Jiang tou

Excellent cinematography, well-lit and razor sharp. Insane black magic rituals loaded with gore and offal. A creepy, well-directed classic from the Shaw Group, Black Magic is packed with sickness and perversity. The Saturday morning kids' TV show optical effects at the end was a poor way to end it.

BLACK MAGIC is a wonderful little horror film from the Shaw Brothers stable that proved they were just as adept at making horror films as they were martial arts flicks. The success and ingredients of this production would later lead on to many other infamous movies like THE BOXER'S OMEN or SEEDING OF A GHOST.

BLACK MAGIC is a densely-plotted yarn involving the nefarious adventures of a black wizard who's happy to cast all manner of spells on his victims...for a price. First to visit him is a sleazy guy (Lo Lieh, excelling in his role) who wants to spend the night with a woman who hates him. Later, the same woman decides she wants to cast a love spell on a guy who hates her in turn. Eventually the guy's friends realise what's going on and employ the services of a white wizard to combat the villain.

This is a film that has it all: sleazy rituals (including an obsession with procuring breast milk), violent death, and hints at the kind of grotesque imagery that would later follow in this series. The atmosphere of sleaze and creeping dread is spot on, as are the production values that make this just as colourful an adventure as the many kung fu flicks made by the team. Ti Lung is fine but gets relatively little screen time as the erstwhile hero; it's the women who really shine here, including the evil Ni Tien and the good-natured Lily Li. The various elements combine well and the outcome is one of the coolest of all '70s horror films.

Black Magic is a Shaw Bros. film made back in 1975. Some think it is their first horror film but it is not. The movie is basically a modern story (modern of '75) of old Asian folklore. This movie spawned many films that were similar but none were quite on par with this. Usually, the others were far more violent and that is what they relied on. This movie didn't need to be gory in-order for it to be good.

The story is about a very selfish rich woman. She can have anything she wants. Anything except a certain man who wants nothing to do with her. So she goes and finds the help of a Black Magic Magician to put a love spell on him. The spell works until the mans wife and friends find the help of another magician to break the spell and kill the Black Magic Magician.

That is the storyline for the most part. You would have to watch the film because there is a lot more going on than just that.

This film is certainly not as violent as some of the Shaw Bros. films that I have seen, but, it is a nice change from all of their Martial Arts films, which are excellent as well. The story is well done and you actually start caring for some of the characters. So when bad things happen to them you start getting really frustrated.

For fans of Asian Cinema everywhere, this movie comes highly recommend from me and from many others. Check out the nice DVD that was released not to long ago, it's worth the money. 8/10

Martial arts hero Ti Lung plays Hsu Lo,who runs up against an evil black magic practitioner San Kan-Mi.San Kan-Mi wants to seduce Hsu's fiancée Wang Chu-Ying and places a death spell on him and a love spell on her,hoping to kill two birds with one stone.Another veteran witch doctor comes to the rescue of the spellbound lovers...Slightly gruesome horror flick from the legendary Shaw Brothers.There is self-mutilation ,grisly black magic ritual involving freshly buried corpse and finally some people are disintegrating into masses of putrid flesh,maggots and bones in a matter of seconds.I haven't seen "Black Magic II",but it's supposedly even more gruesome.If you liked this check out also hysterically funny "Oily Maniac".7 out of 10.

This film is so essence of B. It has it all: voodoo, old hags, centipede eating, breast milk and the clichéd good versus evil battle at the end. It's so B, you can't help, but laugh through it all. No matter how much you criticize the film for its cheesy plot and sets as you're watching it, you're sure to watch it to the end!

A working class guy tired of working for a living has his sights on the wealth of a very spoiled rich woman who won't have anything to do with him. She in turn has it all, but as a rich,spoiled woman that's not enough. She wants the man she can't have, an honest working class man in love with the good working class girl. Enter evil magician who specialized in both love and death spells.