Black Magic

Black Magic (Jiang Tou) (1975)

Runtime: 93 minutes

Directed by: Ho Meng-Hua

Starring: Ti Lung, Tanny Tien, Lily Li, Ku Feng, Lo Lieh

From: Shaw Brothers

It's been far too long since I had seen some Shaw Brothers; this is unique in that it's a 1970's horror film set in the 1970's. It's greatly 70's, which of course I love. Read all the details below:

Last night I realized that once again, it's been far too long since I've seen a Shaw Brothers movie. Many of them can legally be seen online, so I should check them out more often. Naturally, most of those are their bread and butter of period martial arts films. However, they of course dabbled in other genres and yet not a lot of that can legally be rented or streamed for free via Amazon Prime. In the horror genres, films like Seeding of a Ghost and The Boxer's Exile are pretty outrageous (at least from what I hear) so on that front, hiding those is understandable. Thankfully, this movie was available on the usual sites so I saw it via Prime.

This is a mild version of what they would do later in this genre. I say that and this has gross-out moments & magic spells that usually require breast milk as an ingredient-yeah, several women appear topless. Basically, in a modern times setting (meaning, mid 1970's) an evil sorcerer creates various spells and one of them is a love potion (number 9?) that a horrible rich woman wants so a guy she has the hots for will fall in love with her and he would ditch his bride to be. There is also a good wizard who occasionally does battle with the sorcerer; their final confrontation, ooh boy those special effects... “charmingly bad” is how I would describe it. There is even Lo Lieh in a supporting role as a real lout.

As my mind is on other things, I won't continue prattling on about the movie, except that while it's not bugf*** insane as later entries from the studio, it is still a good time and if you enjoy the 1970's milieu in general like I do, you'll enjoy all the wacky wallpaper and clothing on display. I guess I should mention that the score (from Yung-Yu Chen) repeats a familiar motif often yet at times is electronic noise, which does make it intriguing.