Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 2: And this is Joe McCormick, and oh boy, we got
Speaker 2: a good one for you today. This was our episode
Speaker 2: on a Chinese ghost Story. This one was a movie
Speaker 2: from nineteen eighty seven that has Oh boy, it has romance,
Speaker 2: it has adventure, it has monsters, screaming skulls, all that
Speaker 2: good stuff. So yeah, I think we will Well, wait
Speaker 2: a minute. I didn't say when it aired. This was
Speaker 2: from June seventeenth, twenty twenty two. That's when it was.
Speaker 3: Enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production
Speaker 3: of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 2: And I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: So last year around this time, we watched the highly
Speaker 1: influential Chinese supernatural horror comedy Mister Vampire from teen eighty five.
Speaker 1: So we're returning once more to the genre with another
Speaker 1: important eighties Hong Kong film, this time with romance thrown
Speaker 1: in amid all the martial arts, spookiness and comedy. It's
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty Seven's a Chinese ghost Story.
Speaker 2: This was a great movie. I was surprised how much
Speaker 2: I loved this one, and much like the Lorelized Grasp,
Speaker 2: this is another monster romance movie, except in this one
Speaker 2: the romance is perhaps not as tragic and doomed as usual.
Speaker 2: It basically has a happy ending.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it does. When we were looking for a
Speaker 1: film to follow up Mister Vampire here, I was looking
Speaker 1: at this, and we were also looking at Encounters of
Speaker 1: the Spooky Kind, which is another big film in this area.
Speaker 1: Ended up moving towards this one after we watched the trailer.
Speaker 1: There are a number of amazing elements to it, though
Speaker 1: we may get back to Spooky Encounters in the future.
Speaker 2: You know. Much like Mister Vampire, this also has just
Speaker 2: a rad butt whipping Taoist priest yep. But unlike Mister Vampire,
Speaker 2: the Taoist priest in this movie has a musical number,
Speaker 2: and it is a rap about the doo. I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought you were talking about another scene and
Speaker 1: exaggerating a bit when you texted me about this, because
Speaker 1: you were watching the second half of the movie before
Speaker 1: I did. And no, it's as close to a full
Speaker 1: on rap as you could possibly expect in an eighties
Speaker 1: period piece. Chinese supernatural romance comedy.
Speaker 2: And it's the only musical number in the movie. I mean,
Speaker 2: the movie has songs in it that have like lyrics,
Speaker 2: but they're not sung by the characters. This is the
Speaker 2: only song I think in the entire runtime that a
Speaker 2: character on screen sings.
Speaker 1: Aside from one little song that our lead character sort
Speaker 1: of sings, kind of a whistling in the dark sequence
Speaker 1: as he's running through the woods and trying to keep
Speaker 1: himself from being completely terrified by all the wolves and
Speaker 1: ghosts that are about.
Speaker 2: I carry the six Classics in my heart. Yeah, yeah, well, okay,
Speaker 2: what's the elevator pitch on this one?
Speaker 1: The elevator pitch pretty simple. Life is tough when you're
Speaker 1: an impoverished scholar with impossible dreams, and also when you
Speaker 1: have a ghost for a girlfriend.
Speaker 2: Ooh yeah, it's rough. I like how you picked up
Speaker 2: on direct lyrics from those songs that the play in
Speaker 2: the background that's not from the dowrap, that's from there's
Speaker 2: like a recurring sort of lyrical motif about how you
Speaker 2: must pursue impossible dreams passionately.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, one thing we will drive home here is
Speaker 1: that the version we watched, which was as of This
Speaker 1: recording streaming on Amazon Prime is in Cantonese with subtitles,
Speaker 1: and the subtitles were at least good enough, but there
Speaker 1: were some obvious errors here and there, as well as
Speaker 1: sort of the traditional thing you might run into with subtitles,
Speaker 1: where you might question whether this was the most most
Speaker 1: elegant translation possible. And also you get into the issue
Speaker 1: of okay, what is this comedic line actually translating through?
Speaker 1: Most of the time, it doesn't matter. Most of the
Speaker 1: comedy in this film shines right through the barrier of language.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I found it extremely funny. I think the
Speaker 2: comedy totally works across culturally. But yeah, so what I
Speaker 2: would say is that the subtitles in this movie seemed
Speaker 2: wrong in a way that had nothing to do with
Speaker 2: translation errors. Like there were a lot of errors that
Speaker 2: look like the kind you get from scanning in a
Speaker 2: printed document into digital text, where things like lowercase o's
Speaker 2: and a's being exchanged for one another. So I remember
Speaker 2: one line and the subtitle said evil will never overcame good. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm curious what process led to this. Could it be?
Speaker 2: Could somehow there'd be a scanning of a paper document
Speaker 2: to create the English subtitles. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, well let's go ahead and hear at
Speaker 1: least some of the trailer. We probably won't play the
Speaker 1: entire trailer this time, but it will give you just
Speaker 1: a taste of the sonic world.
Speaker 2: Of this film, all maimung Yong, do.
Speaker 1: You go? All right? That? Of course, that can only
Speaker 1: partially prepare you for the sights and the sequences, because
Speaker 1: this is this is a really fun film with a
Speaker 1: tremendous flair for the fantastic. Uh, some great martial arts sequences,
Speaker 1: some solid slapstick. It has just about everything he could want.
Speaker 2: So I've read that this movie actually has sort of
Speaker 2: a cult following among young people in mainland China, even
Speaker 2: though it was not released in theaters in mainland China
Speaker 2: when it first came out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you sent me a paper about this. I
Speaker 1: was looking at that, and yeah, it's interesting one. This
Speaker 1: one's one that definitely pops up in Michael Weldon's books
Speaker 1: here in the West, the Psychotronic Film Guides, where he
Speaker 1: was a big fan of it was like, yes, go
Speaker 1: out and see this film. So it sounds like it's
Speaker 1: a film that, yeah, maybe didn't get released the way
Speaker 1: they might have wanted to release it initially in mainland China,
Speaker 1: but subsequently the seeds grew in both the East and
Speaker 1: the West, with people coming to appreciate all the things
Speaker 1: this film has to offer.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot about it that's more subtle
Speaker 2: than you might expect. Like, this movie is tonally weird,
Speaker 2: but in a very nice way. Like It's it walks
Speaker 2: this strange boundary between being earnest, almost to the point
Speaker 2: of being sappy, but also being very ironic and sort
Speaker 2: of making a mockery of authority and tradition at the
Speaker 2: same time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it is a nice balance like it There's
Speaker 1: there's definitely slapstick, and there are definitely some just outrageous
Speaker 1: comedic performances sprinkled here and there. But it's done in
Speaker 1: a way where we're yeah, like the parts that are
Speaker 1: serious and the parts that are romantic, Uh, they're they're
Speaker 1: allowed room to breathe and feel authentic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is this is not a movie that is
Speaker 2: sucking up to the powerful. It's like it's full of bosses, policemen, magistrates,
Speaker 2: basically anybody in a position of authority in this movie
Speaker 2: is viciously mocked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you can see how it would appeal to
Speaker 1: the young people. And we'll get into some of the
Speaker 1: examples of the of this in a bit, because yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're they're numerous terrible mortal authorities and you know,
Speaker 1: I guess the the the supernatural authorities are pretty corrupt
Speaker 1: as well. All Right, let's talk about some of the
Speaker 1: people involved in this, because it does have some interesting
Speaker 1: connections and uh, and it is a it is a
Speaker 1: pretty big film. Like a lot of the people involved
Speaker 1: in this were names at the time or certainly went
Speaker 1: on to become big names in Hong Kong cinema and
Speaker 1: or international cinema. So first of all, let's start with
Speaker 1: the director. This is Sutong Qing born nineteen fifty three,
Speaker 1: also one of the martial arts directors on the film,
Speaker 1: Hong Kong action choreographer, actor, film director and producer. Probably
Speaker 1: best known for this film, but he also directed such
Speaker 1: movies as nineteen eighty six's Which from Nepal, a supernatural
Speaker 1: film starring Chao Yon Fat, nineteen ninety three's The Mad
Speaker 1: Monks starring Stephen Chow, nineteen ninety eights An Empress and
Speaker 1: The Warriors starring Donnie Yin and twenty elevens The Sorcer
Speaker 1: and the White Snake starring Jet Lee. So clearly he's
Speaker 1: worked with some of the biggest names in Chinese cinema
Speaker 1: at different points in their career.
Speaker 2: Wait, I thought I saw maybe did Suetung Ching also
Speaker 2: do Hero? The Jet Lee movie.
Speaker 1: I think he was an action coordinator on that one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because yeah, because there are a number of credits that
Speaker 1: he has that are pretty impressive that in which he
Speaker 1: didn't direct them, but he was involved in choreographing the
Speaker 1: martial arts. Because he's a guy. His father was actually
Speaker 1: a Shaw Brothers studio director, and so he kind of
Speaker 1: like came up in the system, I'm to understand. So yeah,
Speaker 1: he even his just stunt directing credits are pretty pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: So you have two thousand and two's Hero, and according
Speaker 1: to IMDb, he was an uncredited stunt coordinator on two
Speaker 1: thousand and two Spider Man, the Sam Raimi film. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if IMDb is one hundred percent accurate on
Speaker 1: that account.
