The Holy Virgin vs. The Evil Dead

The Holy Virgin vs. The Evil Dead (1991)

Runtime: 87 minutes

Directed by: Chin-Ku Lu

Starring: Donnie Yen (!), Pauline Yeung, Ben Lam, Hei Man Chui, Ken Lo

From: Chung Ngai Movie Productions/J.S. Productions

Yes, this is a real movie I saw (from Hong Kong, which in general I think is a wacky place), and yes it can be seen for free on Amazon, at least if you have Prime. This English title has nothing to do with the real Cantonese title. Still, this action/horror film is rather bizarre, as I explain below: 

I'll be real here: I only discovered this marvelous motion picture when I stumbled upon it while I was looking for something else on Amazon Prime. The title caught my eye and while I figured the title was something catchy from the foreign distributor-I was right. There are no Deadites or even virgins, although the camera does move around a few times like it's a Raimi film-the plot not only captured my attention, but so did finding out the star was DONNIE YEN. No kidding.

I have to note now that there's more than one version of this out there. The one on Prime is the “tame” version, rather than the original, which I understand has a lot more sex/gore/graphic violence (and a LOT of nudity, apparently) than what I saw tonight. While that's unfortunate, the movie was still so goofy and daffy, it was still something I enjoyed. Yen and some other people deal with what is identified in the subtitles as The Moon Monster. Oh, it's a demon but it looks like a tall Asian man with long flowing hair, because that's who played MM. However, the touch of him sometimes glowing green electricity from his eyes and dressing like The Terminator did after he took Bill Paxton's friend's clothes in the first film... those were unexpected touches.

As I also expected, the movie was rather nonsensical and in fact baffling at times. The fact that the subtitles weren't always in perfect English did not help in that regard. Yet I was still charmed by this wacky film. I laughed out loud a few times; even in neutered film it can be quite entertaining as all those unexpected moments happened and I am bemused at how much of the action is undercranked. I will say it only added to the surreal nature of this tale. I mean, there's people flying on wire, martial arts (including from Moon Monster! Not what you'd expect from a big dude who is often referred to as “the sexual maniac”), charming low-fi special effects, and time spent in Cambodia. Wild, really.

Hopefully one day I can see the full version and I can give this another review, one that will be more accurate.