Bewitched

Revenge is a dish best served with an extra portion of gastric slime in the Shaw Brothers sordidly Satanic, morbidly maggot-infested Black Magic body shocker 'Gu'. Once holidaymaker, Stephen (Fei Ai) returns from his sojourn in sultry Thailand, he grimly discovers that he brought back more than spicy snapshots of, Bon Brown (Lily Chan), his beauteous, yet bizarrely vengeful, beach-frolicking lover! Plagued with mad visions of his daughter's increasingly malign nature, Stephen is arrested, summarily sentenced to death for the brutal slaying of his child. The once cynical cop, Bobby (Melvin Wong) stoically exposes those cruel instigators of the curse that evilly compelled, Stephen to commit such a monstrous act of infanticide!

Kaleidoscopically garlanded in grisly, dayglo-dripping necromancy, 'Bewitched' remains a hallucinatory, fascinatingly visceral example of vintage HK Body Horror. Director, Chi-Hung proves himself singularly adept at staging nauseating scenes of luridly flesh corrupting sorcery! Mean-spirited, and visually striking,'Gu' is steeped in stomach churningly graphic manifestations of blasphemous Black Magic maleficence! While disturbing, Bewitched is aesthetically sublime, the exquisite Thai locations are dazzling, and our Black Magic beleaguered protagonist's gruesome travails climaxes in a hyperbolic, mythically mental, monk vs sorcerer showdown. Far-flung, far out, but far from formulaic, the queasy far Eastern shocker 'Bewitched' casts a wickedly captivating spell that cannot be broken!

Hong Kong supernatural horror film directed by Chih-Hung Kuei (Hex after Hex, Curse of Evil, Corpse Mania, Devil Fetus). The movie stars Fei Ai, Melvin Wong and Fanny Fen-Ni. A prequel to Boxers Omen, BEWITCHED is a full throttle as Hex Trilogy. The plot revolves around a detective in charge of hearing a statement and investigates the death of a girl, only to find out that the perpetrator is her father who was cursed by a Shaman. The action shifts to a battle between good and evil that includes worms, possessions, surreal spells between monks which works as a whole package for lovers of the genre. In other words, Bewitched is an explosion reel in its purest form, which when it comes to this genre means lots of crazy antics. If it were made today Bewitched would be mentioned alongside French extremity delights, such is the nature of its content, but it was made in 1980, when special effects were cheap, production quality was low and it was a little too early to sit alongside other HK horror movies. It's a dirty and grotesque film with lot to offer for those craving for twisted sense of humour it is one of those bizarre cult films you really should see. Among all the horror and witchcraft films made by the Shaw Brothers, BEWITCHED (1981) stands out. '80's horror at its finest and purest form! It's weird, disgusting but yet also strangely amusing. Make your choice

I saw this for the first time few days back. Got enticed aft reading glowing reviews. I shud hav been careful regarding the only four reviews as of now. This film is ridiculous with unnecessary gross scenes. The lead villain is always shown in bat-like/Dracula-like attire, he sneaks in n out of places as if he is some sorta ninja with high skills. The effects r laughable n why does the poor bat always has to be the epitome of evil? Ther is some nudity, the initial police investigation is kinda intriguing but it all boils down to what did I jus watch. Without any sex operation, a man suddenly turns into an old hag. Now that is some super duper mumbo jumbo technology.

The first film of Kwei Chih-Hung I ever saw was the indescribable Mo (Boxer's Omen) so working backwards I just had the chance to watch his previous outing into the world of Thai black magic.

A policeman investigating the horrid death of a five-year old girl is led to Thailand where he encounters black magic and eventually a series of horrible curses are placed on him to prevent his solving the mystery. That description makes the film sound reasonable if not a bit boring but believe me it's not boring! We are witness to lots of sights including, a six inch nail being pulled from the corpse of a five year old girl, an extended spell battle between a monk and a sorcerer, a séance with floating skulls and twigs that write plus exploding bats. We also learn many useful things such as how to extract oil from the rotting corpse of a pregnant woman, or that eating maggots gives you super evil powers, or that if you discover a loved one is eating raw pork liver at night, all may not be well. All this commotion is because a callous Hong Kong tourist didn't come back to his Thai lover by a certain date. She happily causes the death of several people and is willing to kill more so her ex-lover dies a protracted death. And strangely she somehow convinces a black magic priest to go along with this despite the pain and danger he goes thru when a Buddhist priest volunteers to fight back.

It's quite an experience but it falls apart by the final third and the ending looks like they ran over budget and Mona Fong said, "You have one night to finish this film and send those Thai actors back!". So they shot the ending in a HK airport terminal. Regardless, the film looks quite good at times with interesting art direction and photography. There's a bit of nudity when the Thai girlfriend goes for a slow motion swim, but most of the film is just silly looking but gross effects.

Fun but "Mo" is more fun.

Towards the end of the Shaw Brothers' rein over kung fu cinema, the studio branched out into other genres, enjoying some success in the supernatural horror market. Much of their horror output was typified by black magic storylines with gross-out special effects, Bewitched being one of the best examples.

The film opens with the discovery of the decomposed body of a little girl, a nine-inch spike having been hammered into her skull. A police investigation leads to the arrest of her father, Stephen Lam Wai (Fei Ai) who admits to the murder, but claims that he was under the influence of a spell. Sentenced to death by hanging, the man tells his story to policeman Bobby Wong King-Sun (Melvin Wong), and begs the cop to find out what drove him to kill.

According to Lam Wai, the trouble began when he wooed a pretty young woman, Bon Brown (Lily Chan), while on holiday in Thailand. After several days of being romanced by Stephen, Bon gave her new beau an amulet and made him swear to return to her by June 30th. When Stephen returned home to Hong Kong, he boasted about his holiday romance to his work colleagues (no doubt telling them about Bon's topless sprint across the beach, which is shown in slow-motion), but neglected to keep his promise to return. That's when the crazy stuff started to happen: the amulet caused a large stain on his chest, which sprouted hair, he became impotent, and his daughter began to act very strangely indeed. An old woman told him that he had been possessed and that the person closest to him would try to kill him and the only way to stop them would be to hammer a large nail into their head.

Bobby doesn't believe a word of the killer's crazy story, until he too experiences a scary supernatural phenomenon. Now convinced, he travels to Thailand to investigate, learns that Bon had a spell put on Stephen (the magic involving oil extracted from the corpse of a pregnant woman), and attempts to remove the curse with the aid of an old witch (who performs a ritual with some bad flute playing, a levitating skull, a twig and what looks like a small Wade figurine of a frog). When this fails, he visits a monk, who enters into a supernatural battle with the wizard who cast the spell. Cue lots of yuckiness, including the villain drinking blood from a vat full of dead babies, his face oozing pus, and a nail slowly pushed through the palm of his hand.

Unfortunately, the monk is unable to defeat the powerful wizard, and needs a week to recover before he can try again. During these seven days, Bobby is subjected to a variety of spells cast by the miffed magician, which leads to more madness, including the cop developing an appetite for raw pork liver, a bout of heart trouble caused by a lemon, Bobby's wife being stabbed by a flying knife, and a guy getting dragged under a moving car. Director Chih-Hung Kuei also sees fit to throw in those mainstays of the genre, maggot eating and worm vomiting. Meanwhile, Bobby also has to contend with an escaped lunatic who is causing havoc, having got his hands on a cop's gun (in the film's most shocking moment, the madman shoots a child several times in the chest).

The entertaining ending sees the return of the monk, refreshed and ready for round two, in which he successfully desiccates the wizard, forcing a bat demon to fly out of his mouth!