Speaker 2: Though you're right. I just double checked. He did not
Speaker 2: direct Hero. He did action choreography and also also did
Speaker 2: action choreography for House of Flying Daggers.
Speaker 1: Oh oh yeah, that's a solid one too, so big
Speaker 1: name this guy. He has at least one American film, though,
Speaker 1: a film with a notable American presence, and that is
Speaker 1: two thousand and three's Belly of the be starring Steven Sagal.
Speaker 2: It is almost it almost makes me want to scream
Speaker 2: imagining someone of the talents of Su Tung Ching being
Speaker 2: wasted on a vehicle for Steven Sagal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you pulled up a clip of this an action
Speaker 1: sequence from this film, which I mean, as far as
Speaker 1: action sequence goes, is not bad, but.
Speaker 2: It's not great.
Speaker 1: It's not good.
Speaker 2: But there's the.
Speaker 1: Steven Sagall presence is almost too distracting because it's in
Speaker 1: this film. I think he's playing uh, the basic, the
Speaker 1: basic Stephen Sagall character where he's he's a CIA agent
Speaker 1: but he's also a Buddhist master, uh, and he's really
Speaker 1: great with martial arts also guns. Like that's that's most
Speaker 1: Steven Sagall roles, if not all of them.
Speaker 2: He's ex black ops, I'm retired now.
Speaker 1: And then he's job. There's an IMDb trivia piece about
Speaker 1: that film, Belly of the Beast, which says that that
Speaker 1: basically they shot everything without Stephen Sagall and then we're
Speaker 1: just going to bring him in at the very end
Speaker 1: to do his shots, a lot of close up shots
Speaker 1: and all that sort of thing, which I guess you
Speaker 1: could interpret interpret one of two ways, right, either a
Speaker 1: Steven Sagal has a busy schedule or as expensive you're
Speaker 1: only going to have him for a short, short amount
Speaker 1: of time. I know sometimes it's been said that he
Speaker 1: doesn't like actually work very long during a given shoot,
Speaker 1: so you know, they're just being economic about the whole thing,
Speaker 1: or perhaps there was a certain reputation in place and
Speaker 1: they thought, well, we need to be prepared to use
Speaker 1: this little Steven Saghal as necessary. And according to this
Speaker 1: bit of IMDb trivia, if it is accurate, is like
Speaker 1: he showed up this last day. Everything else has been shot.
Speaker 1: They just need to shoot some scenes so that they
Speaker 1: can insert Segal in. You know, the rest of the
Speaker 1: stuff has been done with stunt doubles. But he had
Speaker 1: ideas about how things needed to be shot that of
Speaker 1: course would just wreck everything else. So Ching says, okay,
Speaker 1: that's fine, you can just you can shoot it yourself.
Speaker 1: We'll leave and look at kind of like a standoff
Speaker 1: and a studio put enough pressure on him that he
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, I'll go along it with this, and
Speaker 1: so the film was actually finished.
Speaker 2: That's a that's a heck of a bluff. You deal
Speaker 2: with somebody who you know is an ego man but
Speaker 2: is also lazy, and so you're hoping the latter will
Speaker 2: win out over the former.
Speaker 1: But to be clear, I have not seen Belly of
Speaker 1: the Beast in its entirety, so I don't know if
Speaker 1: you if you have out there, if any of you
Speaker 1: were Steven Seagal's connoisseurs, feel free to correct us on
Speaker 1: the quality of this motion picture.
Speaker 2: You know, my feeling is Steven Saghal is you know,
Speaker 2: you know, you always know what you're getting with that.
Speaker 2: So really the quality of one of his movies has
Speaker 2: to do with how Zany is whoever they cast is
Speaker 2: the main villain, and so like you can really achieve
Speaker 2: a certain peaks of of of greatness in like under
Speaker 2: Siege too dark Territory just because because Eric Bogosia and
Speaker 2: he is going going crazy on the computer.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah. I remember enjoying that one way back
Speaker 1: in the day when I saw it on the HS
Speaker 1: or something.
Speaker 2: It's still pretty hilarious.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, let's get into the writing on this one.
Speaker 1: This is this because this is pretty interesting. First of all,
Speaker 1: the screenplay was written by Kai Chi Yun. Dates unknown,
Speaker 1: or at least I wasn't able to pull him up,
Speaker 1: but he was seemingly active eighty three through twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: so may still be active. A screenwriter who went on
Speaker 1: to work on nineteen ninety four's The Legend of Drunken
Speaker 1: Master and nineteen ninety one's Once Upon a Time in China,
Speaker 1: and also twenty twenties The Enchanting Phantom, which seems to feature,
Speaker 1: like this film, a scholar who falls in love with
Speaker 1: a ghost. As we'll discuss like this, there have been
Speaker 1: multiple adaptations of the source material here.
Speaker 2: Oh right, So yeah, I wasn't aware of this when
Speaker 2: I was first looking at the movie, but you told me.
Speaker 2: This is based on a story by pousong Ling from
Speaker 2: the original The Tales from a Chinese studio it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, poosong Ling, who we've discussed in the show
Speaker 1: before both I Think Weird House and Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind, was aching Dynasty writer who lived sixteen forty
Speaker 1: through seventeen fifteen, and he mostly worked as a tutor
Speaker 1: during his own lifetime, but along the way he collected
Speaker 1: and wrote down a number of weird stories that he
Speaker 1: heard and he picked up, and a lot of these
Speaker 1: stories that were later published after his death as Strange
Speaker 1: Stories or Strange Tales from a Chinese studio in seventeen forty.
Speaker 1: A lot of them have that air to them where
Speaker 1: he'll be writing and he'll say, so and so told
Speaker 1: me this tale. I heard this tale from such and such,
Speaker 1: so and so swore that this was the truth, and
Speaker 1: the like.
Speaker 2: Every time I've read one of these stories, I find
Speaker 2: it very exciting because they don't usually conform to the
Speaker 2: standard narrative structure that you expect from Western fairy tales.
Speaker 2: Get they're just full of surprises, at least to me.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you are more familiar with Chinese
Speaker 2: traditional stories if the structures are more predictable, but at
Speaker 2: least to me, everyone is just full of surprises.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they very tremendously. Some of them are scary, some
Speaker 1: of them are funny, some of them are both. There
Speaker 1: are at least a few that are a little bit body.
Speaker 1: There are some that are essentially like, hey, this weird
Speaker 1: thing happened. How about that? That's the whole story. They
Speaker 1: just kind of abruptly end, like there was there's one
Speaker 1: where it's like there's this old guy that would travel
Speaker 1: around and he had these mice in his backpack. I
Speaker 1: think they were mice, and they would come out and
Speaker 1: basically do like a flea circus. They would do like
Speaker 1: a little circus and perform, and then he would carry
Speaker 1: on his way, and there's no story. It's just a
Speaker 1: small tale of wonder or an account of something marvelous
Speaker 1: that was experienced or seen.
Speaker 2: Now, from what I gather, the main elements of the
Speaker 2: pousong Ling story are carried over into the movie, but
Speaker 2: it's probably worth discussing the differences because from what I understand,
Speaker 2: the pousong Ling story is not quite as sweet as
Speaker 2: the movie is.
Speaker 1: It's well, there's I guess there's less room for sweetness
Speaker 1: in it, but it's not unsweet.
Speaker 2: Well, I just remember something about the scholars like already
Speaker 2: married when he meets the ghost woman and he has
Speaker 2: to wait for his wife to die or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well but he's very polite about it, so yeah.
Speaker 1: The original story is sometimes titled The Magic Sword or
Speaker 1: the Magic Sword in the Magic Bag. That's the title
Speaker 1: in the Penguin edition of Strange Tales, which is definitely
Speaker 1: worth picking up picking up and has some nice notes
Speaker 1: on it, but the basic bones of the movie are present.
Speaker 1: In that story. A traveling scholar is too poor to
Speaker 1: stay in town, so he goes out to an old
Speaker 1: temple to sleep, and he encounters both a magical swordsman
Speaker 1: and a ghost who reveals that she haunts the temple
Speaker 1: due to improper burial is and has been forced to
Speaker 1: do the bidding of a yaksha demon that's sort of
Speaker 1: like a corrupt in this case, a corrupt nature spirit,
Speaker 1: a malevolent nature spirit, though I don't think all yakshas
Speaker 1: are necessarily malevolent. The magic sword in question is a
Speaker 1: miniature sword that gives the swordsman his power, and he
Speaker 1: also has a bag, the magic bag from the title,
Speaker 1: which he gives to the scholar, and we later find
Speaker 1: out that this was the swordsman's head bag, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: he ends up falling in love with this ghost woman.
Speaker 1: He digs up her grave, takes her remains home to
Speaker 1: his own home, buries them there, and as a way
Speaker 1: of thanking him, she says, well, why don't I be
Speaker 1: a servant here? And he's like, yes, that would be great.
Speaker 1: So she's a servant. Then eventually his wife dies of
Speaker 1: consumption or it's translated his consumption in the version I read,
Speaker 1: and at that point he marries her. They have a child.
