The Golden Buddha (1966)

Bond Fever struck in the early 1960s and soon Bond-esque spy movies were made everywhere. It’s hardly surprising that in 1966 Hong Kong’s Shaw Brothers Studio decided to get on on the act with a series of spy films, beginning with the Wei Lo-directed The Golden Buddha.

This is not quite the Bond formula since the hero is an ordinary guy caught up in intrigue against his will rather than a professional spy like Bond.

Paul Cheung is just a very ordinary businessman. He’s also an enthusiastic amateur student of both judo and karate.

On a flight to Bangkok he meets an old friend, Chan Chung Cheung. Paul gets off the plane carrying his friend’s briefcase by mistake. The briefcase contains a small golden Buddha statue.

He then finds his friend dead. Murdered. The little statue is worthless in itself but it is the key to something very very important. Something that the bad guys will kill for, the bad guys being the infamous Skeleton Gang.

Paul was in possession of the statuette in the briefcase. It has been stolen from him but he already knows the secret it conceals.

There are three of these little statuettes. Chan Chung Cheung’s brother Chan Chung Tai has one. His sister Chan Mei-nan has the other.

Paul is determined to solve the mystery of the statuettes because his friend was murdered and it is therefore a matter of honour.

Paul and Mei-nan have the Skeleton Gang after them and the police figure in the story as well.

The plot is not dazzling but it’s perfectly adequate.

Paul Chang Chung makes an effective hero. He doesn’t have the charisma of a Connery but he’s playing an amateur rather than a professional spy and he has that everyman vibe which works.

Of course a film like this needs beautiful women and The Golden Buddha is well supplied on that count. At least one of the women needs to be sexy, bad and dangerous. And the voluptuous Fanny Fan (promoted at the time as the Chinese Bardot) fits the bill admirably.

The chief villain has a whole bevy of bodacious babes to serve him and they’re all as dangerous as they are gorgeous. And this movie has a cute adorable heroine.

Shaw Brothers movies always had high production values and magnificent sets and that’s the case here as well. The secret lair of the Skelton Gang is a triumph of crazy pop art-inspired production design.

There’s plenty of great location shooting in Thailand which adds the necessary touch of the exotic.

The fact that the hero is an expert in judo and karate makes this a martial arts movie as well as a Bond-style movie.

Surprisingly there is some nudity.

The action is non-stop but the violence is not in the least graphic. This is a movie with the emphasis on fast-moving fun and adventure.

It doesn’t have the spectacular action set-pieces of a Bond movie nor does it have the inspired lunacy of the best eurospy movies but it has an engaging distinctive flavour. The Golden Buddha offers fine entertainment and it’s highly recommended.

It’s included in Eureka’s three-movie Shaw Brothers Super Spies and Secret Lies Blu-Ray boxed set. The transfer looks great (the movie was shot in ShawScope and in colour).

The Blood Drinkers (1964)

The Blood Drinkers, released in 1964, offered viewers in English-speaking markets their first exposure to Filipino horror. And it’s quite a ride.

Gerardo de Leon had been directing movies since the 1930s and was a revered figure in the local film industry. This is a movie made by a seasoned professional.

Katrina is dead but she’s not going to stay dead. Dr Marco (Ronald Remy) will make sure of that. Dr Marco is a mad scientist but he’s also a vampire which is the first sign that this movie is going to be slightly out of the ordinary. These are vampires who are definitely supernatural but they make use of medical science and technology.

This movie gets major bonus points for not being yet another retread of Dracula. It boldly strikes out in a totally new direction and creates its own distinctive vampire mythology.

And Dr Marco was, and is, madly in love with Katrina. Thanks to his mad scientist apparatus he has revived her but she needs blood. She will also need a new heart. Another interesting angle in this movie is that blood is more nourishing if it comes from a loved one, and a replacement heart needs to come from a close family member. A sister would be ideal.

And Katrina has a sister, Charito (Amalia Fuentes) although Charito doesn’t know this. Their mother is a rich old lady, Doña Marissa (Mary Walter), although nobody knew about this.

Doña Marissa does not like the idea of seeing her daughter’s heart cut out but she isn’t given much choice. Dr Marco is not easy to defy.

