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Sex, horror and exploding bats are the main ingredients for this early 80's Shaw Brothers thriller from director Kuei Chih Hung, the man who brought us the fantastic horror film, Hex, The Boxer's Omen, Killer Constable and many more. It stars Ai Fei, from the Shaw classics House Of Traps, Human Lanterns and Death Duel, as a man arrested for the murder of his daughter, having claimed that she was possessed, and that he himself, had a spell put on him after meeting a Thai girl and leaving her jilted. The first shock of the film comes pretty quick as a kid playing ball comes across the grossly, realistic body of his daughter in the woods - complete with 6 inch nail driven into the top of her head that forcefully gets removed. Its the first of many moments that will make you wince through the atmospheric and fun, Bewitched...

Told in flashback (in part) from the jail cell to officer Melvin Wong, Ai Fei's stories convince Wong to head to Thailand to learn more about the black magic rituals, leading to a crazy run of events, leaving him with much more than he bargained for!

I like Bewitched! It's something a little different and has some pretty cool tricks going on that keeps viewers entertained right through. These include graphically disturbing corpses, a séance with floating skulls and twigs that write alone, evil wizards versus good wizards, reanimated bodies, a possessed child munching down on raw meat, brutal car accidents, levitating knives and much, much more.

Director Kuei keeps things tense as the story rolls along with some incredible visuals and darkly wild atmosphere throughout. There's a rawness to Bewitched that just seems to keep you gripped, along with its ominous music and sound effects that just add to the experience. Its beautifully shot for the most part, capturing some wonderful shots of Thailand (including its fantastic, giant movie posters on the buildings), with some incredible lighting which makes it look amazing and very nice to watch. This is also aided by the incredibly clean, crisp and colourful print, 88 Films have provided here allowing us to see the ultimate version of this classic...

The great Melvin Wong does a wonderful job, as do most of the cast, with real-life wizard Hussein Hassan playing the dark villain of the piece. He gets to take part in an extended battle with a good wizard, attacking each other with spells that gets violent and bloody, that leads to the evil wizard drinking the blood from a (shockingly graphic) barrel of dead babies and internal organs for more power!

It's really quite disgusting.

The final half hour sees Wong return to Hong Kong to follow-up his case. Its here that he finds his Ai Fei in the prison hospital, wrapped from head-to-toe in bandages, violently throwing-up worms, and slashing his stomach open! And it only gets worse for him, with the detective now finding himself suffering the same problems and pains that first plagued his prisoner...

Bewitched certainly isn't boring, and I'd go as far to say that it definitely put a lot of people off going to Thailand upon release. With some great use of practical FX for its time, solid direction, and plenty of WTF moments to keep you entertained, this little gem should please any fan of horror. Kuei Chih Hung was one of the finest horror directors in Hong Kong of that period, so I'd suggest checking out some of his other titles and giving this one a go.

Overall: Mad, gross, shocking and beautifully made, Bewitched is a crazy piece of Hong Kong cinema that deserves a watch!

This is a strong contender for the strangest film that the Shaw Brothers ever produced, and in some ways, maybe one of the least polished. One must note straightaway that this immediately comes off as more than a little gawky and clunky in its lot development. It's extraordinarily swift and curt generally in its editing, a quality that is continuous throughout its length, and even in how individual scenes are orchestrated. In the first ten minutes or so it blazes through a substantial number of plot points in exposition, so many that there is quite literally a risk of blinking and missing a great deal. Yet all that is but prelude for a lengthy flashback that constitutes the meaningful beginning of the plot, a flashback that will round out the rest of the first thirty minutes. Meanwhile, many other scenes to follow are very long and drawn out, a variability in pacing that belies how curiously thin the story actually is. The connective threads between certain characters and story ideas are frail and barely cohesive; if one does actually miss the underlying motivations for the plot, bewildering as they seem to be, our assumptions are confirmed at the very end when a voiceover imparts the morals of the tale. Then, too, at the same time that blunt dialogue seems to indicate at times that the characters know exactly what is going on, there are other points when there is no specific explanation for the precise course of events, such as who a person is and why something associated with them is critical as a spell component.

