Imagine the craziest, most messed up, bizarre, jaw-dropping, stupidest dream you have ever had. Now, imagine if, by some divine miracle, some crazy director filmed this dream and released it on VCD with a really bad English dub. Now stop imagining, because this film exists, and it is called Wolf Devil Woman, directed and written by, and starring, one of the first women of independent martial arts cinema, Pearl Cheung Ling. There are more WTF-moments in the first 20 minutes of this film than in just about every other movie I have seen – combined.

All of the following happens in less than 20 minutes:

It all starts with a voodoo crucification for some reason. I have no idea why. Some guy gets sacrificed and some cartoon blood explodes from his chest. Seriously, the blood is animated, by hand. Next, cut to a married couple running through a snow covered forest, being chased by red ninjas and an evil demon wearing a green troll mask – with his tongue sticking out of the mouth slit. The couple are carrying a baby, and they try everything they can to save the poor child. However, they get cornered by the ninjas, and so the husband stabs himself, and his wife, and then they start banging their heads on the side of the mountain to create an avalanche to bury the baby, leaving her life up to fate.

Well, soon after, some wolves come and dig up the baby and take her back to a magical ice cave filled with green smoky water. Oh yeah, the wolves also dig up the husband and wife and eat their hands and legs. The baby is raised like a wolf, and wears a wolf's head and fur, and walks around like a Hunchback (she later gets her back straightened out by some kung fu power). When she captures her first rabbit, she is so happy that she rips it in two, in an explosion of gore and fur. Meanwhile, back at some other place, the troll-demon and his minions are ripping people to shreds – for some untold reason.

During the next 10-15 minutes, we are treated to some truly stunning dialog. The old master of the people attacked by the troll-demon states that in order to stop the troll-demon they, “need a special...thing.” He sends his son after this “special...thing,” which happens to be some thousand year old ginseng. His son's name is Young Rudolph (strange name for an Asian lad) and his goofy side-kick's name is Rudy (name shortage?). Okay. Young Rudolph and Rudy meet up with the wolf girl and they decide to name her Snow Hibiscus – just rolls off the tongue, don't it? Snow Hibiscus...why not Wolfy-chick, or Fur-Freak, or something, ANYTHING but Snow Hibiscus?

The most amazing thing about this film though, is that during these first 40 or so minutes there is no action - and I was never once bored! It is just so relentlessly entertaining even without kung fu, a rare treat indeed from such a low-budget schlock-fest.

When the action finally kicks in, it is all goofy, and chaotic, as if it were choreographed and filmed by a spastic child. After the first major fight sequence, we finally get to see who the real villain is. It's the troll-demon's boss, The Devil! The Devil soon explains that through the strategic placement of his golden needle, he has turned his enemies into something “worse than zombies, they are corpses!” However, this corpse collecting is just an “expensive hobby,” and he has built his corpse-museum only for a “sense of ownership.” He continues by saying, “every now and then, I come to count the statues I own, huh, huh, huh.”

My God – I can't even think of any witty commentary on this one. It totally defies any kind of understanding. There are some films that just have to be seen to be believed, and then there is Wolf Devil Woman – a film that even while you are watching it, you can't believe it. The only film I can even compare this to is Troll 2 – and this is a very, very good thing. Bad movies come a peso a dozen, but what is rare are films like Troll 2 and Wolf Devil Woman. These kinds of films exist in a nexus of the space-time continuum that is only accessible through certain portals, certain portals that open only once in a very great while. While these warp-holes to the netherverse are usually closed, for the good of all mankind, sometimes a director, with a very special talent, comes back from the uncharted regions of the deepest part of the cinematic-universe and unleashes a film so heinously bad, it becomes a marvel and a gem of a motion picture. Pearl Cheung Ling is such a director, and Wolf Devil Woman is such a film.

