Hung bong

Taking a job as a security guard, a man working in a cursed department store finds that a series of strange events plaguing the area after his arrival is tied to a deadly curse on him and must resort to increasingly mystical means in order to save himself and his family.

This one was quite the enjoyable and creepy effort. One of the film's greatest attributes is the fact that there's quite a lot of rather creepy and rather inventive methods here to drive home the general storyline involved here. There's a great deal of work here in the first half where it's a steady stream of rather chilling incidents throughout here, from the mention of the worker carving up the boss that allows for his entry into the company, the exceptionally creepy elevator ride into the basement which floods with water and opens up to a darkened basement with a creepy relic below only to all mysteriously vanish on the ride up with no trace it was ever there and the bizarre incident of the one worker choking on a chicken bone in his cornmeal. All of these are rather fun scenes that get by alongside the striking imagery used to denote the demonic presence in the building, ranging from bright ornate colors against the drab surfaces to the fog continually filtering through the room which really gives this one a rather creepy atmosphere. Connecting all of this to the possession angle and all he needs to do in order to banish the spirits out makes this one quite promising leading into the striking finale which is where this one really gets frantic and thrilling. From the creepy encounter in the car on the road away from the store to the various black magic rituals that the shaman undertakes in battling the spirits and finally to the big encounter in the hospital parking lot with the ghosts while his wife is there giving birth under the guise of protecting her from the final stages of the possession, this is frantic and thrilling supernatural-influenced action which ends this on a rather positive note. Although these here are quite enjoyable, there are a few issues to be had with this one. The main issue is the fact that there's never once any believable reason why anything happens here. A lot of the story is based on the mysticism and folklore of the country which doesn't make for a coherent narrative to follow along in here as failing to understand why anything is happening is a crucial matter of this one. This extends to a few of the plotpoints in here as not only is there no reason for why he needs to be at the place to begin with, a fact brought up by the characters themselves and never answered, but a lot of the actions within here make no sense and there's a distressing lack of explanations for much of what goes on here. The only other minor point here is the dull periods in the middle which consist of him just going around looking for answers and there's not a whole lot of action going on here with this one being a little too dragged out with all the different elements going on to really hamper the pacing. Otherwise, there's not much else wrong here.

Rated Unrated/R: Violence and Language.

Hong Kong film maker Dennis Yu directed this often acclaimed horror film in 1981. The Imp tells the story of an unemployed man, whose wife is pregnant and about to give birth any day. He manages to find job as nightwatch in some huge market, and he soon makes friends with his fellow nightwathers. Soon, strange things start to happen as some of his colleagues die horribly and weird smoke and noises come from the elevator shaft. This all is iced by protagonist's wife's strange behaviour as she is about to give birth to her child. This all sounds pretty chilling, and I'm glad to be able to say the film delivers, at least to some extent.

I'm mostly impressed by the film's visuals and use of mostly green smoke as an element depicting the forthcoming terror. Cinematography is also great as empty passages are very ominous as our men travel there at night without knowing about the horrors that live underneath. The music is also surprisingly effective and it is used pretty wisely, and also in scenes one wouldn't expect that kind of music i.e. it plays quietly on background during seemingly peaceful and calm parts in the film. It really tells that even though the characters don't know it, there is something very evil in the air throughout the film. The ending is more than chilling and the final scene seemed first even gratuitously gruelling, but then I realized that it is more gruelling in mental level than physical level. The viewer is left to wonder whether the character managed to win the evil spirit/ghost or not. I understand all the positive comments this film has received during all these years, and this only makes me wonder how effective are the most praised ghost horrors from Hong Kong like Rape After, a sadly rare film I haven't managed to track down.

Main problems in Dennis Yu's film are that occasionally it takes itself too seriously and becomes little unintentionally comical to watch. Also, as usual, there are some things that should have been explained more carefully, like how the priest knew exactly everything that will happen and so on. There are many scenes that don't seem to make sense if one isn't familiar with Asian traditional symbolism like what does it mean when the kitchen stove is broken. Stoves are being connected to the outcome of pregnancies, and that is one of the main points in the story as the newly born baby may be little different, if things go as wrong as possible and as the evil spirit has planned.

The effects are also nice and interesting, as there's one graphically depicted surgery, many slow moving zombies and some other scenes of terror and horror. Some scenes give genuine "shocks" as zombies appear suddenly behind characters and so on, so the viewing experience should be pretty intense, as it was in my case.

After all, I liked this more than, let's say Ching Siu Tung's Witch From Nepal (1985), which is another Hong Kong horror story from the eighties. Dennis Yu has also made films like rarely seen Beasts (1980) and Evil Cat (1986). The Imp has been remade also in Hong Kong but I don't know what's that remake like. The original has some great and memorable visuals added with great soundtrack, and overall this is noteworthy horror film for fans of Eastern cinema, but still not a masterpiece nor particularly immortal film in horror genre. 7/10

"The Imp" was made by Hong Kong film-maker Dennis Yu,who also directed nasty "I Spit on Your Grave" rip-off "Flesh and the Bloody Terror"/"Beasts"(1980).The film is extremely creepy and offers some wonderful visuals.There is a distinct air of claustrophobia and impending doom over the entire film.The final scene is extremely disturbing."The Imp" is filled with truly chilling and ominous atmosphere,so fans of atmospheric horror won't be disappointed.There is almost no gore,but the zombies/evil spirits are very creepy.Highly recommended.

This film is not all that good, most of the chills are only on the hammy face of the protagonist, a half-baked actor, as he wonders around his workplace at night hearing strange noises and seeing wisps of smoke. NOT one of the better Hong Kong horror films from the pre-communist era, don't bother unless you're bored.

Proud husband and father-to-be Cheung Ging-Keung (Charlie Chin) is determined not to rely on his businessman father-in-law for employment; instead he takes a job as a night watchman at an industrial complex that, unbeknown to him, is home to a malevolent spirit who plans to be reincarnated as his son. A Taoist priest warns Cheung of the danger that he and his family are in and tells him that his only hope is to go to his workplace and banish the spirit before dawn by placing a magical talisman on the navel of the spirit's corpse. Of course, doing so ain't that easy…

80s Hong Kong horror movies appeal to me because they are often so unlike anything that Western cinema can offer, delivering the weird and the wacky in spades. Unfortunately, The Imp, from director Dennis Yu, is nowhere near the most original nor the craziest Asian horror flick I have seen (that would really take some doing), offering up only a few mildly bonkers moments amidst an excess of smoke, strong green lighting and things randomly bursting into flames, whilst playing out at a frustratingly measured pace with a surprisingly serious tone. To be honest, there's barely enough of the wacky stuff to make it worthwhile for fans of Asian madness.

The best that the film can offer is a guy choking on a bone while eating dog soup, with the consequent operation on the aforementioned man providing most of what little gore there is, plus a couple of other random supernatural deaths, including one guy being suffocated by a newspaper(!), and another bloke named Fatty being waylaid by supernatural fog before getting burned in his car. Towards the end of the film, Yu picks up the tempo a tad, chucking in a few cruddy zombies, and ends proceedings on a unexpectedly downbeat note.

For me, however, the strangest (and therefore most memorable) sight is that of Fatty sporting his bright red, English slogan t-shirts: the first has the somewhat perplexing phrase 'Am I A Girl?' written on it in big white letters, while the second one exclaims 'No! I Am A Man'. Now that is weird!