Charito has a boyfriend and he is determined to protect her from the vampires who have been active in the district. The old priest is also determined to stop the vampires.

The police are sympathetic but there’s no evidence against Dr Marco.

Dr Marco has a sexy female vampire assistant, Tanya (Celia Rodriguez). He has mind control powers as well, 

The first striking thing about this movie is that it continually switches between colour and black-and-white, but tinted black-and-white. When the vampires are active everything gets tinted red. At other times a blue tint is used.

This is obviously a deliberate strategy to emphasis that there are different worlds co-existing. There’s the world of the living and the world of the dead, the world of vampires and the world of non-vampires, the world of good and the world of evil. This is also a very Roman Catholic movie so there’s also the world of the Church and the world of Satan.

And de Leon is not afraid to go all out with the gothic trappings. There’s a lot of fog!

What makes it really interesting however is that these are complex vampires. Dr Marco is scary and evil but his love for Katrina is sincere and overwhelming. He will defy heaven and hell to save her. There is a touch of that “love never dies” angle that Coppola would later push even further in his 1992 Dracula. We cannot help admiring Dr Marco’s resolute determination to save the woman he loves and we cannot help seeing him as, at least to some degree, a tragic figure.

Doña Marissa is complicated also - a mother who can only save one of her two daughters.

And Tanya is more than just a sexy lady vampire sidekick. She obviously loves Dr Marco but is so devoted to him that she will help him to save Katrina even though Katrina is clearly her rival.

And there’s a tantalising hint that redemption may be possible, even for vampires. Unlikely, but possible.

Ronald Remy as Dr Marco is one of the great screen vampires. This guy projects immense amounts of masculine eroticism and he has so much charisma that he makes Christopher Lee look a bit on the bland side.

Mary Walter as Doña Marissa is both creepy and ambiguous. Amalia Fuentes manages to be both sweet and glamorous. The acting from the supporting players is overall pretty good.

The Blood Drinkers is both visually and thematically unusual and interesting and it’s a rather good vampire movie with a nice overheated tropical vibe. Highly recommended.

Severin have released The Blood Drinkers on both DVD and Blu-Ray. There are some extras including an audio commentary.

Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance (1974)

Lady Snowblood is one of the best-known of the Japanese pinky violence movies and a movie very much admired by Quentin Tarantino. It was a success in 1973 and a sequel followed in 1974, Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance.

Both movies were directed by Toshiya Fujita and had the same writing team.

The setting is Japan in 1906, just after the the Russo-Japanese War.

Now it really seems like luck has finally run out for the notorious killer Yuki Kashima, known as Lady Snowblood (Meiko Kaji). She has fallen into the hands of the police. It only took about forty cops to capture her and she was only able to kill a dozen or so of them first.

Now she is about to be hanged. Or maybe not. She is rescued although rescued may not be quite the right word. The secret police have decided that they need the services of one of the most skilled assassins in the country.

So now Lady Snowblood is a secret agent and a government assassin. She’s not thrilled about this but she doesn’t have much choice.

Her job is to infiltrate the house of notorious anarchist Ransui Tokunaga (Jûzô Itami) by posing as a maid.

Ransui has in his possession a document that could bring down the wicked corrupt government. He is captured and tortured by the secret police. He asks Yuki to deliver the document to his brother. For reasons that are never explained she agrees to do so. None of Yuki’s actions make any sense. She has no reason to get involved in childish revolutionary plots and there is no indication that there is the slightest emotional attraction between Yuki and either of the loathsome brothers.

Much misery and violence follows. There are a few action scenes but they’re uninspired and rely entirely on gushing fountains of blood.

Strident political subtexts could be a problem in Japanese movies of this era. This movie is nothing more than an adolescent wallowing in revolutionary chic. Everybody connected in any way with the government is portrayed as a grotesque cartoon villain.

Yuki plays no real role in the movie. She only seems to have been included so they could promote the movie as a sequel to Lady Snowblood. The focus is entirely on the two brothers and the glorious revolutionary struggle. Meiko Kaji gives her worst ever performance but it’s not her fault. The script gives her nothing even remotely interesting to do and offers not the slightest hint of her motivations.