Speaker 1: He also gets a concubine and has a child through
Speaker 1: the concubine. These are the details that are given. But
Speaker 1: then she also has another child, so you know, it's
Speaker 1: essentially a happy ending. Especially as far as tales about
Speaker 1: marrying a spirit or or a fox spirit or a
Speaker 1: ghost or something. A lot of times there's a there's
Speaker 1: a twist at the end that's there to get you.
Speaker 1: So as far as those sorts of stories go, i'd
Speaker 1: say it's a happy end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, why don't you take that ribbon off your neck?
Speaker 2: Kind of twists?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. Anyway, it's a fun story. Sometimes you'll, i
Speaker 1: think on IMDb in some places you'll see it credited
Speaker 1: as a novel. It's not a novel. It's like a
Speaker 1: ten minute read.
Speaker 2: If that, well, I should I should go read it.
Speaker 2: I have enjoyed literally every poo song link story I've read.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get into the cast a little bit
Speaker 1: at the top of this playing our impover's scholar with
Speaker 1: impossible dreams. It's Leslie Chung playing the scholar ling choice son.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 1: Leslie Chung was born nineteen fifty six died in two
Speaker 1: thousand and three. He was a huge star of music
Speaker 1: and was apparently a Kanto pop pioneer, so that's like
Speaker 1: Chinese Hong Kong pop music of the time. I believe.
Speaker 1: His first album came out in nineteen seventy eight and
Speaker 1: he started appearing in films that same year. He was
Speaker 1: especially big in the eighties, noted for is in androgynist style.
Speaker 1: After immigrating to Canada in the nineteen nineties, he famously
Speaker 1: came out as bisexual in Time Magazine a Time Magazine interview,
Speaker 1: which was quite a move at the time, especially in
Speaker 1: the within the Chinese film industry. Now, this is a
Speaker 1: fun fact. He chose the Leslie moniker. You often see this,
Speaker 1: especially with Hong Kong actors. You know they'll choose the
Speaker 1: sort of a Western first name. He chose Leslie as
Speaker 1: a tribute to the British actor Leslie Howard, who's probably
Speaker 1: best remembered in general for being the you know, the
Speaker 1: star of such films as nineteen thirty eight Pygmalion for
Speaker 1: Appearing and Gone with the Wind. But I imagine you and
Speaker 1: I probably know him best from the I think, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, pretty excellent nineteen thirty six film The Petrified Forest.
Speaker 2: Oh who was he in that?
Speaker 1: He's the he's the lead. Well, he's actually a traveling
Speaker 1: scholar in that. Oh, okay, Leslie Howard is he's been
Speaker 1: traveling across he's the British character.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought I'd like to see the Pacific Ocean
Speaker 2: perhaps ruey that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he's the star opposite Betty Davis.
Speaker 2: Okay, as soon as you said that, it makes it.
Speaker 2: I can hear his voice that. Yeah. But this is
Speaker 2: also the guy who played like Ashley Wilkes and Gone
Speaker 2: with the Wind and on all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it kind of kind of classic looking, dry, handsome dude.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Leslie Cheung sadly took his own life in two thousand
Speaker 1: and three, and the twenty eleven remake of a Chinese
Speaker 1: Ghost Story was dedicated to his memory, but he left
Speaker 1: behind a pretty extensive filmography, including Days of Being Wild,
Speaker 1: Ashes of Time and Nomad, a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: serious dramas, so this one. I'm not an expert on
Speaker 1: his filmography, but I get the feeling like this is
Speaker 1: kind of more of a standout in that it's an
Speaker 1: action comedy, because it seems like most of the films
Speaker 1: he's really well known for are serious dramas, including two
Speaker 1: key Chinese LGBTQ films of the era, Farewell, My Concubine
Speaker 1: and nineteen ninety seven's Happy Together. His co star in
Speaker 1: that film was Tony Lung, another huge name in Chinese
Speaker 1: cinema who many of you may know from in The
Speaker 1: Mood for Love, Internal Affairs, The Grand Master, and most
Speaker 1: recently Shang Chi and The Legend of the Ten Rings,
Speaker 1: in which he played the title character's father, which is
Speaker 1: a really great role in that movie, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: great Marvel movie, perhaps my favorite Marvel movie that's come out.
Speaker 2: Well. I think Leslie Chung is excellent in this movie,
Speaker 2: and I can see that he wouldn't have normally been
Speaker 2: in action or horror related movies because he's he is
Speaker 2: the hero of this film, but he's not an action hero, like,
Speaker 2: he doesn't do a lot of physical fighting. He really
Speaker 2: only has a few moments of physical heroism. Mostly he's
Speaker 2: a hero by being a sort of meek nerd who
Speaker 2: finds courage by falling in love.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. So, yeah, you're not going to see him
Speaker 1: do huge action sequences. We have other characters to do
Speaker 1: those scenes. Yes, all right, well, let's let's mention his
Speaker 1: romantic interest. Our lady ghost is this is the character Susinne,
Speaker 1: played by Joey Wang born nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 2: She's great too. I'd say the whole main cast, the
Speaker 2: three main characters of this movie, all three are fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think one of the great things about
Speaker 1: Joey Wang in this is that you might expect a
Speaker 1: character like this, who again is a ghost woman in
Speaker 1: a Chinese period piece. Essentially, you could expect this to
Speaker 1: be be very one note, very passive in many ways,
Speaker 1: and we do see some other examples of female ghosts
Speaker 1: that very much match that template. But in this she's
Speaker 1: delightful and funny. You know, she's being ghostly and haunting
Speaker 1: and sort of distant as needed, but throughout it she's
Speaker 1: also just you can see the charisma shining through.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and the scenes where she's supposed to be scary,
Speaker 2: she is pretty creepy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So she was active in film from nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: three through two thousand and four, probably best known for
Speaker 1: this film, but she was also in two of its sequels.
Speaker 1: Maybe these were the only two sequels. There's Chinese Ghost
Speaker 1: Story two three, She was in God of Gamblers, which
Speaker 1: I'll mention again in a minute, and also various supernatural films,
Speaker 1: including The Beheaded one thousand and nineteen ninety two's The
Speaker 1: Painted Skin, which is also based on a story recorded
Speaker 1: by pouson Le.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned the Chinese Ghost Story has two sequels.
Speaker 2: At least do you know anything about these or they.
Speaker 1: Supposed to know that some of the same characters come back,
Speaker 1: if not all the same characters like it yea. So
Speaker 1: beyond that, I'm not sure, but I think the at
Speaker 1: least the first sequel is also streaming on Prime, if
Speaker 1: not the third one as well, same director, I believe
Speaker 1: as well. Yeah, all right, now it's time to discuss
Speaker 1: our swordsmen. Swordsman Yen played by Wu Ma who lived
Speaker 1: nineteen forty two through twenty fourteen.
Speaker 2: This is our irreverent, wisecracking, tough Taoist priest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's amazing. The actor here Ma. He
Speaker 1: appeared in Writing Wrongs, the Dead and the Deadly Iron
Speaker 1: Monkey two Once Upon a Time in China. He was
Speaker 1: also in at least the first sequel, Chinese Ghost Story
Speaker 1: two and This is Fun. He was the rice seller
Speaker 1: in Mister Vampire. Do you remember this role.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's a scene in Mister Vampire where to repel
Speaker 2: the evil spirits they have to use glutinous rice, and
Speaker 2: apparently other types of rice will not do, so they're
Speaker 2: going to get the sticky rice, and the rice seller
Speaker 2: corruptly is trying to mix in some plain rice with
Speaker 2: the sticky rice to pull one over on the kid
Speaker 2: they send to buy the stuff. And I think this
Speaker 2: has disastrous consequences.
Speaker 1: This is fun because it reminds me of a line
Speaker 1: that Swordsman Yen has later on in the film, where
Speaker 1: he's getting very emotional about the fact that in the
Speaker 1: spirit world everything's black and white, you know exactly what
Speaker 1: side they stand on, but in the human realm, everything's complex,
Speaker 1: everything's potentially corrupted. So even though when you're dealing with
Speaker 1: the spirit world you know exactly what sort of rice
Speaker 1: you need, you know you know which side of of
Speaker 1: ordering chaos. Everyone stands on, but the human realm who
Speaker 1: knows the rice cellar might give you what you're paying for,
Speaker 1: or he might be cheating you.
Speaker 2: This is a great point and something I wanted to
Speaker 2: come back to. I would say this seems to be
Speaker 2: a major theme of the movie, like the part where
Speaker 2: so Swordsman Yen gives this speech about how he was
Speaker 2: he once a magistrate. They said he was like a.
Speaker 1: Judge or a magistrate, was a judge or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and so he was a judge, but he
Speaker 2: said he became sick of that job because you know,
Speaker 2: there was all this ambiguity and people were always lying
Speaker 2: and you could never know what's true. So instead he
Speaker 2: gave that up to go like kill ghosts, because there
Speaker 2: you always know what's right and wrong. You never have
Speaker 2: to wonder if you did the right thing. Now, I
Speaker 2: don't know if that's something that you can really live by,
Speaker 2: because of course, you know, we do have to make
Speaker 2: judgments all the time in situations where the facts are ambiguous.
Speaker 2: But it's interesting that this is expressed and sort of
Speaker 2: related to a couple of other things that come up
Speaker 2: in the movie, like the questions about you know, what
Speaker 2: is scarier mortals or ghosts. This comes up a few times.