That latter point is an important one where 'Bewitched' is concerned, and not just because the premise portends black magic. For all the rough patches in how the story is told and the footage spliced together, these aren't even the most significant oddities of this 1981 flick. Nor are the present-day setting (as opposed to the period pieces the Shaw Brothers are best known for), or the unremarkable sets and costume design. Nay, what really sets this apart is an element that is so unusual that it took me half the runtime to realize that the foremost facet of these 100 minutes was just that, and not a diversion. Where the average title from this studio would give us narrative advancement adjoined to or interspersed with kung fu action, the core factor of this picture is the preparation and conduction of spells and rituals, and to a slightly lesser degree, the resulting effect on the person they target. All those minutes that would elsewhere give us a flurry of martial arts wizardry instead gives us, in this case, a wizardry meeting the more typical definition. Once one realizes what it is that writer On Szeto and director Chih-Hung Kuei are doing here the inclusions go from sluggish sidesteps to a fascinating centerpiece, and one wishes they had become aware of their nature sooner - indeed, may other viewers be more wise than I am. With that being said, though, I still think one needs to be a patient and open-minded viewer to indulge in these long scenes that broadly have less going on in them than one expects.

In fairness, those practical and special effects that we do see look pretty swell, including blood and gore, special makeup, and some gruesome props; would that, perhaps, we got more of all of these, and more visualization of what the spells achieved than how they were cast, for that would have distinctly helped to give the proceedings a shot of adrenaline. Those stunts and action scenes that we do get come off well, and overall this is well made. I'm also a fan of the original music of Jen-Hou Su and Eddie Wang, a collection of far-out themes that in their own way match the peculiar tenor of the movie. And while 'Bewitched' is in no small measure not what I was expecting, I did enjoy it, and I think the concept is unique, imaginative, and worth exploring. I also think this was in considerable need of more careful craftsmanship and writing, for the initial headlong rush turns into a bit of a slog, and all the while the plot itself is less than convincing or satisfying. True, the writing isn't necessarily the most integral aspect of many Shaw Brothers productions, but it seems extra weak here. With this, and more of a gnarly spectacle taking advantage of the dark tone and potential for special effects, the end result could have been more memorable, and more of an achievement. I still think that 'Bewitched' is worth checking out if you come across it, but one maybe shouldn't go out of their way for it, and it's best suggested for those viewers who are open to all the wide possibilities of cinema and who will be best equipped to endure the more stagnant or undeveloped parts of the film.

Towards the end of the Shaw Brothers' rein over kung fu cinema, the studio branched out into other genres, enjoying some success in the supernatural horror market. Much of their horror output was typified by black magic storylines with gross-out special effects, Bewitched being one of the best examples.

The film opens with the discovery of the decomposed body of a little girl, a nine-inch spike having been hammered into her skull. A police investigation leads to the arrest of her father, Stephen Lam Wai (Fei Ai) who admits to the murder, but claims that he was under the influence of a spell. Sentenced to death by hanging, the man tells his story to policeman Bobby Wong King-Sun (Melvin Wong), and begs the cop to find out what drove him to kill.

According to Lam Wai, the trouble began when he wooed a pretty young woman, Bon Brown (Lily Chan), while on holiday in Thailand. After several days of being romanced by Stephen, Bon gave her new beau an amulet and made him swear to return to her by June 30th. When Stephen returned home to Hong Kong, he boasted about his holiday romance to his work colleagues (no doubt telling them about Bon's topless sprint across the beach, which is shown in slow-motion), but neglected to keep his promise to return. That's when the crazy stuff started to happen: the amulet caused a large stain on his chest, which sprouted hair, he became impotent, and his daughter began to act very strangely indeed. An old woman told him that he had been possessed and that the person closest to him would try to kill him and the only way to stop them would be to hammer a large nail into their head.