The violence and torture are both nauseating and boring.

This is not a pinky violence movie. It’s a political violence movie. Not only is there no sex or nudity there’s no indication that any of the characters has any emotional life. The heroes are too busy with the glorious revolutionary struggle, and the villains are too busy being wicked and dastardly.

This is a movie absolutely dripping with venomous loathing for Japan, for Japanese society and Japanese culture.

It’s also an extraordinarily boring movie about worthless people being worthless people.

I have seen worse movies than this, but not many.

I’m generally a very big fan of pinky violence movies but Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance is bitterly disappointing. It has no style, no excitement, no suspense.

This movie just seriously rubbed me up the wrong way. If you enjoy incredibly brutal torture scenes you might enjoy it. My recommendation is to give it a miss.

It looks OK on the Criterion Blu-Ray but it’s no a particularly visually impressive movie to start with.

Tokugawa Sex Ban (1972)

Tokugawa Sex Ban AKA The Erotomaniac Daimyo (The Lustful Lord) is a 1972 Japanese exploitation movie from Toei Studios. Although it was written and directed by one of the masters of the pinky violence genre, Norifumi Suzuki, it’s not actually a pinky violence movie. It’s a combination of costume drama and sex comedy. And since it is a Norifumi Suzuki movie it does include a great deal of inspired craziness. A very great deal.

The setting is Japan in 1825, during the Tokugawa Shogunate. The current shogun has 54 children so as you’d expect finding suitable wives and husbands for all of them is quite a challenge. The immediate problem is the Princess Kyohime (Miki Sugimoto). Finally it is decided that Lord Tadateru Ogura (Hiroshi Nawa) would be a suitable match.

This lord is not pleased at the prospect. He is a middle-aged virgin with zero desire to marry. The princess for her part is unhappy about having to live in Kyushu which she considers to be a kind of barbaric hicksville.

She’s been doing some research on a wife’s marital duties, perusing instructional manuals on the subject. She is concerned that some of the positions look rather uncomfortable but overall she’s looking forward to losing her virginity.

Sadly her wedding night is a major disappointment. The bliss she anticipated does not eventuate.

This is a problem for Lord Ogura. If the shogun finds out that his daughter is disappointed in her husband he is likely to be very annoyed.

Lord Ogura’s chief advisor decided that his lord needs to undergo some intensive training. His lack of sexual prowess is due largely to inexperience. The advisor has three young lady assistants who undertake his training, He also has a secret weapon. It has just arrived in a crate from Paris. It is a French Doll. The doll is in fact a gorgeous French babe, Sandra (Sandra Julien). Soon Lord Ogura is obsessed with her.

This does not solve the princess’s problem.

Lord Ogura comes up with a fiendish plan. If he cannot enjoy connubial bliss then no-one will. He bans sex throughout his domain.

After this the movie gets more and more bizarre. It’s pointless to try to describe what happens. You have to see it to believe it and when you’ve seen it you still won’t believe it.

Fans of Norifumi Suzuki’s movies will know that he had a bit of an obsession with Catholicism. That obsession figures in this movie, in ways that make very little sense.

As a sex comedy it is very very funny although in a totally deranged way. It should be mentioned as an aside that sex comedies are something the Japanese do extremely well.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is the feel of the movie. Many of the sets have a kind of fairy tale feel and there are scenes that look like they’re shot through the proscenium arch of a theatre. There is a play within a play. With the voiceover narration as well it appears that Suzuki was aiming for a fairy tale or folk tale or storybook feel.

The subject matter certainly suggests that Suzuki intended the movie to be a satirical comment on censorship. There’s also a bizarre seppuku scene, this coming just a couple of years after celebrated Japanese writer Yukio Mishima’s pubic act of seppuku.

Tokugawa Sex Ban is wild and crazy but it’s pleasingly oddball and it’s sexy and it’s funny and it’s highly recommended.

The movie looks lovely on Mondo Macabro’s Blu-Ray release. There’s an excellent exhaustively detailed audio commentary by Jasper Sharp.