Speaker 2: I think there's some kind of thread running through the
Speaker 2: movie about how I don't know, maybe the most treachery
Speaker 2: or danger is not always in the place you would
Speaker 2: expect it to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, Now Wuma, I should also note he has
Speaker 1: he has numerous other roles. I think he has something
Speaker 1: like two hundred and ninety four acting credits on IMDb,
Speaker 1: so I'm probably missing something else that stands out. But
Speaker 1: he also has forty three direction directorial credits, including the
Speaker 1: Chinese Ghostbuster and My Cousin the Ghost. So I guess
Speaker 1: it goes for any film scene that once you've been
Speaker 1: a part of a successful genre film, that genre or
Speaker 1: subgenre kind of becomes a part of you, at least
Speaker 1: professionally speaking.
Speaker 2: You know. You know those stories about certain big Hollywood
Speaker 2: celebrities who have their own like script doctors or agents
Speaker 2: who go through any script, you know, to like make
Speaker 2: sure that it's more it has lines that are sort
Speaker 2: of tailored to their personality. Yeah, I imagine that wu
Speaker 2: Ma has got to have a situation like that where
Speaker 2: like anytime he takes a role, they got to work
Speaker 2: a rap about the dow in there because once you've
Speaker 2: done that, you can't go back. It's like, that's got
Speaker 2: to be what people are looking for every time exactly.
Speaker 1: Now, those are the three main actors in the film,
Speaker 1: but there's some other performances of note I'm gonna mention
Speaker 1: them a little more briefly, but we have Why Lamb
Speaker 1: playing swordsman. How dates unknown, but this guy, I believe
Speaker 1: it's still active. This is a brash swordsman that's encountered
Speaker 1: early in the picture. Fun role. This guy's been in
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff over the years, including nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: three's The Boxer's Omen. This is a Shaw Brothers picture
Speaker 1: that's often held up as a prime example of a
Speaker 1: psychotronic film. It has a lot of really you know,
Speaker 1: kind of psychedelic imagery in it. So he's fun in
Speaker 1: this stern character while we lasts. He's on the original
Speaker 1: Chinese poster, so I guess he's worth mentioning here, though
Speaker 1: he doesn't really factor into the plot all that much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he dies I think like fifteen minutes into the movie,
Speaker 2: but he's very cool looking, so yeah, yeah, you gotta
Speaker 2: put him on the poster.
Speaker 1: We also have Sue mng Lao born nineteen thirty one,
Speaker 1: who plays the Tree Demon, one of our main antagonists.
Speaker 1: He was also in a bunch of films, including other
Speaker 1: Chinese ghost story movies I think this in the same
Speaker 1: character role, as well as a couple of big Jackie
Speaker 1: Chan movies. He was in the Legend of Drunken Master
Speaker 1: and The Medallion. Then this last acting credit I'm going
Speaker 1: to mention is just it's a small, outrageously over the
Speaker 1: top role. A crooked magistrate, a crooked judge. It doesn't
Speaker 1: have a name, but just so over the top, played
Speaker 1: by this actor Jing Wong born nineteen fifty five. It's
Speaker 1: worth calling out because Jingwong himself is a huge name
Speaker 1: in Hong Kong cinema, with over one hundred producing and
Speaker 1: directing credits across multiple genres, including the gambling genre, which
Speaker 1: I've read is one of his specialties. So he's responsible
Speaker 1: for that film God of Gamblers that I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: and he was apparently especially a big deal, big moneymaker
Speaker 1: in the nineteen nineties.
Speaker 2: He is funny in this, but it's not dry humor.
Speaker 2: He is like over there, he's like Jim carrying it up,
Speaker 2: you know, full body, just like wet Wet acting, and
Speaker 2: basically every line in his scene is him demanding a
Speaker 2: bribe from someone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of these roles where, yeah, it's just
Speaker 1: how over the top and how corrupt could we have
Speaker 1: a portrayal of a local magistrate and let's just have
Speaker 1: him say all the quiet, quiet things out loud, just
Speaker 1: blatantly talking about being lazy and wishing that we could
Speaker 1: just get a bribe and finish this early. It's fun,
Speaker 1: but it is. It's it's the hammiest part of the film.
Speaker 2: It's like, should I have you beaten and then demand
Speaker 2: a bribe? Or should I demand a bribe and then
Speaker 2: have you beaten?
Speaker 1: Exactly? All right? And finally, the music on this one,
Speaker 1: it's credited to Romeo Diaz and James Wong. James Wong
Speaker 1: lived forty through two thousand and four, and he's a
Speaker 1: particular note here because not only did he score a
Speaker 1: bunch of films, he also was a cantopop lyricist and songwriter,
Speaker 1: and he acted in a bunch of films, including Iron Monkey.
Speaker 1: The music in this I actually quite enjoyed. I would
Speaker 1: have to say there are may be a few cheesy
Speaker 1: parts here and there, but it has kind of this
Speaker 1: blending of a little bit of synth but also traditional
Speaker 1: music to invoke a dramatic, historical Chinese cinema feel.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know what the term for this is.
Speaker 2: This might be technically like a subgenre of cantopop, but
Speaker 2: it's Yeah, it's a type of Chinese popular music that
Speaker 2: has kind of like a lyrical ballad quality, very broad
Speaker 2: themes about love and dreams and stuff, and then like
Speaker 2: a flute in the background.
Speaker 1: Yeah. If there any cantopop fans out there, feel free
Speaker 1: to write in. We'd love to hear your thoughts on
Speaker 1: these names that we've referenced regarding kantapop. Please, all right, Well,
Speaker 1: shall we get into the plot of this one a bit?
Speaker 2: All right? Well, so this movie begins with our hero
Speaker 2: a good natured young scholar and debt collector. And I'm
Speaker 2: a little curious about the historical notes, like is it
Speaker 2: common for a young scholar to also be a debt collector?
Speaker 2: Or is that a strange pairing? I wasn't sure, but
Speaker 2: this is master ling choice on and I would I
Speaker 2: think I already said this, but I would describe Ling
Speaker 2: as in many ways kind of your classic film nerd
Speaker 2: hero He is initially timid. He's meek, frail, unlucky, but
Speaker 2: he's also kind hearted, and through falling in love, he
Speaker 2: discovers an inner courage that he never knew he possessed before,
Speaker 2: and that's sort of the arc of his heroism. But
Speaker 2: he acquires friends along the way who will sort of
Speaker 2: complement his abilities when they face the big demons at
Speaker 2: the end.
Speaker 1: Young scholars like this are pretty much doomed to be
Speaker 1: seduced by ghosts or fox spirits and tales like this,
Speaker 1: and I guess, I guess that trope kind of transcends
Speaker 1: Chinese tales in general. You know, you're probably having lonely
Speaker 1: scholars in various cultures writing fictional tales about lonely scholars
Speaker 1: being seduced by, you know, invisible lovers and so forth.
Speaker 2: So anyway, at the outside of the story, Master Ling
Speaker 2: is roaming through the countryside. He's on a journey. He
Speaker 2: seems to be headed for a particular town on a
Speaker 2: mission to collect debts for his boss. I've also seen
Speaker 2: him described in some sources as a tax collector, though
Speaker 2: the movie makes it seem more like he's supposed to
Speaker 2: be working from a ledger of private debts. Maybe there's
Speaker 2: some overlap of these things within the historical setting. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like there's that one scene where I guess we'll
Speaker 1: probably describing a bit here where something happens to the
Speaker 1: tax ledger and the individual he's visiting. He's like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I don't owe you anything now, then get out of here.
Speaker 1: And granted this is a broad comedy, but one wonders
Speaker 1: if that is the response you would have towards towards
Speaker 1: the state debt versus private debt at this time.
Speaker 2: Right, So, anyway, we watch young master Ling. He's sort
Speaker 2: of traveling around the forests and the byways, and the
Speaker 2: movie's weird sense of humor immediately comes through, even in
Speaker 2: this opening montage, because there's a part where we see
Speaker 2: Lings sit down to eat lunch, I think, and when
Speaker 2: he tries to bite into something. Is this a piece
Speaker 2: of bread? It's some kind of food. It might be
Speaker 2: a roll or something bun I'm guessing, yeah, And he
Speaker 2: bites into it and it's too hard for his teeth
Speaker 2: to pierce, like he almost cracks a tooth on it.
Speaker 2: And then he bashes the bread against a rock and
Speaker 2: the rock cracks in half, and then he kicks the
Speaker 2: bread and frustration and it punches a hole in his shoe.
Speaker 2: He is toe poking out.
Speaker 1: All of this stuff here. It has this kind of
Speaker 1: almost silent era like Buster Keaton or Yes where Charlie
Speaker 1: Chaplin kind of vibe to it.
Speaker 2: Totally yeah, like like modern times or the kid Yeah Oh.
Speaker 2: In the whole time, there is this this sentimental song
Speaker 2: playing about how you must pursue beautiful, impossible dreams.
