpse Mania or The Boxer's Omen, but it definitely has enough moments of madness to make it worthwhile, the action culminating with a particularly funny magical battle on a building site between Sha Jianmai and a benevolent magician, whose weapons include a skull emblazoned laser mirror, a shrunken head, and magical blue streaks of lightning.

BLACK MAGIC is a wonderful little horror film from the Shaw Brothers stable that proved they were just as adept at making horror films as they were martial arts flicks. The success and ingredients of this production would later lead on to many other infamous movies like THE BOXER'S OMEN or SEEDING OF A GHOST.

BLACK MAGIC is a densely-plotted yarn involving the nefarious adventures of a black wizard who's happy to cast all manner of spells on his victims...for a price. First to visit him is a sleazy guy (Lo Lieh, excelling in his role) who wants to spend the night with a woman who hates him. Later, the same woman decides she wants to cast a love spell on a guy who hates her in turn. Eventually the guy's friends realise what's going on and employ the services of a white wizard to combat the villain.

This is a film that has it all: sleazy rituals (including an obsession with procuring breast milk), violent death, and hints at the kind of grotesque imagery that would later follow in this series. The atmosphere of sleaze and creeping dread is spot on, as are the production values that make this just as colourful an adventure as the many kung fu flicks made by the team. Ti Lung is fine but gets relatively little screen time as the erstwhile hero; it's the women who really shine here, including the evil Ni Tien and the good-natured Lily Li. The various elements combine well and the outcome is one of the coolest of all '70s horror films.

Excellent cinematography, well-lit and razor sharp. Insane black magic rituals loaded with gore and offal. A creepy, well-directed classic from the Shaw Group, Black Magic is packed with sickness and perversity. The Saturday morning kids' TV show optical effects at the end was a poor way to end it.

While the Shaw Brothers are definitely best-known for their martial arts flicks (as evidenced by a couple peeved reviews on this website), they did dip their fingers in other genres here and there. BLACK MAGIC was one of their forays into the horror sub-genre, telling the tale of a black magician and his various customers looking for love, murder or both.

BLACK MAGIC contains some nastiness and some awesome here and there: we've got rice given magical qualities by female genitalia, breast-milking, dead folks dissolving into maggot-infested skeletons and laser beam-shooting skulls. The problem, however, is that in between a few awesome scenes, the movie does really drag and gets quite repetitive (the black magician sets a curse, the good magician reverses the curse, then the black magician reverses it again, etc., etc.). It's all watchable, but it gets pretty run-of-the-mill near the middle. Luckily, the last 5-10 minutes are fantastic and worth wading through the mediocrity.

Overall, this is worth a look for Hong Kong horror fans, but you could do better if you looked around. For example, just a year later, the Shaw Bros. put out a (name-and-theme-only) sequel, BLACK MAGIC 2, which cranks the crazy factor up a couple notches and is basically an improvement in every way.