Norifumi Suzuki made some extraordinary movies including several featuring Miki Sugimoto, most notably Sex and Fury, Girl Boss Revenge (Sukeban, 1973) and Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch Law Classroom.

Sandra Julien was clearly cast in this movie after the successful Japanese release of I Am a Nymphomaniac (1971).

Black Tight Killers (1966)

Yasuharu Hasebe’s Black Tight Killers was released in 1966 and it’s one of those movies that is perfectly in tune with the zeitgeist. The Swinging 60s were underway. London wasn’t the only place that was swinging. Tokyo was definitely swinging as well. Black Tight Killers is a wild crazy Pop Art-infused thriller that includes everything you could possibly desire in a 60s movie.

Daisuke Hondo (Akira Kobayashi) is a globe-trotting photojournalist who always manages to be in the thick of the action and the danger. On his return flight to Tokyo he meets a very pretty stewardess, Yoriko Sawanouchi (Chieko Matsubara). They’re hitting it off really well until Yoriko is kidnapped. There’s a gang led by a hoodlum named Lopez after her but the beautiful girl ninjas are after her as well. Of course you can never be sure if girl ninjas will turn out to be evil girl ninjas or good girl ninjas.

It all seems to have something to do with Yoriko’s father and the disappearance of a huge stash of gold during the war.

From this point on there’s non-stop mayhem. Fortunately Hondo can handle himself pretty well and he’s spent time at the Momoko Ninja Research Station so he knows a few ninja tricks himself. Although the ninja chewing gum bullet trick does come as a surprise to him.

Yoriko keeps falling into the hands of assorted bad guys. Hondo is still trying to figure out which side the girl ninjas are on. They do seem inclined to offer him at least a temporary alliance.

Yasuharu Hasebe has been an assistant to Seijun Suzuki and that’s significant. This was the very year in which Suzuki made his crazed masterpiece Tokyo Drifter. It’s clear that Suzuki and Hasebe were working along very similar lines, with plot coherence taking a back seat to energy, very cool visuals, Pop Art style, wild use of colour and major flirtations with surrealism. Black Tight Killers, like Tokyo Drifter, takes place in its own universe. Realism pretty much goes out the window. And both films display an obsessive interest in the use of colour to undermine realism. There’s an obvious comic-book influence. And there are hints of the psychedelic freak-out elements which were becoming increasing a feature of late 60s movie.

There’s also go-go dancing.

I love the fact that some of the supposedly exterior shots were deliberately done in the studio and that in the frequent driving scenes the rear projection is obviously intended to look as artificial as possible.

The sets are cool but they’re made to look a lot cooler with very nifty lighting effects.

There are some odd tonal shifts. Mostly the emphasis is on super-charged hyper-kinetic action fun but then there are periodic dark tragic gut-punch moments.

There are also some cynical moments.

Akira Kobayashi is a serviceable action hero. Chieko Matsubara is cute and likeable.

The action scenes have plenty of energy.

The movie is as sexy as you could get away with in 1966, with some very brief glimpses of nudity.

Black Tight Killers was clearly much in tune with international trends in pop cinema. The Bond movies obviously, but it’s closer in feel to eurospy movies like the wonderful French Fantomas (1964) and the amazing Italian heist movie Seven Golden Men (1965), the thoroughly enjoyable Lightning Bolt (1966) and one of the best of all the eurospy films, Special Mission Lady Chaplin (1966). And the German Kommissar X series kicked off in 1966 as well, with Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill.

And let’s face it - you can’t make a bad movie with beautiful girl ninjas.

Black Tight Killers has so much energy, so much fun and so much style. This is pure pop cinema. Highly recommended.

The Radiance Blu-Ray looks lovely. There are some decent extras.

Yasuharu Hasebe went on to direct several of the wonderful Stray Cat Rock movies - Stray Cat Rock: Delinquent Girl Boss (1970), Stray Cat Rock: Sex Hunter (1970) and Stray Cat Rock: Machine Animal (1970). These three movies are all quite different in tone but they’re all very enjoyable.

Mr Vampire (1985)

Mr Vampire is a 1985 horror comedy released by Hong Kong’s Golden Harvest studio.

