THE ETERNAL EVIL OF ASIA (Hong Kong, 1995)



Directed by: Chin Man-kei
Starring: Ben Ng, Lily Chung, Ellen Chan, Elvis Tsui, Julie Lee
89 minutes, 35mm, in Cantonese with English subtitles

"Leave Hong Kong and die!" shrieks every frame of this 1995 Hong Kong horror abomination. Jacked up on hair metal, veins flowing with bright red karo syrup, witchiness on its mind, and a meat chopper in either hand, the ETERNAL EVIL OF ASIA comes at you like a hillbilly pimp on crystal meth. After a SHOCKING ASIA-style prologue the thrash guitar soundtrack kicks in and Bad Dad, Nam, takes a gruesome dive off his roof into the nearest night market. His corpse pierced with numerous blood-slimed, flickering fluorescent lightbulbs, he breathes his last. Lucky him. What awaits his gang of pals is worse. Much worse.

Specifically: a pain-loving, muscle-bound, pissed-off Thai wizard out to avenge a murder.

That the wizard in question is Thai should be no surprise to Hong Kong horror fans. The Special Administrative Region generally regards vacations to Southeast Asia as being as safe as teething on a loaded handgun. Non-Hong Kong countries are usually portrayed as backwards, illiterate, violent places full of barely-clothed natives who want nothing more than to steal your money, give you a disease, and slap a blood curse on you, in about that order. These darkest suspicions are confirmed in this totally gratuitous tilt-a-whirl horror ride as Nam, Bon, Kent and Kong go to Thailand to score hookers (except Bon, who's betrothed to the movie's softcore lust object, May). An altercation ensues and the fellows wind up getting on the bad side of the aforementioned Thai wizard who tracks them back to Hong Kong and starts stamping them out like cockroaches. May catches a break when one of her beauty salon customers turns out to be a secret Thai witch and, after blowing up a ghost with a can of hairspray, she helps May swallow an enchanted worm that will protect her from bad Thai juju. By the time the movie's over, May'll have swallowed a lot worse.

The Evil of Asia is Eternal, but it's also seven different shades of eye-popping fun. The casting is a Category III reunion showcase with Elvis Tsui Kam-kong's big bald head being put to especially good use, and Ben Ng and Lily Chung (fresh off their spike-to-the-brain kill-fest RED TO KILL) cast as the dueling Thai wizard and witch, respectively. Ben Ng turns in one of his patented twitching psycho performances and Lily Chung brings po-faced sincerity to even the goofiest lines. With hungry ghost hex, flying sex hex, faceful-of-needles hex, kill-your-family hex, and softcore group-sex hex all on display here, a master was needed to pull off the action choreography, and a master they got. Dion Lam was Keanu Reeves' personal trainer on THE MATRIX, and he also did the action for Hong Kong box office smash THE STORMRIDERS, A MAN CALLED HERO, and Jet Li's BLACK MASK. Watching his masterful wirework on THE ETERNAL EVIL OF ASIA gives you an idea of what the inevitable porn version of THE MATRIX: RELOADED will look like. Flying naked witches, lurching zombies, blood-licking kiddies, bad-trip-inspired production design, a cameraman tweaking on caffeine, a mind in the gutter and a never-say-die commitment to excess makes this one of Hong Kong's truly underappreciated fabulous gems.