Speaker 1: So clearly he's just having problems with this mundane aspirations
Speaker 1: like can I have shoes without holes in them? Can
Speaker 1: I have an umbrella that's not already shredded? That sort
Speaker 1: of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, is collecting debts in rural townships his impossible dream.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. But ling he gets lost because
Speaker 2: he doesn't he reads a sign thats like the town
Speaker 2: is three miles south, But then he's like which way
Speaker 2: is south? And his compass needle is just spinning wildly
Speaker 2: all over the place, and he gets caught in a
Speaker 2: storm and he tries to open his umbrella and it's
Speaker 2: riven with holes. So he's just having a bad, bad
Speaker 2: day and eventually takes shelter under an abandoned pavilion, and
Speaker 2: let's see this point. Suddenly, oh, this is a swordsman
Speaker 2: runs up. You hear somebody saying don't run away, And
Speaker 2: I think this is the first instance of a theme
Speaker 2: repeated for comedy throughout the movie, which is people shouting
Speaker 2: don't run or don't go yeah, which is later, well,
Speaker 2: we can save the Keystone cops thing until we get
Speaker 2: to the town, but yeah, it'll be a common thing
Speaker 2: that the police respond to once we get into town.
Speaker 2: And so there's a swordsman chasing down a bunch of
Speaker 2: thieves and he chases them to right in front of
Speaker 2: the little hut where master Ling is hanging out and
Speaker 2: he and then master Ling just stands there. So he
Speaker 2: catches them, he beats them up, and then the last
Speaker 2: thief there says to the swordsman, please, sir, forgive us.
Speaker 2: I'll return your money to you. And Ling is just
Speaker 2: standing there, frozen in fear, watching the swordsman execute the
Speaker 2: thieves who stole from him.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Their head's top toppling through the air.
Speaker 2: It's one yeah, yeah, heads are rolling. And then when
Speaker 2: the swordsman slashes the very last guy, it squirts blood
Speaker 2: directly into Ling's mouth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like, oh, he's just yeah, just horrified.
Speaker 2: So he's standing there terrified, and then there's a moment
Speaker 2: where the swordsman seems to take pity on Ling. He
Speaker 2: tosses him a bun. It's a soft bun this time,
Speaker 2: and he kind of makes this face that I took
Speaker 2: a screen grab of for you to see, Rob because
Speaker 2: the swordsman's face here is really good. It's it's almost
Speaker 2: like it could be the new Robert Redford nodding meme.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I can see it. Yeah, I mean, this
Speaker 1: guy's this guy has made a fabulous and violent introduction.
Speaker 1: He looks really cool. I have to say. He's dressed
Speaker 1: all in black with some gold and a little bit
Speaker 1: of red, so yeah, he looks fierce. And now he's
Speaker 1: just sitting down casually having a bun, and he's like, hey, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're all right here, I have a bun too.
Speaker 2: He has a profound jaw, it's.
Speaker 1: Possibly because he has part of a bun in his
Speaker 1: mouth in this shot.
Speaker 2: But as soon as the swordsman walks away, Ling spits
Speaker 2: out his bun all over the place and he scrambles
Speaker 2: and fearing get stuck in the mud. As he's strengfly.
Speaker 2: But next we come to Ling's arrival in town, and
Speaker 2: there are a number of things to discuss here, because
Speaker 2: he'll return to town several times. And there are these
Speaker 2: running jokes. I think one is sort of the Keystone Cops.
Speaker 2: So there are police or soldiers in town. Who are
Speaker 2: they are trying to catch criminals? I think because there
Speaker 2: are bounties for criminals. But what this turns into is
Speaker 2: anytime they hear somebody say like don't go or don't
Speaker 2: run or don't leave, they immediately start chasing and just
Speaker 2: grabbing people because they say anytime someone says don't go,
Speaker 2: that's because they're saying it to a thief who has
Speaker 2: stolen something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And then here they come running in. They're like
Speaker 1: who said that? Who said that? Good? And they're chasing
Speaker 1: after them.
Speaker 2: And so one of the things that happens is these
Speaker 2: these incompetent policemen like grab poor poor Ling and they
Speaker 2: like shove them up against a wall. And then they're
Speaker 2: looking at all of these drawings of criminals unwanted posters
Speaker 2: and they're like, ah, he's not any of them. Get
Speaker 2: rid of him. But as they shove him up against
Speaker 2: a wall, they press him against the front of a
Speaker 2: stall of I'm not sure what this profession would be,
Speaker 2: like an undertaker or a funeral arts master. Anyway, somehow
Speaker 2: ling gets pressed against a wall covered in joss paper
Speaker 2: or money for the Dead, some kind of funerary printed material.
Speaker 1: Yeah, paper talisman, ceiling spells, that sort of thing. These,
Speaker 1: of course, were also featured in or very similar talismans
Speaker 1: were featured in Nature Vampire as being something that you
Speaker 1: could use to sort of deactivate a vampire, to deactivate
Speaker 1: a djung shei.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, you'd put the kind of like yellow receipt
Speaker 2: on their forehead and they would power down.
Speaker 1: But yeah, he's been pressed up against them, so initially
Speaker 1: he has them stuck to his back, and later on,
Speaker 1: once they've been peeled away, they've still stained the the
Speaker 1: text onto the back of his shirt.
Speaker 2: So his back now has warding magic power that he's
Speaker 2: completely unaware of. Yeah, but like you mentioned earlier, when
Speaker 2: he goes to collect his debts, he oh, so he
Speaker 2: shows up at like a tavern and he's talking to
Speaker 2: the tavern owner and he's like, hey, you know, it's
Speaker 2: time to pay up, And the tavern owner says, why
Speaker 2: a different debt collector every time, and Ling is like, ah,
Speaker 2: the last one was murdered. And then the By the way,
Speaker 2: this movie is just it takes place in a world
Speaker 2: where everybody is constantly getting murdered. Like basically half the
Speaker 2: characters that are encountered or mentioned at some point are murdered. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a it's a lawless land. But so the tavern
Speaker 2: owner then says to Ling, he says, well, since you're
Speaker 2: going to be murdered anyway, why don't you do me
Speaker 2: a favor and not collect the debt? And Ling's like,
Speaker 2: don't make jokes. But then when he opens up his
Speaker 2: account books, they're ruined because they got soaked I think
Speaker 2: in the rain or maybe when he got stuck in
Speaker 2: mud somehow. They're all wet, and now the records are destroyed.
Speaker 2: And when the tavern owner discovers this, he is overjoyed.
Speaker 2: He's like, as there's no record in the accounts, that
Speaker 2: means I don't owe any money, which Ling has no
Speaker 2: comeback to this. He's just like, oh man, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: I've got nothing.
Speaker 1: That's how Fight Club ended, right, I didn't.
Speaker 2: Think about that. That's good. So the poor scholar he
Speaker 2: gets thrown out in the street. He can't do his
Speaker 2: debt collection. He has no money and not a friend
Speaker 2: in this world, so what's he going to do? Well,
Speaker 2: he starts asking around, is there anywhere I can sleep
Speaker 2: for free tonight? And one of the locals tells him, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there's only one place around here where you can have
Speaker 2: free shelter, and that is the lan Yuk Temple. And
Speaker 2: as soon as that word is uttered, as soon as
Speaker 2: that name is uttered, all the locals are like, huh,
Speaker 2: and they all turn and lean in the you know
Speaker 2: they're they're telling him, you like, yeah, go through the
Speaker 2: woods with the killer wolves until you see a creepy
Speaker 2: looking temple and that'll be where you should sleep.
Speaker 1: So at this point in the film, and I have
Speaker 1: to say, it's very well paced, like there's not really
Speaker 1: a dull moment in the entire film, but at this point,
Speaker 1: you know you're after the races, because oh, he's gonna
Speaker 1: have to travel through haunted woods, get to inevitably haunted
Speaker 1: Temple and it's just gonna be fireworks from there on out.
Speaker 2: So he goes through the haunted woods, he gets menaced
Speaker 2: by wolves with yellow eyes, and then when he arrives
Speaker 2: at the temple, he happens to stumble into the middle
Speaker 2: of a brutal fight between two master swordsmen. Now is
Speaker 2: one of them the guy who got the blood in
Speaker 2: Ling's mouth earlier.
Speaker 1: Yes, one of them is the strong jawed, bun eating
Speaker 1: swordsman from earlier. The other one is a new character
Speaker 1: who will turn out to be our Dallas superstar Swordsman
Speaker 1: slash Sorcerer Swordsman Yin.
Speaker 2: Right Swordsman Yin Chikha, who is again also a former lawman.
Speaker 2: But this is an awesome fight scene. It's like dark
Speaker 2: and foggy and windy, and they're like flying around and
Speaker 2: flipping in and out of buildings and onto balconies, and
Speaker 2: at one point and like it seems pretty evenly matched.
Speaker 2: But then at one point the swordsman we saw earlier
Speaker 2: sort of loses track of where the new guy is,
Speaker 2: and then the new guy like explodes out of a
Speaker 2: wall at him and seems to get the better of him.
Speaker 2: Oh but right when he does this, they're both standing
Speaker 2: there holding their swords out, and then right between them
Speaker 2: is Master laying like his head is between their two
Speaker 2: sword tips and the new swordsman. Swordsman Yen says brother Ha,
Speaker 2: how you've been fighting me for seven years and lost
Speaker 2: for seven years. And then we learn in their exchange
Speaker 2: that Swordsman Yen has been living for six months at
Speaker 2: the lan Yuk Temple, and they taunt each other, but
Speaker 2: Swordsman Yen tells brother Ha how that by being overly
Speaker 2: concerned with worldly titles, with fame and glory as a swordsman,
Speaker 2: he actually let his skills go to seed, and that
Speaker 2: is why he has always Beaten. He's too concerned with
Speaker 2: being scene is the best rather than actually being the best,
Speaker 2: and he's too hot tempered. So they both got their
Speaker 2: swords pointed at each other. Master Ling's throat is right
Speaker 2: between them, and then master Ling is like, hey, why
Speaker 2: not be nice to each other. I think it really
Speaker 2: says that, and then he says, you have to know
Speaker 2: that the universe is infinite and true love lasts forever.