I have to be upfront here - I really dislike horror comedies in general. This is a very crazy movie, which is a good thing, but for my tastes it’s just too silly. I enjoy silliness, but this is too much silliness for me. 

And the comedy is mainly slapstick, my least favourite form of comedy.

It begins with the reburial of the father of a prominent citizen, Master Yam. The family had buried the father after taking advice from a feng shui master but the advice was bad and has caused the family twenty years of bad luck.

The corpse is dug up and taken to the mortuary where it is discovered that the old man is turning into a vampire.

The priest and his two hapless assistants take what they hope are the necessary steps to prevent the transformation from being completed.

Their efforts are in vain. And one of the assistants is bitten by the vampire.

The other assistants is waylaid by a pretty female ghost. They have a nice time in bed together but the young man is now bewitched.

So the priest has to save one of his assistants from being turned into a vampire and save the other from the attentions of a very horny lady ghost.

At one stage the priest is locked up on suspicion of murder by Master Yam’s unbelievably stupid policeman nephew.

All of which gives rise to countless comedic kung fu action scenes.

The humour is mostly lame. One of the few genuinely funny moments is the misunderstanding in the shop where one of the priest’s assistants is employed - he thinks Master Yam’s very respectable daughter works in the brothel across the road. This is witty verbal humour and it works.

What makes the movie worth seeing is the fascinating wealth of vampire and ghost lore, much of it based at least to some degree on actual Chinese folklore. Chinese ghosts are corporeal and actually can and do have sex and lady ghosts do seduce men. And Chinese ghosts are not necessarily evil. Having sex with a ghost can lead to unfortunate consequences but this is not always the case.

And then there are the hopping vampires, and vampire-like hopping undead creatures do figure in Chinese folklore. They add a very bizarre touch.

The steps that need to be taken to combat vampires are insanely complicated. If you’re up against vampires you will need a great deal of glutinous rice, plenty of black ink and a lot of string. You’ll need advanced martial arts skills.

You’ll also need a good deal of luck. These vampires are near-unstoppable. You cannot afford mistakes.

Mr Vampire has its attractions and it’s certainly different. It was a huge commercial success and kicked off an entire genre.

The performances and the comedy are very very broad. Your enjoyment of the movie will depend very heavily on how much you like ultra-zany goofy slapstick humour.

If you do enjoy this type of comedy you’ll enjoy the movie much more than I did.

The Eureka Blu-Ray offers a very nice transfer with some extras.

The Seventh Curse (1986)

Even by the standards of 1980s Hong Kong movies Golden Harvest’s The Seventh Curse (1986) is wild wild stuff.

It was inspired by the hugely popular novels of Ni Kuang. He wrote at least 300 wuxia and science fiction novels, being noted for working extraterrestrials into detective and mystery novels. His two most popular novel series were the Wisely series, about a wealthy adventurer named (obviously) Wisely, and the Dr Yuen series. The Seventh Curse is a Dr Yuen adventure but it’s an original story written for the film. And Wisely appears as a supporting character.

At a dinner party the famous novelist Ni Kuang (played by the famous novelist Ni Kuang) recounts the latest exploits of Dr Yuen.

The opening action scene is absolute mayhem. It’s a raid by the Hong Kong equivalent of a SWAT team. It’s a big operation - there must be a hundred cops involved. The police call on Dr Yuen for help. A doctor is needed to treat a hostage held in an office building. His job is to set off a flash bomb to distract the bad guys.

We soon learn that Dr Yuen is not just an everyday medical doctor. He’s a martial arts expert, a crack shot, a medical researcher and an adventurer.

This guy is a totally awesome all-round hero.

But he has a problem. It’s a deadly blood curse imposed on him in Thailand.

He was part of a scientific expedition into the jungle, an expedition that encountered a particularly hostile tribe. That’s where he met Bachu. She was bathing half-naked in a river. Both Dr Yuen and Bachu fell foul of an incredibly evil sorcerer. The sorcerer presides over human sacrifices. Dr Yuen escapes.