It was a good thing I wasn't expecting it to be loaded with kung fu action because this movie barely had any at all. The version I watched was a original Ocean Shores VCD, and Disc 1 (the first 40 minutes of the movie) only contained a little over a minute of action. The story in this movie was not your typical revenge/avenge plot line, it was about one mean and nasty villain simply known as "The Devil" threatening the well-being of so many people, in which they are giving so much time to submit to his request. Instead of bowing down to this evil villain, they decide the only way to fight him off and the super power in which he possesses of freezing someone's blood and deeming that person a living corpse, they need to find thousand year old ginseng. Two young men by the incredibly cool Chinese names of "Rudy" and "Rudolph" set out to the mountain range in search of the thousand year old herb. In their journey they come across a pack of wolves (which I'm pretty sure were actually German Shepard's and other K-9 species) and a woman whom they later realized had been raised amongst the wolves. She could not speak, and behaved very much like someone who had no previous contact with an actual person before. Of course as it can only happen in the movies, they teach her to talk very quickly and she became less animal-like and more like a woman. Without going into too much detail about what happens after this point, I can just say this movie is definitely more of a "fantasy" kung fu film than anything else. While it did not contain loads of action, or really even good action, I was still intrigued by the characters and the story, exactly what was going to happen next. The ending, particularly the last 3 minutes of the movie had a couple nice plot twist, that even caught me by surprise. I always love a nice plot twist. Not to mention the oh so cheesy special effects, George Lucas would have been proud.

COMEDY, WAS IT FUNNY?
Amongst the two main male characters, "Rudy" was the comic relief which I can see to some people watching this movie becoming quickly annoyed by this character. One thing I found quite funny but was not intended to be, was the effects which really weren't quite 'special' and the props used in the film. I don't want to ruin the element of surprise for those of you who have not seen this movie and may actually intend to one day, so I'll leave it at that.

HOW'S THE ACTION?
The action consisted more of very high jumps with the help of wires, more so than actual martial action. The action was very limited in this film, action junkies may want to pass on this one. What little action that there was in the film, did not look so good due to maybe bad editing and the fact that those involved did not look too convincing in what they were doing. I do have to say it was still fun to watch.

BLOODY OR NOT?
Blood, yes. More than your typical kung fu/fantasy movie. There was rabbit blood, chicken blood, wolf (dog) blood, human blood, wolf woman blood, living corpse blood, etc. There was a scene in which a rabbit gets shot right through the neck with an arrow. I don't know if they set up the rabbit to only look like an arrow was sticking through its neck, but something tells me that they did actually shoot it and the poor thing probably did really get BBQ'd up and eaten.

STANDOUT PERFORMANCE(s)
There really isn't one person that stands out to me in this movie, but because this was my first real Pearl Cheung movie, and because she was raised by wolves her whole life and never had contact with another human being, BUT STILL managed to be wearing make-up and red lipstick the whole time I have to say she still looked good for such a beastly woman. Not the best actress I have ever seen, but like I said before she was fun to watch and helped to keep the movie interesting.

RENT, BUY, or PASS
Action junkies may want to stay clear of this movie altogether. Kung fu/fantasy/strange movie fans will definitely want to pick this one up, especially if you have screening parties and watch movies with a group of friends, most certainly a great party movie. Sure to please.

5 Reasons why you SHOULD or SHOULDN'T buy this movie

1. You SHOULD buy this movie to see dog actors pretending they are wolves. (LOL)
2. You SHOULD buy this movie if you are a fan of strange martial arts film, as this has to be one of the strangest ones I have seen to date..
3. You SHOULDN'T buy this movie if you are a action junkie, as this movie barely has any fights.
4. You SHOULD buy this movie you are a fan of incredibly cheesy special effects, sometimes the cheesier the more fun a movie can be.
5. You SHOULD buy this Ocean Shores VCD from HKFLIX by clicking this link, as it is being sold at a good price and you would also be helping out SHAOLIN CHAMBER in the process.