Speaker 2: So he's got a good heart. And eventually I think
Speaker 2: the other swordsman gets so annoyed that he just leaves
Speaker 2: and Ling is accidentally he's like standing on the swordsman's
Speaker 2: cloak as he's leaving, and it rips part of it off.
Speaker 2: He tries to hand it to him and the swordsman
Speaker 2: just yells at Ling. He says, go love it so
Speaker 2: that guy brother how split swordsman Yen warns Master Ling
Speaker 2: not to stay at the temple that he but he
Speaker 2: warns him in in a bunch of kind of rebald ways,
Speaker 2: like he says, you know, if a tiger appears, you'll
Speaker 2: probably want to hide in my trousers. At one point,
Speaker 2: Ling's like, why do you keep yelling at me? And
Speaker 2: he says it's because I have bad breath and I
Speaker 2: want you to go away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great, great line too.
Speaker 2: But Ling doesn't listen. He has nowhere else to go,
Speaker 2: and so he picks a room in the temple to
Speaker 2: put down his things. Now this goes into a sequence
Speaker 2: that is I guess it's followed up on it multiple points,
Speaker 2: but this is master laying in the bark zombies, and
Speaker 2: I loved this whole thing. Rob, Do you want to
Speaker 2: describe what's going on here?
Speaker 1: Yeah? So we start getting these shots of what seems
Speaker 1: to be the attic of the temple or part of
Speaker 1: the temple complex here, and it has these desiccated corpses
Speaker 1: up there, you know, perhaps past victims. Because I believe
Speaker 1: that the film opens up even with a sequence where
Speaker 1: somebody is attacked whilst being loved up on grounds that
Speaker 1: look like this temple, and so eventually we see these
Speaker 1: remains start to move around. And so yeah, they are
Speaker 1: partial rendered with stop motion effects that definitely have a
Speaker 1: nineties tool video vibe to them, you know, like it's
Speaker 1: it's not quite you know, Harry Housing level, but it
Speaker 1: still looks really cool and I loved every bit of it.
Speaker 1: Later on, they're also played, they're created via puppetry and
Speaker 1: also costumes, and at times legitimately creepy, but it's a
Speaker 1: great there's a great The great thing about this sequence
Speaker 1: is that Ling is completely unaware of them. They start
Speaker 1: off in the attic, they end up falling through into
Speaker 1: the basement at times. At at one point Ling falls
Speaker 1: partially falls through the basement and his his his rear
Speaker 1: end is down there and they're like trying to grab
Speaker 1: his butt and they tear off part of his clothing.
Speaker 1: And then he winds up in the basement later on
Speaker 1: and they're creeping up on him. You think they're gonna
Speaker 1: get him, but then he opens some shutters and that
Speaker 1: the sunlight just melts them away, and he never knows
Speaker 1: they were there at all.
Speaker 2: It's fine, Yeah, it's It's very much the Baby Herman cartoon.
Speaker 2: At the beginning of Roger Rabbit. He's just bumbling about
Speaker 2: and constantly in peril but just evading them by accident.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it surely fun. And then and again the
Speaker 1: bark zombies look incredible. I thought they were a lot of.
Speaker 2: Fun, excellent bark zombies. But meanwhile, while he's doing all that,
Speaker 2: we learn about something that's going on at this temple,
Speaker 2: the plot of the Seductive Ghost Ladies. So the forest
Speaker 2: around this temple is swarming with these beautiful ghost ladies
Speaker 2: who one of our main characters will be one of
Speaker 2: them that seduce men and then suck out their life
Speaker 2: force and turn them into these screaming husks. And this
Speaker 2: happens to the other swordsman, the brother ha how he's
Speaker 2: like made a campfire and then a beautiful woman like
Speaker 2: shows up and she's like, oh hey, and they start kissing,
Speaker 2: but she unfortunately sucks out his life force and leaves
Speaker 2: him a shriveled, dry, dry corpse. When I watched this
Speaker 2: part with Rachel, she said that she dietamacious earthed him.
Speaker 1: Yeah. In the original story by bousong Ling. The ghost
Speaker 1: Woman will do one of two things. Either she will
Speaker 1: come up to you and ask if you want to
Speaker 1: make love, and then when you do so, she will
Speaker 1: eventually poke a hole into your heel, I believe, with
Speaker 1: some sort of a spike so that your essence can
Speaker 1: be drained out of the hole. Or if you say no,
Speaker 1: thank you to the love making, she'll offer you what
Speaker 1: seems to be like a golden coin, and if you
Speaker 1: accept that, then you'll be overcome by the magic as well.
Speaker 1: So like one of the two vices will get you.
Speaker 2: It's a great time to chee lust and greed in
Speaker 2: favor of gluttony. Oh but we do see some like
Speaker 2: magical implements of this kind in the scene, because like
Speaker 2: in the scene where the ghost woman is seducing the swordsman,
Speaker 2: we see that she has a sort of a magical
Speaker 2: ankle bracelet on that it seems to have charmsing off
Speaker 2: of it. And then also when swordsman Hahowe is lying
Speaker 2: there shriveled, he is discovered by Swordsmanien who's like, oh,
Speaker 2: look what they did you. But then he like wakes
Speaker 2: up as a corpse and starts attacking him, and Swordsman
Speaker 2: Yen is like, ah, even in death, you attack me again,
Speaker 2: and so he has to pull out a holy needle
Speaker 2: and plunge the needle into the corpse's eye and that
Speaker 2: like shuts him down. These needles frequently are used against
Speaker 2: unholy spirits.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love Swordsmanien's arsenal here because of course he
Speaker 1: has his sword, his magic sword, but yeah, he has
Speaker 1: these needles that it can also be thrown as projectiles,
Speaker 1: and I understand basically throwing implements like this are used
Speaker 1: in different martial arts, but not as effectively clearly as
Speaker 1: Swordsman Yen is using them here. He also has several
Speaker 1: magical spells that he uses he's able to He does
Speaker 1: this wonderful bit later on where he like cuts into
Speaker 1: his palm, does some sort of a symbol there, and
Speaker 1: then is able to like shoot out essentially like magic
Speaker 1: missiles and fireballs and the like, but in a way
Speaker 1: that is super cool, especially within the confines of a
Speaker 1: martial arts sequence.
Speaker 2: He also has a Sanskrit phrase that he says that's
Speaker 2: the opening line of a of a book, like a
Speaker 2: holy Sanskrit book. Though it's interesting because there's a scene
Speaker 2: later in the movie where he's finally he's sort of
Speaker 2: teaming up with the scholar and he's like, if you
Speaker 2: need to save yourself, you know, say a line from
Speaker 2: this book, and the scholars like, but I can't read Sanskrit,
Speaker 2: and he says, we'll just open your heart to the
Speaker 2: Buddha and the Buddha will tell you what to say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, just just be relaxed and you'll be able
Speaker 1: to do it. And also ring this ball. Like he
Speaker 1: basically ends up the whole plot ends up being like,
Speaker 1: I need to get this this big bad that's responsible
Speaker 1: for all this. I need to get these ghosts. You're
Speaker 1: going to be de bait.
Speaker 2: But that's later on, so before we get there, we
Speaker 2: have to actually get the love story, which is so
Speaker 2: master ling. Being afraid out in the forest, eventually encounters
Speaker 2: the ghost woman nip Chu Sin, and Su Sin is
Speaker 2: a vampiric ghost, so she's she's not just like holy innocent.
Speaker 2: She is draining people's energy. She's seducing, you know, hapless
Speaker 2: dudes in the forest. They end up turned into a
Speaker 2: bark zombie. It's no good, and it seems like she's
Speaker 2: going to do the same thing to Ling when they
Speaker 2: first meet, but Ling ultimately just turns out to be
Speaker 2: too nice a guy. Did you read it that way?
Speaker 2: Also that yeah, yeah, he's like so sweet to her
Speaker 2: that she can't really do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's kind of a fun twist from the original
Speaker 1: because in the original story, she basically is like, hey,
Speaker 1: do you want to make love? And he's like, no,
Speaker 1: I would, I would never, And she's like, well, do
Speaker 1: you want this gold coin? He's like, I'm not taking
Speaker 1: that kind of money from, you know, someone hanging out
Speaker 1: in a you know, temple ruins, and she's like okay.
Speaker 1: But in this one it's less. I mean, part of
Speaker 1: it is that he's you know, he's moral, and it's
Speaker 1: good moral fiber. But the other part, yeah, is that
Speaker 1: he's just a sweet guy. And as she is not,
Speaker 1: you know, herself completely a creature of evil, like she
Speaker 1: herself is ensourcelled by another force that will discuss here,
Speaker 1: Like the part of her like recognizes that, and so
Speaker 1: we do have room for like this legitimate, believable love
Speaker 1: story to to blossom here.