The blood curse is a delayed action time bomb. Nothing happens for a year, then it activates, and now it will kill him in seven days. His only chance is to return to Thailand to find a cure for himself, and for Bachu.

In that opening police siege sequence Dr Yuen first came across Feisty Girl Reporter Tsui Hung (Maggie Cheung). Feisty Girl Reporters can be irritating but Tsui Hung is cute, sexy and adorable. Now she insists on accompanying him to Thailand - she smells a big story here.

From this point on the mayhem is non-stop with one great action sequence after another. Martial arts fans will not be disappointed. There's a huge amount of gunplay as well, and explosions.

And lots of crazy over-the-top special effects and plenty of gore. There’s a very obvious influence from Alien with demonic babies popping out of people’s chests. The intention was clearly to make the special effects fun.

Chin Siu-ho is terrific as Dr Yuen. He doesn’t look like an action hero. He looks a bit geeky. But in reality he’s a kind of Chinese Indiana Jones. He’s also very likeable.

Maggie Cheung is delightful and amusing and Miss Tsui Hung participates gleefully in the mayhem.

The location shooting was done in Thailand.

There’s a very small amount of nudity and no sex. This is all about the crazy witchcraft stuff and the action. I believe it was one of the films later retrospectively given a Category III rating.

This is a good-natured adventure romp that doesn’t take itself at all seriously. It wants the audience to enjoy the ride.

Director Lam Ngai Kai does a great job here. He went on to helm the fabulous Erotic Ghost Story.

The Seventh Curse is insanely entertaining. It’s not just bonkers. It’s beyond bonkers. But it delivers everything it promises and then some. Not surprising it was a major commercial success.

This movie is very highly recommended.

The 88 Films Blu-Ray offers the original Hong Kong cut and the shorter Export Cut plus plenty of extras.

Sex and Zen (1991)

Sex and Zen was released by Golden Harvest in 1991 and it is one of the more notorious Hong Kong Category III movies.

Category III was a censorship rating introduced in 1988, similar to the American NC-17 rating. No-one under 18 was allowed to see such films. The NC-17 rating never worked because in the U.S. distributors and exhibitors conspired to wreck the commercial prospects of any film unlucky enough to get such a classification. The Hong Kong Category III rating worked because it was a genuine and honest attempt to allow filmmakers to deal with grown-up subject matter with a reasonable degree of freedom.

Category III movies usually had both graphic violence and explicit sex and nudity. Sex and Zen concentrates on the sex. It’s a wild insane sex comedy.

Mei Yeung-Sheng (Lawrence Ng) is a scholar who believes that what really matters in life is the pursuit of erotic pleasure without reference to conventional rules of morality. This has led to a clash with the wise monk known as the Sack Monk who has tried to persuade him to embrace the virtues of self-denial.

The wise old monk assures the young scholar that no matter how clever you might be the pursuit of other men’s wives will lead to disaster. Retribution is a certainty. Mei Yeung-Sheng refuses to listen.

Mei Yeung-Sheng marries Huk-Yeung (Amy Yip), the daughter of a rich and powerful man known as Master Iron Gate. Huk-Yeung thinks sex is shameful. Their wedding night might not be a total success for the young couple but it provides a great deal of amusement for the audience.

Mei Yeung-Sheng continues his pursuit of women aided by cat burglar Choi Kun-Lun (Lo Lieh). His ability to break into homes and pick locks will be useful - Mei Yeung-Sheng will use the most unscrupulous methods in pursuit of sexual pleasure.

Choi Kun-Lun persuades Mei Yeung-Sheng that his problem with women is that his equipment is not adequate for the job. He needs a hardware upgrade.

The movie now becomes steadily more crazy and outrageous. The young scholar finds a surgeon who can perform the upgrade. The operation should go smoothly as long as it doesn’t rain - this surgeon gets very jumpy when it rains.

And as long as the horse co-operates.

The scholar is only too anxious to find out if the upgrade has been successful. He doesn’t get any complaints from the ladies.

Mei Yeung-Sheng embarks on an erotic spree which gets him into a certain amount of trouble.

