Serpientes asesinas vs. Kung fu

This film begins with the studied seriousness of a social-conscience drama, and indeed, one can almost read the shunned little snake-haired girl as a stand-in for Muslims, given that she is initially introduced simply with a black scarf wrapped around her head. Though initially sweet and innocent, the child trades in her sweetness for slithering revenge once the locals tragically turn upon her and her family, murdering her parents. And so it goes that, as she grows older, she learns to cultivate the power to command hordes of ugly ass snakes (and equally ugly locals) to do her horrible bidding.

Peculiarly, this plot-line gets mostly set aside for awhile as the film turns into a kung-fu flick. And while the heroic martial artist is quite good, his choreography is pretty much the same in fight after fight after fight. And man-o-man is the progress of the story ever slow. Sadly, by the time the film returns to the anticipated face-off between the kung-fu master and the – now grown-up snake goddess - one can be forgiven for having largely ceased to care.

A father is about to kill a newborn girl not cos of female infanticide but she is born a freak. The wife persuades the husband into sparing the girl's life. Nobody plays with the girl when she grows up. Villagers r killed due to snakes n the entire village burns up the family but the girl survives to take revenge. From the poster one can make out that the woman's head is like Medusa's, full of snakes. She can command snakes but she still takes aid from the village bandit.

Parallelly ther is a subplot of a Chinaman, (a Bruce Lee wannabe with bushy sideburns). Our Lee is a doctor as well as a kung fu expert n he is shown in a white attire in the whole film, repeatedly fighting the same goons over n over again. The fight choreography gets monotonous n the subplot drags. Coming back to our Medusa, she bathes full naked under a waterfall in broad daylight but we dont get to see anything. She doesn't hav a house, wanders around but somehow she gets to wear different designer clothes as well as boots. Our Lee has a unique style of getting coconut, he has his pockets full of small wooden weapons which doesnt seem to get over. He repeatedly kills the snakes with those weapons n somehow evades all the snakes by jus jumping here n there. The ending is a big meh. I first saw this in the late 90s on a vhs. Revisited it recently.

DEVIL WOMAN is a film that seeks to combine two popular genres of the period - the kung fu flick and the black magic horror film. Hong Kong producers were fond of jetting off to "exotic", slightly backward locales to film such horror outings, which is why we get films set in Taiwan and Thailand. This one utilises the Philippines as its setting for a horrific tale of rural revenge.

Like CALAMITY OF SNAKES, this seeks to instill fear in the viewer by featuring the slithering reptiles as the main instigators of the occult. The antagonist is a Filipino Gorgon, complete with a head of snakes for hair, who sets off on an odyssey of revenge when god-fearing villagers burn her home to the ground with her family inside it.

Unfortunately, DEVIL WOMAN never quite lives up to its promise. Instead, it's a kung fu movie for much of the running time, as the titular character employs a couple of gangs of thugs to do her bidding and a white-suited kung fu-fighting doctor is forced to face off against them over and over again. Sadly, the choreography is adequate but not up to much, meaning the fights are repetitive, with the same character beating the same henchmen over and over again in the same surroundings; it soon becomes pretty dull.

Scenes of snakes attacks are obviously kept to minimum and there are none of those memorable black magic rituals that enliven other Chinese horror films. Instead, the viewer is asked to empathise with the titular character, who after all is only seeking revenge for a horrendous crime. This and the limitations of the budget and script make it all rather humdrum, and far from the exciting, gruesome movie you'd expect from the blurb. Pity...

The movie begins with a young woman journeying homewards after visiting her parents grave. Removing her hijab, we see an instant likeness to Medusa! The tresses of her hair are actually serpents, live snakes hanging from her scalp. Accidentally she falls into a ravine - and awakens face-to-face with a snake-woman! This ancient creature has the body of an anaconda, but the face of a hag!

The snake-woman introduces herself as the girls ancestor. She is a Sorceress, a Mistress of the Dark Arts, with a horde of demonic minions at her disposal! Dwarfs, stone-men, living trees, and batmen all answer her call! Not to mention that she possesses the ability to summons venomous vipers at will! She intends to make her descendant a great Queen of Evil like herself, and so the young woman is seduced into her grasp.

Meanwhile, an impoverished yet mighty martial artists arrives in town, looking for a work. He hears that a rich man has issued an hefty reward for anyone who can rescue his kidnapped daughter. Ominously, the kidnapper turns out to be a snake-haired woman. It seems that the Queen of Evil has been gathering nubile virgins from across the land in preparation for the next full-moon!

This fantastical, outlandish setting is what gives Bruka: Queen of Evil a leg-up. It is fun seeing a Kung Fu Hero battling the minions of evil. It's that special kind of idiosyncratic fantasy that you only really see in SoutEast Asian B-flicks from the 70's and 80's.

That said, the movie definitely suffers from its low-budget, B-movie roots. The interesting parts are backloaded towards the ending third of the plot. Also the narrative feels scattered and disjointed, events occurring for no real discernible rime or reason. Everything about it is shoddily made, but if you want to see a Kung Fu Hero battling an army of snake-worshipping dwarfs, then "Bruka: Queen of Evil" delivers on the fun!

A medusa broad seeks revenge against a village that fricasseed her parents. Devil Woman is a snake horror kung fu hybrid. For those expecting something very weird in the vein of crap like Indonesia movies, then you might be disappointed. Though the snake woman is relatively cool looking and it has snakes and $#!+, they aren't really effective in a horrific manner. The snake death scenes were more so goofy looking than scary. But I guess you can say it works better as a unintentional comedy movie. It does have funny moments like this guy doing all sorts of flips while flinging blades at snakes heads and one of the most dumbest f···ing endings I have ever seen in a kung fu movie. It's so bad it made me cough blood with laughter. If you want something silly and stupid, this might suffice but if you're looking for something more left-field, kooky or on crack, Devil Woman does not fit the bill.