The Seventh Curse

I have seen many a horror film in my day; Americain, Canadian, European, Japanese, Korean and Hong Kong. The Seven Curses brings cheesey eighties horror to new heights for gore and blood. Not to say that this is anything remotely scary, but a couple of scenes are brutally gory. Best part of the film: check it out in slow-motion in the scene where they drive the jeep through the worm-tribe's hut and up the steps of the temple. Just after they drive the jeep through the hut, one of the extras is a little slow on his feet and gets PLOWED by the jeep! I can't believe they used that take! OUCH! Anyways, if you're a fan of cheesey horror, and like gore and splatter-fests, check it out. If you like doing the whole MST3000 thing, check it out. If you're a big fan of horror, check it out. Otherwise, find something else to watch...

Crazy and very fast-paced Hong Kong action/adventure/fantasy/horror/comedy that seems to dip its toe into almost every genre besides musical.

There's even a cop/crime element at the start, small amounts of romance, and a scene that feels like a riff on a Rambo sequel where it almost becomes like a war film.

It feels like it changes gears/genres every five minutes, and that's part of its charm. It always remain fun and fast paced, no matter what it's trying to do.

Of course there's not much by way of a coherent story or great characters, the fantastic Chow Yun-Fat's presence is unfortunately exaggerated by the poster (he's really not the protagonist), and honestly I wished it could have been a little bit longer, because with a fast pace and a 78 minute runtime, it's over very quickly.

But if you like movies that pull off tackling numerous genres at once, this is pretty easy to recommend.

Hong Kong film maker Ngai Kai Lam (aka Laam Naai Choi aka Simon Nam) is one crazy fellow and I really admire his work. His filmography includes films like the truly over-the-top ultra violent hellhole prison spectacle STORY OF RICKY (1991), EROTIC GHOST STORY (1990) and THE PEACOCK KING (1989) to name just a few. His style is very hysterical and he easily belongs to the most interesting HK "genre directors" I know.

THE SEVENTH CURSE (1986) is a Hong Kong version of the traditional fantasy adventure films like Indiana Jones and Wisely films in Hong Kong (BURY ME HIGH and LEGEND OF WISELY.) CURSE stars Chow Yun-Fat (!) in a little role as Wisely who starts to help the hapless blood cursed protagonist Dr. Yuan played by the veteran Chin Siu Ho. He is a kung fu martial artist doctor who was cursed in Thailand as he visited it about a year ago. Now he's having some VERY severe symptoms of something very dangerous in his body: his body starts to "explode" in gory manner bit by bit and soon it turns out that the seventh "explosion" will be the deadly one. So he goes back to Thailand with an irritatingly curious and noisy reporter woman (Maggie Cheung) to search for the Worm tribe that cursed him. What follows is over-the-top continuous series of HK insanity in the gore, amazement, worms, black magic and so on departments! Definitely beware the blood curse while you visit Thailand next time!

The film is based on the original script by I Kuang who has written an incredible amount of HK films including some of the "dark horror" classics like BLACK MAGIC (1975) and BLACK MAGIC, PART II (1976) both directed by Hoh Mung Wa aka Ho Meng Hua. I Kuang also plays the little role of the narrator in the beginning of THE SEVENTH CURSE and he seems like a very nice guy. I'm pretty sure I Kuang has also written Yeung Kuen's incredible SEEDING OF A GHOST (1983) but I'm not 100% sure about this. Still SEEDING and CURSE have many things in common and have similar gross out moments and scenes of black magic carnage. SEEDING goes even farther in the dark horror department and that is also why it's so great film. CURSE has plenty of comical moments, too, and humor and also has some day time exteriors unlike SEEDING.