After their marriage his wife Huk-Yeung (Amy Yip) had quickly discovered that sex isn’t disgusting after all. In fact she likes it very much indeed. But her husband is away most of the time. She finds some very imaginative ways to provide pleasure to herself but it’s just not the same. She needs a man. She needs a man real bad.

She finds one, in the form of the gardener. Which leads to complicated and unfortunate results. For just about everybody.

Sex and Zen is based on Li Yu’s seventeenth-century erotic novel The Carnal Prayer Mat.

The sex scenes are frequent, very imaginatively shot and very very explicit. And at times very kinky. If you are easily shocked or offended you might want to keep right away from this movie.

Sex and Zen might not be for the faint-hearted but on the other hand it really is very funny and it’s wild and crazy. Highly recommended.

Umbrella’s Blu-Ray release offers a lovely transfer. The main extra is an interview with the director.

Robotrix (1991)

Robotrix is a 1991 Hong Kong science fiction movie which lifts its central idea from RoboCop but it cannot be regarded as a mere RoboCop rip-off. It’s a wildly different story.

While RoboCop is about corporations and governments out of control Robotrix is more of a traditional mad scientist movie (with the twist that the mad scientist is both a Dr Frankenstein and a Frankenstein’s monster in one). This might make it seem less interesting than RoboCop but Robotrix simply has other fish to fry.

Salina (played by Japanese actress Chikako Aoyama) is a tough Hong Kong police detective. An Arab oil prince has been kidnapped by a brilliant but deranged Japanese scientist, Ryuichi Sakamoto (Chung Lin). Sakamoto has transformed himself into a cyborg. His motivation seems to be revenge for the mockery his work had attracted.

In the course of the kidnapping Salina is killed but her story is far from over. Another genius scientist (and Sakamoto’s arch-rival) Dr Sara (Hui Hsiao-dan) uploads Salina’s personality into a robot.

Dr Sara has a beautiful female assistant, Ann (Amy Yip), who is in fact a robot. Ann is a pure robot while Salina is a cyborg, with a human personality.

While RoboCop is troubled by the fact that he is no longer either man or machine but a bit of both and looks like a monstrous robot Salina’s problem is that she looks entirely human but is no longer sure if she’s a machine or a woman. And I think it’s fair to assume that this would be an even bigger issue for a woman than it would be for a man. Salina has been dating Joe (David Wu), a member of her squad. She needs to know if she is still capable of love now that she is no longer exactly human.

Sakamoto, now an incredibly powerful cyborg, goes on a murderous rampage.

Prostitutes are being murdered, the police believe this to be linked to Sakamoto and the police have set a trap. It doesn’t work out the way they had hoped.

All their attempts to apprehend Sakamoto seem destined for failure, even with a formidable lady cyborg and an equally formidable lady robot on their side. Lots of incredibly violent mayhem ensues, with unpleasant consequences for both Salina and Dr Sara. It will of course lead to a violent showdown.

While Robotrix engages with some serious issues along the way it’s essentially an adrenalin-charged action romp and it doesn’t take itself too seriously. At times it is extremely funny, and deliberately so.

The whole concept of cheating death by uploading your personality into a computer or a robot is not as simple as it sounds. You’re dead. There is now a copy of your personality in the robot, but you yourself are dead. This is glossed over in most science fiction stories but there is a tantalising hint that the writers, Jamie Luk and Man Sing So, were aware of this problem. There is a moment when Joe fears that Salina has been killed again and Ann tells him, “Joe, Salina has been dead for a long time.” This aspect is not developed because that would have made this a totally different movie.

This is a Category III movie (roughly the equivalent of a US NC-17 rating) and there’s some very graphic violence and some very graphic sex. There’s some very graphic sexual violence but while this is to some degree added as an exploitation element it does serve a purpose. There is a danger that we might feel come sympathy for Sakamoto, that we might see him as a tragically misguided genius scientist capable of redemption. His brutalisation of a prostitute and of one the central female characters ensures that we feel no sympathy for him whatsoever. It is necessary for the audience to see Sakamoto as a monster who must be destroyed.