Speaker 2: I think one of though it is funny. One of
Speaker 2: the things that first indicates to her how kind he
Speaker 2: is is that he says to her, He's like, wow,
Speaker 2: you don't look so good. Do you need to go
Speaker 2: to a doctor? I think, referring to the fact that
Speaker 2: she's pale because she is dead.
Speaker 1: It's like, you're really pale, and he's talking about our
Speaker 1: skin being cold and all this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to get you some medical attention.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The script, it really feels punched up, like they
Speaker 1: really they really got in a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of comedic jabs here and sequences like this.
Speaker 2: But of course, at first, I think when when Susan
Speaker 2: likes Master Ling, you know, she understands it as like
Speaker 2: a love that cannot be right. She's not like, oh,
Speaker 2: stay here and be with me forever. She's like, oh,
Speaker 2: you know this is bad for him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so a lot of it ends up being
Speaker 1: a situation where she's like, look, you don't need to
Speaker 1: be here when when my master shows up, when the
Speaker 1: others come, you need to get out of here. You
Speaker 1: need to leave these grounds. You're a good dude. You
Speaker 1: don't need to be here. But she doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: think that she has any kind of a future with him.
Speaker 2: Now we should be clear though, that when Ling first
Speaker 2: meets her, he has no idea she's a ghost. He
Speaker 2: doesn't understand.
Speaker 1: He's not picking up on the clues.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is something he has to be convinced of.
Speaker 2: I think Swordsman Yen tells him. He's like, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: everybody at this temple is a ghost except me. They're
Speaker 2: all just ghosts.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, Because there's a scene where one of the
Speaker 1: other ghosts gets cut in half by by master Yin
Speaker 1: and he's like, you killed that woman, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the long and short of it. And he's like, no, no,
Speaker 1: that was a ghost. I didn't kill anybody.
Speaker 2: So eventually he learns the whole plot and we do too.
Speaker 2: So so what is the whole magical hierarchy here? What's
Speaker 2: the org chart for the ghosts and demons at this temple?
Speaker 1: So basically we have this malicious nature spirit, this tree demon,
Speaker 1: or this Yaksha demon as it's described in the original story.
Speaker 2: Is this the figure they're calling the old Dame?
Speaker 1: Yes? Yeah, which is this? You know? This this kind
Speaker 1: of royally dressed individual who shows up and they kind
Speaker 1: of speak simultaneously with like a like a gravelly masculine voice,
Speaker 1: but also a feminine voice, the kind of one superimposed
Speaker 1: over the other. And and this character is ordering around
Speaker 1: both by both Susanne, the our ghost love interest, but
Speaker 1: also some other female ghosts that are being used as
Speaker 1: agents of seduction by this demon. So the demons the
Speaker 1: one harvesting life energies and life forces, but he's using
Speaker 1: these ghosts to do it, or at least to lure
Speaker 1: them in, to get them in a in a position
Speaker 1: to where the tree demon can creep up on them
Speaker 1: in vine or tongue form, as we later find out
Speaker 1: is the case, and sap their life force.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, there's a lot of creepy tree demon morphology
Speaker 2: later on, especially when the all tongue emerges. But yeah,
Speaker 2: so we learn a lot of this in a in
Speaker 2: a great sort of comedy scene where Master Ling is
Speaker 2: visiting Susin. Win like, the boss shows up and he
Speaker 2: has to hide underneath the water in a wash basin
Speaker 2: while while the while the demon is there and while
Speaker 2: the other ghosts are there, and they're all like talking
Speaker 2: about how that Susin has been pledged in marriage to
Speaker 2: this horrible monster, the Monster of Black Mountain, and I
Speaker 2: guess their marriage is coming up soon. It's like a
Speaker 2: week away or something, And so she's just trying to
Speaker 2: get him out there so that they don't catchling in
Speaker 2: there and kill him. And there's a bunch of a
Speaker 2: bunch of this has played for comedy, yeah.
Speaker 1: And also for the romantic angle. It's like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: both hiding in the same place at the same time,
Speaker 1: and we're almost kissing that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Well, she does kiss him, so at one point she
Speaker 2: like hides him by leaning into the wash basin and
Speaker 2: then kisses him under the water, and he's like, wow, geez.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a key scene that is that we revisit
Speaker 1: later on with like a musical motif.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So she is falling hard for this this lonely scholar mortal,
Speaker 1: and he is falling hard for this female ghost even
Speaker 1: though he doesn't know she's a ghost at this point.
Speaker 2: Right, But he eventually discovers basically what's going on, like
Speaker 2: they are a bunch of different things. Well, he doesn't
Speaker 2: discover it at this point, I think, but I remember
Speaker 2: there's one point where I think he like does some
Speaker 2: kind of like harm to her by like accidentally showing
Speaker 2: her his back, which is where all of the warning
Speaker 2: magic was printed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which he recoils from you know, because these
Speaker 1: are holy scriptures and she cannot look upon them.
Speaker 2: But there's also a conflict because he's been kind of
Speaker 2: friendly ish with Swordsman Yen and swords Minyen is there.
Speaker 2: He's like, no, no, no, ghosts are to be beheaded and destroyed,
Speaker 2: and this lady is no good. But then Ling also
Speaker 2: becomes convinced that Swordsman Yen is a murderer, so so
Speaker 2: he you know, he's he's getting bounced back and forth
Speaker 2: between between alliances, and at one point he ends up
Speaker 2: taking before a magistrate in this really funny scene where
Speaker 2: where he's I think he's trying to be like, yeah,
Speaker 2: he's a murderer, you've got to stop him, and the
Speaker 2: magistrate is just totally uninterested.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a great vet where he calls in the
Speaker 1: guards and they're like like, what's he talking about, Like, no, no,
Speaker 1: we already we already captured the guy on the warning poster.
Speaker 1: We already caught that guy. And then they're like, but
Speaker 1: of course we do catch the wrong guy like most
Speaker 1: of the times. Yeah, so they're like, all right, let's
Speaker 1: hear it out. But then there's a lot of discussion about, yeah,
Speaker 1: should we beat him first, or accept a bribe first,
Speaker 1: and then eventually it's like when they find out the
Speaker 1: ghosts are involved in it, they're like, oh, well, that's good.
Speaker 1: We don't have to weigh in on this. We can
Speaker 1: just leave early because we were tired of even pretending
Speaker 1: to work oh before.
Speaker 2: So okay, So we're barreling towards the end, but before
Speaker 2: we get to like some of the final confrontations, we
Speaker 2: need to take a moment to discuss the dow rap.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, it's so good. Yeah. I almost want
Speaker 1: to include a sample from it here, because whatever you're
Speaker 1: imagining can't quite equal what you get.
Speaker 2: There's one part where the subtitle, at least of what
Speaker 2: he's rapping is I spit, I spit, I spit, I spit.
Speaker 1: Yes, Oh, it's so good. Yeah, And he's the whole time,
Speaker 1: he's going through these different martial art true teams too,
Speaker 1: so it's like he's really getting you know, REVD up
Speaker 1: for battle. Oh it's it's you have to see it
Speaker 1: to believe it. And of course we could play part
Speaker 1: of the audio, but you wouldn't have the subtitles, so
Speaker 1: you wouldn't get the full experience, and you wouldn't get
Speaker 1: to see him moving around, so it has to be seen.
Speaker 2: Okay, but eventually, so we're skipping lightly about over much
Speaker 2: that happens in the middle of the film, but eventually
Speaker 2: it's going to progress toward a big showdown with the
Speaker 2: demons because we learned the backstory of Susin. What is
Speaker 2: going on with her? Why has she been why has
Speaker 2: she been trapped in this cycle of seducing men in
Speaker 2: the forest or at the temple so that their life
Speaker 2: force can be sucked out? And basically what we discover
Speaker 2: is that Susin was murdered many years ago while traveling
Speaker 2: once when she was mortal, and her father gave her
Speaker 2: a temporary burial under an old tree in the forest,
Speaker 2: but then he was murdered before he could move her
Speaker 2: bones to holier ground. So now nobody else knows she's there,
Speaker 2: so she's stuck there and her spirit is trapped in
Speaker 2: servitude to the demon that lives within the tree. I
Speaker 2: think this is the Old Dame, and now the Old
Speaker 2: Dame is her boss. The Old Dame makes her seduce
Speaker 2: men so that she can kill them steal their energy,
Speaker 2: and Sussin has been pledged to marry against her will,
Speaker 2: the old monster of Black Mountain, and the only way
Speaker 2: she can escape from being a ghost and finally be
Speaker 2: reincarnated again is if someone digs up her ashes and
Speaker 2: her bones and takes them to her village to be
Speaker 2: reburied there. And it's interesting how this is a recurring
Speaker 2: theme in a lot of the Chinese horror comedy martial
Speaker 2: arts movies we've watched, because proper and improper burial was
Speaker 2: also a major theme of Mister Vampire.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, the idea and really tied up with the
Speaker 1: idea of the Chinese vampire, the Chuang. She is the
Speaker 1: idea that this person was not properly buried, their spirit
Speaker 1: is not at rest, and the only way to really
Speaker 1: defeat them is to make sure they are moved to
Speaker 1: a place of proper rest. And that's the case here
Speaker 1: as well. But of course she can't just dig up
Speaker 1: her bones and get away with it, because there's a demon.
