1995, Hong Kong. Starring Ellen Chan Ah Lun. Directed by Man Kei Chin. Available on DVD (HKFlix).

Over these many years of watching crazy films from all over the world, I've amassed a sizeable group I can only refer to as "Only in Hong Kong." When that country feels like it, they can pump out some of the most bizarre movies you'll ever see. I mean, no other country but Hong Kong would give you Young Taoism Fighter or a whole subgenre of films in which guys wearing ratty gorilla suits leap about and do kungfu. When they want to, Hong Kong can baffle you like no other former British territory.

In the years leading up to the reunification of Hong Kong with the mainland, the quality of films deteriorated severely. The Hong Kong new wave really hit it's peak in the early 1990s, and John Woo's insanely action-packed shoot-em-up Hard Boiled was sort of the orgasm for the whole movement. After that, the good movies were few and far between. Hong Kong retreated into a dismal era of slapped-together no-budget crap, lame romantic comedies, and weird, often brutal softcore action/horror/porn.

I've been a fan of Hong Kong films ever since seeing my first kungfu film way back when in the 1970s. And no matter how embarrassing and abysmal the films may have become, I felt I owed it to the industry that had given me so much joy over the years to see if there was anything worth digging up. So let's see. I can't stand romantic comedies. Whether they star Anita Yuen or Meg Ryan makes no difference to me. I just don't like them. Maybe you do, and that's cool. They are there for you, and you don't have to worry about me snaking that last copy of You've Got Mail you were hoping to get.

So I can chose between no-budget slapped together crap or sleazy softcore sex and gore. Okay, I'm cool with both of those types of film. So let's see what the no-budget crap is all about. Apparently, it's all about Donnie Yen undercranking his fight scenes to where he looks like one of those old newsreels of Babe Ruth. Man, this shit reeks in ways that aren't even funny. It's just awful. It's Richard Kern awful. Who would have thought guns and kungfu could be so insanely, mind numbingly boring?

Well, that leaves me with sleazy softcore sex and gore. Ahh, it's like an old glove that always fits. I can always count on sleaze to delight me and make the neighbors wonder what the hell it is I'm watching. Are those naked three-headed green midgets with five dicks that I saw on his television screen? You're goddamned right, they are!

Luckily, communism hasn't quelled Hong Kong's tastelessness, and while every other genre may have become worthless, the boys and girls in what was once called "the biggest Chinatown in the world" have latched on to horror, gore, and sleaze as the only defense against the increasing popularity of foreign films and the defection of most of the big name talent to Hollywood. It's not a new strategy. When the bottom fell out of the market for Shaw Brothers films in the late 1970s, Runrun was quick to churn out a fistful of cheap exploitation films featuring ample amounts of naked female flesh and spurting blood, thus keeping his company afloat a while longer. Some things just never go out of style.

Most of the new school of Hong Kong exploitation, or Cat III films as they are known (because the Cat III rating is Hong Kong's equivalent of either an R, and X, or an NC-17, depending on the film) seem to revolve around vengeful spirits and a visit to Thailand, probably because spirits are easy to make (they look like people, but with green lighting) and Thailand is a cool looking country.

Eternal Evil of Asia is indeed about vengeful spirits and a trip to Thailand, but it's so much more than that. Of the gallons of cheap Cat III sex and gore films to come out of Hong Kong in the past five years, few are weirder than Eternal Evil of Asia, and absolutely none have a lead woman as fabulously sexy as Ellen Chan.

The movie centers around a nice enough fellow whose buddies seem to be dying, while he himself can't seem to get it up even when Ellen Chan, who plays his girlfriend, does a sexy striptease for him. Most people have the opposite problem, so we immediately know he's either gay or has drawn the ire of a vengeful wizard from Thailand. Well, as fate would have it, it's the wizard thing. That's bad news, because if you are gay, you have plenty of options. If you are on the shitlist of a vengeful wizard from Thailand, well you're pretty much screwed, aren't you?

Ellen thinks he's been cheating on her, and in order to save his relationship with her (believe me, you'd go to any lengths to save a relationship with Ellen Chan), he recounts to her the entire sordid story of his trip to Thailand with his buddies.

They'd gone seeking hookers, although our hero is too smitten with Ellen to even think of fooling around with hos. After doing such "funny" (by callous Hong Kong standards) things as going to an AIDS bar, where all the hookers are HIV positive, they end up getting chased by some local thugs and lost in the jungle. Luckily, a reclusive, buff wizard helps them out. When one of the guys insults the wizard by calling him a dickhead, the wizard gets an impish grin and turns the guy's head into a giant penis. Yep. Needless to say, the film only gets more highbrow from here. You know, if Woody Allen used the same joke, it would be bold and witty. When they do it here, it's just considered trashy. Well, I can't stand Woody Allen, so there.

Then, all of a sudden, a wizard war breaks out as the buff wizard is attacked by some sexy witch her buddy. They derive magic power from flying and spinning through the air while gettin' it on. Sure. Why not. It beats having to prance around to lame disco music like American magicians have to do. Our hero and his buddies help out the buff wizard, while the guy with a dickhead strokes his own neck vigorously.

The wizard is grateful. He turns the dickhead back to normal and introduces everyone to his cute sister, who instantly takes a shine to our hero. He resists her advances, though, so she cooks up a magic love potion. Unfortunately, everyone but him gets dosed with it, and they all have a wild orgy with the girl. When she realizes what has happened, she freaks out and, in an attempt to keep her from going nuts, the buddies accidentally kill her.

That done, they decide the vacation is over and return to Hong Kong, where they each start dying in strange ways. One guy keeps showing up as a walking corpse impaled on a flickering fluorescent lighting tube.

The wizard, seeking revenge for the death of his sister, has gone insane and is out for blood. He also takes time out to astrally project himself into the bathroom to watch Ellen Chan shower. Now that's a pretty good wizard power. Ellen, on the other hand, seeks the advice of a local sorceress and ends up in a showdown with the wizard's apparition, in which she gives a blow job to an invisible man. You'd never think that just watching a woman waggle her tongue and pretend to give an insane Thai wizard a blow job would be so sexy. Or then again, maybe you would. I think Ellen Chan could scratch her ass and make people weak in the knees.

But the fun has only just begun, as all sorts of magical mid-air sexual acrobatics ensue. This movie is every bit as high in tastefulness as your average cannibal film or Satanic lesbian nun flick. It's guaranteed to offend most people, but since the readers of this website generally aren't most people, I have no reservations about recommending it whole-heartedly. After all, offensiveness is one of our banner awards to any film. It's completely twisted, unrepentingly tasteless, and of course, immensely enjoyable. Like most Hong Kong horror films, it veers wildly between sex, gore, and slapstick comedy, but unlike most of them, manages to pull off the schizophrenia while only seeming like somewhat of a mess.

Of all the Cat III horror sleaze I've seen, and I'd be an obvious liar if I didn't say I'd seen ... well, more than my fair share ... Eternal Evil of Asia remains my favorite. It's the wildest, the weirdest, the only one with a giant penis-headed man, and perhaps above all that, it's the one that has Ellen Chan Ah Lun.

Labels: Country: Hong Kong, Horror: Just Plain Weird, Sexploitation, Year: 1995