The film has one incredible scene after another. There is some martial arts and gunplay but what's the most memorable in this film is of course the black magic/voodoo related theme that is practised among the Worm tribe. This results of course some truly grossing gore scenes like human body turning into a bag full of living worms (very nasty!) as the hapless victim rips his own flesh off while worms come out everywhere. No need to say but if you fear of slithery creatures and worms, do not try to watch this motion picture; otherwise you'll have nightmares for the rest of your life. The alien creature (called "little ghost") the head villain/sorcerer uses is also a jaw dropping thing and very lethal. It goes inside the victim and then explodes through its stomach in the tradition of ALIEN (1979). There's also buckets of blood in various other scenes that will make the film too much for some. SEEDING OF A GHOST has some ultra fierce gore geysirs and scenes of carnage from the beyond and CURSE comes close to that occasionally but still never quite reaches the same level, and maybe it's because CURSE is produced by the "businessman film maker" Wong Jing who probably thought the film would have been too much for audiences if it was too dark and explicit and thus wouldn't make enough money. Even now the film is way beyond what Hollywood would ever dare to even think about.

The atmosphere and cinematography is also very great in the film and so the effects add to the real atmopshere and horror elements of the film. The scenes in the jungle are almost gorgeous in their lightning and menacing mist coming through and between the trees and rocks. Also the cheap but impressive effects used in the worm tribe scenes are fine and never dull. Also the finale battle between the sorcerer and the "little ghost" is again something outrageous.

Perhaps only thing that is an obvious negative point in the film is Maggie Cheung's character which is way too noisy and stupid in the film. But then again it is nice and interesting to see her in a film like this! Also a film that includes a bazooka wielding Chow Yun-Fat in its climax can't really be without its merits, I think. Overall, THE SEVENTH CURSE was more than I had expected and naturally it makes me even more interested in the work of Ngai Kai Lam. This film is among the things that make Hong Kong cinema so unique and special and also among the reasons that make me use word "insane" so often depicting these films, because they are, but in a very positive and innovative way! 8/10

Loaded with dazzling kung fu, silly monsters, stunts, and cheesy gore, and even managing to throw in the occasional naked oriental chick, The Seventh Curse is sheer entertainment from start to finish.

Chin Siu Ho plays Yuan Chen, a brave adventurer who rescues a beautiful Thai woman about to be sacrificed by the evil (and squeaky voiced) Aquala (played by Cat III fave, Elvis Tsui), leader of a bloodthirsty 'worm tribe'. Unfortunately, as a result of his bravery, he becomes the victim of a curse, which causes a series of arteries to burst from his body. With the seventh 'burst', he will die. However, this fate is postponed (for one year) by Betsy, the woman he has saved (who feeds him part of her breast!).

When, 12 months later, the curse inevitably kicks back in, Yuan Chen must once again head to the jungles of Thailand in search of the cure for his predicament: magical grains of ash from the eyes of a giant statue of Buddha. Unfortunately, this statue is smack bang in the middle of 'worm tribe' country!

Helping Yuan in his quest is a spunky reporter (a young Maggie Cheung), a Thai warrior (Dick Wei), and an expert in witchcraft (Chow Yun Fat). And he needs all the help he can get, since he not only has to battle the 'worm tribe' and its leader, but also a gang of kung fu monks, blood ghosts (vicious little buggers created from the blood of 100 children), and 'old ancestor', a skeletal zombie that can morph into a bat winged monster.

The fight scenes are fast, furious and typically 80s in style (meaning that quite a few people crash through glass); the gore is frequent, OTT and very messy; and the monsters are cheap and cheerful rubber creations that are impossible not to find entertaining—meaning that The Seventh Curse is an unmissable treat for any fan of weird Asian cinema.

This Eastern movie has it all: Indiana Jones-like action, martial arts-performances, naked chicks, splatter, gore and monsters which look like if they were taken from an old Godzilla-movie. Don´t take this flick too serious in any way, folks! It´s the purest stupidity but great fun to watch! John Woo-star Chow Yun Fat is in, but his role is small and not very important for the film. Just another movie to laugh your head off! Highly recommended for your next trash video party!!!