Bobby doesn't believe a word of the killer's crazy story, until he too experiences a scary supernatural phenomenon. Now convinced, he travels to Thailand to investigate, learns that Bon had a spell put on Stephen (the magic involving oil extracted from the corpse of a pregnant woman), and attempts to remove the curse with the aid of an old witch (who performs a ritual with some bad flute playing, a levitating skull, a twig and what looks like a small Wade figurine of a frog). When this fails, he visits a monk, who enters into a supernatural battle with the wizard who cast the spell. Cue lots of yuckiness, including the villain drinking blood from a vat full of dead babies, his face oozing pus, and a nail slowly pushed through the palm of his hand.

Unfortunately, the monk is unable to defeat the powerful wizard, and needs a week to recover before he can try again. During these seven days, Bobby is subjected to a variety of spells cast by the miffed magician, which leads to more madness, including the cop developing an appetite for raw pork liver, a bout of heart trouble caused by a lemon, Bobby's wife being stabbed by a flying knife, and a guy getting dragged under a moving car. Director Chih-Hung Kuei also sees fit to throw in those mainstays of the genre, maggot eating and worm vomiting. Meanwhile, Bobby also has to contend with an escaped lunatic who is causing havoc, having got his hands on a cop's gun (in the film's most shocking moment, the madman shoots a child several times in the chest).

The entertaining ending sees the return of the monk, refreshed and ready for round two, in which he successfully desiccates the wizard, forcing a bat demon to fly out of his mouth!

Following the discovery of a dead body, a police detective who helped solve the case finds that the spirit who caused the murderer to embark on his killing spree has now possessed him and turns to a devout priest to before the necessary rituals in order to protect himself.

There was quite a lot to like with this one. One of the many positives of this one is the fact that there's such a deranged and wild atmosphere present in this one due to the black magic cursing involved. The way the spells are enacted in here are quite intense and often creepy, being that they're carried about in the one room where all the different black magic relics are shown from the skulls, black candles, strange jars lining the walls and the different pots and containers featuring all the ingredients to make their spells come to life. The way they include all the different objects here, from the silver bells on the strings of the ceramic boxes to carving out the writing with the special tree-branch and the special altar where they reside over during all the special ranting and enacting their spells, all combine together to give this one a rather creepy and frightening atmosphere which is what makes the film work as it does. This as well carries over into the rather fun curses that actually get played out here, from the black marks on the body that continually spread across them to the different artifacts turning into animals and other objects being turned into lethal and rather dangerous elements to attack their victim that it becomes all the more effective even before adding in the requisite vomiting up worms and maggots that is included in here. Once it finally gets to the spectacular spiritual battle between the two sorcerers at the end, there's just such an insanely wild and fun time here with the frenetic action enabling the two sides to engage in the battles against each other as we get to see the dueling priests throughout here fire some truly outrageous spells at each other. Cursing pictures in order to cause painful sores to appear on the body, causing their equipment to crumble into dust at the merest touch, bringing objects in the room to attack the other and other activities, there's such a wild and crazy assortment of black magic featured here that the film becomes a highly visceral experience on that alone. Even the other finale, from his battle to get free and how he reacts while under that control, makes this one quite fun and rather fun. What makes all this sorcery at the end work is the fact that the build-up exploring what happened to him here, from his relationship with the girl that's quite fun and innocent to the strained way he interacts with his daughter amid the slow-building realization of his curse, the set-up to this one manages to work quite nicely and gives this one the burgeoning storyline necessary to really fuel the rest of this one rather nicely. The only thing that doesn't really work here is the fact that there's the second affliction in the final moments rather than built up so that it really makes a rather strange inclusion. Otherwise, there's not much to dislike here.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Full Nudity and Language.

I saw this for the first time few days back. Got enticed aft reading glowing reviews. I shud hav been careful regarding the only four reviews as of now. This film is ridiculous with unnecessary gross scenes. The lead villain is always shown in bat-like/Dracula-like attire, he sneaks in n out of places as if he is some sorta ninja with high skills. The effects r laughable n why does the poor bat always has to be the epitome of evil? Ther is some nudity, the initial police investigation is kinda intriguing but it all boils down to what did I jus watch. Without any sex operation, a man suddenly turns into an old hag. Now that is some super duper mumbo jumbo technology.