6/10
THIS MOVIE!
22 October 2023
Warning: Spoilers
I think I've seen all the Shaw Brothers non-supernatural films and the HK Database says that this is a drama, so...let's just agree that it may have demons and magic but it's kind of its own thing.

Long Fei (Jason Piao Pai) left behind the world of martial arts fisticuffs and now lives in a secluded mountain studio where he and his assistant Fatty (Wong Chun) have spent five years carving a woman out of crystal. Long Fei wishes that his woman had a soul, so he adds some blood because you know, nothing bad would happen, and of course everything bad in this movie happens as the crystal woman (Yu-Po Liu) starts killing people.

Masked Poison Yama (Wei Hao Ting) and his son (Yu Hsiao) want to kill Long Fei, so they spend much of the movie inside a treehouse lab where they mix plants, snake venom - yes, the movie shows us it being extracted, it's a Shaw Brothers movie - and animals to make a poison that blows people up from inside their stomach. Yes, they show it. You know you want it.

Yet the son is soon killed by the crystal female and Yama declares revenge on everyone, first using poison gas to kill everyone in the family of former fighter Prince Tian Di (Jung Wang). As this is all going on, he sends his men White Judge and Black Judge after Long Fei and Fatty, who are hiding out in an inn where the owner decapitated people and serves their flesh.

This movie is, well, absolutely wild. There are battles in a graveyard, a school of masked female assassins, wire-assisted swordplay and every character coming together for one final battle. I just realized that Hus Shan also directed Inframan, Kung Fu Zombie and Dynamo. Yeah, that makes sense even if this movie doesn't - like how is the crystal woman related to the assassin academy? - but who cares? It looks good, it moves fast and it's super weird.
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