Speaker 2: Involved here, oh man.
Speaker 1: And and so you get a in the movie version, here,
Speaker 1: you get a big throw down between the demon and
Speaker 1: our heroes, and the I was totally surprised by the
Speaker 1: form I was expecting. You know, it's a tree demon, right,
Speaker 1: So it's going to be some sort of a ant
Speaker 1: like creature. But no, the true form, or at least
Speaker 1: one of the true forms, is revealed as being this
Speaker 1: just this endless tongue, this all tongue as you described it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was thinking about the doors that ride the tongue.
Speaker 2: The tongue is long seven miles. It's it's just like
Speaker 2: this gigantic tongue that wraps all the way around the
Speaker 2: temple and can like wrap around people. So it's like
Speaker 2: a giant, you know, octopus arm basically, and and it
Speaker 2: has like multiple tongues within the tongue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's it's kind of like it has a
Speaker 1: beginning because it does shoot out of the human form
Speaker 1: of the of the Dame's mouth at one point, but
Speaker 1: then in another scene, the dame just becomes the tongue.
Speaker 1: So it's it's almost like there is no beginning to
Speaker 1: the tongue. It is just this endless tongue that's just
Speaker 1: lashing about throughout this entire action sequence.
Speaker 2: And there's like a tongue versus mouth mechanic because the
Speaker 2: tongue will try to grab people and then go into
Speaker 2: their mouths and so like swordsman Gin is yelling at
Speaker 2: at Ling. He's like, be careful, don't let her tongue
Speaker 2: into your mouth. So they're they're trying to fight it
Speaker 2: off and the and Yen eventually ends up like chopping
Speaker 2: off pieces of the tongue to prevent them from from
Speaker 2: getting in people's mouths.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there are a number of sequences in which
Speaker 1: people get wrapped up in tongue or later on, wrapped
Speaker 1: up in tentacles and uh, and then usually Swordsman Yen
Speaker 1: has to jump in with his sword and slash through
Speaker 1: those tentacles and splash goo all over the place.
Speaker 2: Oh, there's so much gou later on, well there's so
Speaker 2: much goo in general. But uh, there's there's goo, there's slime.
Speaker 2: And then we get to see Swordsman Yen's arsenal again,
Speaker 2: so he uses his holy needles. In fact, Ling has
Speaker 2: to come through in the pin because Yen gets grabbed
Speaker 2: up and Ling has to get the needle and come
Speaker 2: save him, and at one point he accidentally stabs him
Speaker 2: in the butt.
Speaker 1: Right in the butt. Yeah, and then Yen has to
Speaker 1: has to pull the needle out of his own butt
Speaker 1: and then use it to stab the demon.
Speaker 2: It's great yeah, but they do eventually defeat the Old Dame.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we see some sort of a final form. It's
Speaker 1: just this monstrous amalgam of light, tentacles and planned and
Speaker 1: I don't know, alligator and human face. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a real monstrosity. But they are able to defeat it.
Speaker 2: Unfortunately, Sussin is dragged away into the underworld. Yeah, and
Speaker 2: so in the very last act, the coda, the final confrontation,
Speaker 2: it's not our world anymore, buddy, you got to go
Speaker 2: into the underworld to save the princess.
Speaker 1: That's right. And it's I really like the way they
Speaker 1: created this underworld sequence because it's it's a lot what
Speaker 1: you might expect in a dark realm. There's there's mist
Speaker 1: and smoke. They're like hands grasping out of nowhere. There
Speaker 1: are disembodied heads, there are mountains of skulls, and of
Speaker 1: course we encounter the dark individual who's Susan is betrothed to.
Speaker 2: Right, this is the Monster of Black Mountain, And oh man,
Speaker 2: how this guy's really cool. How would you describe him?
Speaker 1: Just kind of like imagine a gloomy dark lord in armor,
Speaker 1: and that's basically what you've got here.
Speaker 2: I could say, maybe a point of reference for the
Speaker 2: young folks these days. Elden Ring Boss. He's got elden
Speaker 2: Ring Boss vibes.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, like kind of like kind of
Speaker 1: like the outline of a of an armored individual, right,
Speaker 1: but then they're they're increasingly more monstrous elements the deeper
Speaker 1: you dig into that.
Speaker 2: Right. One of the big things, in fact, one of
Speaker 2: my favorite images or effects in the entire movie was
Speaker 2: when like his cloak is peeled open and his entire
Speaker 2: form is made of faces.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's like a pile of disembodied heads their
Speaker 1: faces in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're all screaming yeah yeah. Really good arms
Speaker 2: their arms coming out of the walls. Like, the Underworld
Speaker 2: sequence is just great, and there are great heroic moments
Speaker 2: for our characters. There's a there's a wonderful part where
Speaker 2: like Susin is flying through the air with a sword
Speaker 2: in her hand and yeah, yeah, it's it's it's really cool.
Speaker 1: And we get a nice climax where like tentacles are
Speaker 1: lashing out. The dark Lord ear has wrapped everyone up.
Speaker 1: The tentacles are holding our hero up and they're starting
Speaker 1: to rip his clothes apart and will probably soon start
Speaker 1: ripping his flesh apart. But then we remember what does
Speaker 1: he have underneath his his his cloak, underneath his robes,
Speaker 1: he has that Holy Sutra, which immediately it's mere presence starts,
Speaker 1: you know, incinerating the villain here.
Speaker 2: It's red hot. It's so good. And oh there's a
Speaker 2: detail I forgot that I really liked though, that when
Speaker 2: Swordsman Yen and master Ling first arrive in the underworld,
Speaker 2: they're sort of a to walk amongst the dead without
Speaker 2: being disturbed at first, because Swordsman Yan says, when ghosts
Speaker 2: are in the mortal world, they're invisible to us, but
Speaker 2: when mortals are in the ghost world, we're invisible to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, but in the end we do get a happy ending.
Speaker 2: They are able to all make it out of the underworld,
Speaker 2: and they do, and they are able to relocate the
Speaker 2: mortal remains of Su Sin, and so it's it's pretty
Speaker 2: much a happy ending, and it makes you think, like,
Speaker 2: are there more adventures to come?
Speaker 1: Well, they say, they basically say, like, let's go on
Speaker 1: adventures now, Yeah, and clearly they do. There are two
Speaker 1: more films in the series at least, so yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: interested to eventually check out the next one, and there's
Speaker 1: again I have to drive on. There's so many sequences
Speaker 1: we didn't even mention here that are so well executed.
Speaker 1: There's not really a dull moment in the film. It's
Speaker 1: a very well paced so it's it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend it.
Speaker 2: Totally agree that this one's really a highlight Chinese ghost story.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful, it's truly weird. It's up there with the best.
Speaker 1: And again, this is a big picture. This was a
Speaker 1: This has been a very successful film. It's generated a
Speaker 1: cult following around the world. It's been remade, as I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier, but also the story about the Magic Sword,
Speaker 1: of the Magic Sword and the Magic Bag. This was
Speaker 1: adapted at least a couple of other times, nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: nine's The Magic Sword and nineteen sixties The Enchanting Shadow,
Speaker 1: which I've read was also kind of an inspiration for
Speaker 1: this film. So there are probably some other movies out
Speaker 1: there that you'll find that have some of the basic elements,
Speaker 1: you know, traveling scholar, spinning the night in a temple,
Speaker 1: falling in love with a ghost. It's a winning formula.
Speaker 1: Now since this is a major motion picture, Yeah, It's
Speaker 1: been out in various formats over the years, so you
Speaker 1: want to watch it on VHS, you can find a
Speaker 1: copy somewhere. DVD, it's out there. There are blu rays,
Speaker 1: I can't really speak for the various regions and so forth.
Speaker 2: Lasers.
Speaker 1: Probably probably on a laser disc, go for it. But
Speaker 1: we watched it streaming on Prime and as of this recording,
Speaker 1: it is streaming on Prime in the States, and it
Speaker 1: may be streaming some other places as well.
Speaker 2: Two tongues up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this one was a lot of fun. We'd love
Speaker 1: to hear from anyone out there who is also a
Speaker 1: fan of this film, or if you have experiences with
Speaker 1: this film, or if there are any other films in
Speaker 1: the same genre that you think we should be aware
Speaker 1: of or should cover in the future, let us know.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. In the meantime, if
Speaker 1: you want to check out other episodes of Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 1: it publishes every Friday in the Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind podcast feed. We are primarily a science podcast, but
Speaker 1: on Fridays we set aside most serious concerns and we
Speaker 1: just talk about a strange film. Let's see. If you
Speaker 1: want to follow everything that we're doing here. Let's see
Speaker 1: over at some immutomusic dot com. I do blog posts
Speaker 1: about each film and if there's additional information, additional media
Speaker 1: and bed that there. We also have a letterboxed page.
Speaker 1: If you just look up a Weird House on there,
Speaker 1: you'll find us. You can follow there, and we just
Speaker 1: have all the movies listed that we've covered, so if
Speaker 1: you just want to like a single visual layout of
Speaker 1: the films we've covered on Weird House Cinema, you will
Speaker 1: find them there.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 2: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 2: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 2: to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 2: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
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