There’s also a romantic sex scene between Salina and Joe. Salina has to know not only if she can still enjoy sex in a physical sense but more important whether she can still enjoy it emotionally. This is a movie that jumps from serious moments such as this to broad comedy. It’s all over the place and while this would be a flaw in most movies this is a Hong Kong movie and it works.

The action scenes are impressive.

The ending is magnificent. And then there’s an epilogue which is quite perfect as well.

The 88 Films Blu-Ray looks terrific and there’s an audio commentary.

Robotrix does have superficial resemblances to RoboCop but it’s also an interesting anticipation of Ghost in the Shell. The Ghost in the Shell movie did not come out until 1995 but the Ghost in the Shell manga was published in 1989.

Robotrix is total insanity but it’s inspired insanity and it’s bursting with energy and it’s very highly recommended (although it is perhaps not for the faint-hearted).

Erotic Ghost Story (1990)

Erotic Ghost Story is a 1990 Golden Harvest release directed by Lam Ngai Kai. It’s one of those Hong Kong movies that doesn’t fit neatly into one genre. It’s a horror movie, an erotic movie, a sex comedy and a quirky supernatural romance gone wrong movie. It’s a Category III movie, equivalent to a U.S. NC-17 rating.

There’s a strange opening sequence in which bandits take some girls into the woods for some fun but what the bandits get is horror and terror.

Mostly this sequence lets us know that we shouldn’t take any of the characters at face value and that we are going to be dealing with the supernatural.

We might three pretty girls. We assume at first that they are sisters. The way one of them (Pai, also referred to as Big Sis) deals with an importunate bandit suggests that they have some formidable kung fu skills.

Pai meets an old wandering Taoist priest. They have a bit of a fight but he is perhaps trying to tell her something. Something that she will remember later. She will meet the old Taoist master again.

The sisters encounter a shy young scholar. He is being pursued by brigands. He is rescued by the oldest of the sisters. He is horrified at the impropriety when she touches his hand.

But just as the three girls are not what they seem to be so the young scholar is not a shy sexually repressed bookworm. He’s a demon, and a very very lustful demon.

From the start you’re going to realise that there’s something odd about these three girls. Are they ghosts? Shape-shifters of some kind? Witches? The title (at least the English-language version of the title) might lead you to suspect that they’re ghosts. Given that ghosts in Chinese folklore are corporeal that seems plausible. Chinese ghosts can eat and drink and have sex. But these girls are not ghosts. They’re foxes. Fox spirits. Which are a big thing in Chinese folklore. Such foxes can assume human form. They’re slightly similar to the old European folkloric concept of fairies in the sense that they’re not evil but they can be troublesome and dangerous. Or they can be harmless. In this movie the girls are definitely not the least bit evil. Although they are rather lustful!

These three girls are trying by means of Taoist study to achieve a permanent transformation from their fox forms into human form.

Their problem is that they just can’t keep their clothes on when the young scholar is around.

The movie seems to be settling into being a lighthearted romance with some sex comedy touches. There are plenty of comic moments that are genuinely amusing. And lots of sex. This is a Category III movie. This is strong softcore with very explicit female nudity and fairly raunchy sex scenes. The sex is good-natured and joyous. These girls enjoy a good tumble with a man.

The girls and the scholar are having lots of good times until one of the girls notices something very disturbing about herself. Something is happening to her.

Now Pai remembers the old Taoist master. She may need his help. The girls’ kung fu skills will not be enough to deal with the situation.

The movie now becomes more of an action movie and much more of a horror movie.

The three lead actresses are all good and they’re all pretty and they’re likeable. Pal Sin is very good as the young scholar. All of the cast members are quite comfortable when it comes to handling the comic moments.

And it’s a visually impressive movie. It’s obvious that the aim with the special effects was to make them crazy and fun.

Erotic Ghost Story has plenty of style and energy and entertainment value. It’s a lot of fun. Highly recommended.

If this movie whets your appetite for Chinese folklore and especially for stories of fox-spirits get hold of Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (readily available English translations).

The 88 Films Blu-Ray offers a lovely transfer and quite a few extras including two audio commentaries. This is one of those rare cases in which an audio commentary really is useful. To appreciate this movie fully you need to know at least a couple of things about Chinese folklore, and about Category III movies.