| "Black Magic" is a horror/magic film from the Shaw Brothers studio that strayed away from the typical films they were producing at the time. The plot is fairly simple, as a rich widowed seductress (Tanny Tien Ni) pays a black magician (Ku Feng) to cast a love spell on her love interest (Ti Lung) who is set to marry his girlfriend (Lily Li) after being the victim of a similiar spell cast by the same magician, who was paid by a man she hates but who loves her (Lo Lieh). With the plot behind us and all this love in the air, it's time for some black magic.
This is a pretty bizarre film that is often more grotesque than scary, featuring a full cast of nasty critters. Some of the highlights of the film include snakes, worms, maggots, cockroaches, digging up corpses, dismembering corpses, severed teeth and fingers, LASER shows, forcefields, puppet heads, lactating, and some T&A added for good measure. That is quite a lineup, resulting in quite an odd film which is really amped up by a disorientating and head-pounding soundtrack.
As far as the performances go, I would never accuse Ti Lung of phoning one in, but he clearly seemed out of his element in his first horror film role. Lo Lieh also did not clock in his finest hour of screen time, but it is funny to see them dressed as if they were going to a disco. The two best performances easily go to Tanny Tien Ni as the bitchy seductress and also the always entertaining Ku Feng, who has mastered the art of portraying a sleazy black magician.
Although "Black Magic" may have lost some of its shock value over a 35 year period, it should be commended as a film that paved the way for even more deliriously weird horror films from Shaw Brothers in the following years. Definitely worth a look. |
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