Weirdhouse Cinema: Magic of Spell

In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe return to the wild world of Taiwanese fantasy with 1988’s “Magic of Spell,” a direct sequel to “Child of Peach” from the previous year. It’s once again directed by Chung-Hsing Chao, stars Hsiao-Lao Lin and is totally bonkers. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
And this is Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House
Cinema we're going to be talking about the nineteen eighty
eight Taiwani is fantasy martial arts movie Magic of Spell.
This movie is overwhelming, Rob. I'm so glad you picked it.
I was watching it with Rachel multiple times in the evening,
right before bed, and she was very tired and like,

(00:39):
I really need to go to bed.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
But every new moment there.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Was something that like put the hook in was like no,
I got to watch for another few minutes. And it's
kind of relentless in that regard. So wow, what a
choice this was.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Yeah. Yeah, I was really conflicted on what sort of
movie to pick for today because we have several things
going on at once. You know, it's like Valentine today
almost here. So I was thinking maybe a paranormal romance
of some sort that we kind of got into that
a bit with the last selection, so wasn't heartbroken over
not going in that direction. But then also it's Friday

(01:13):
the thirteenth, so I was like, okay, maybe some sort
of a slasher. And then also I was thinking, well,
you know, we have Lunar New Year coming up here
as well, so maybe you know, something from Asian cinema
would be appropriate. And I was looking at some pretty
serious and artsy titles, you know, some stuff that was
already a little bit in the bummer category, you know.

(01:35):
And it was in the day that I had to pick.
The film was also just like the news cycle was
especially depressing and demoralizing, and I realized that a I
needed a hear b. They needed to be strong, they
needed to be fast, and they needed to be fresh
from the fight. And I needed a dumb fantasy movie
with very little connection to reality. And the answer came

(01:58):
to me like a divine p rising up out of
a well magic of spell, the sequel to Child of
Peach just staring up at me from my movie drawer,
with the promise of frenzied fight choreography, insane magic, and
essentially zero real world vibes to contend with.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
So, as you said, this is a sequel to another
movie we've covered on the show, the movie Child of Peach,
which came out I think just the year before this.

Speaker 2 (02:24):
Yeah. Yeah, they were able to reload the chamber and
give us another one pretty quickly. It's quite impressive.

Speaker 3 (02:33):
There's not much of an esthetic gap between the two,
Like the second one feels very aesthetically tied to the
first one.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, it doesn't even bother to reintroduce characters that are
brought back into the film halfway through. They're just like
you watched the last one. You watch Child of Peach,
So yeah, you know what's going on.

Speaker 3 (02:52):
But for those who have not recently watched Child of Peach, rob,
can you remind us, like, what was the deal with
Child of Peach?

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah? Child of Peach eighty seven gave us the origin
of Peach Boy, So this is the Taiwanese film that
is giving us some version of a Japanese folkloric character
generally called Mama Taro, a child born from a giant
peach and then found by an old woman and raised
as her child. Then Peach Boy becomes a mighty hero

(03:20):
as a boy fighting alongside a trio of friends Little Dog,
Little Monkey, and Little Pheasant, who in these films are
portrayed as magical, youthful fairy type figures with animal hybrid
attacks and together, these four fight various only devils and
monsters that's in the original folk tale. Okay, yeah, and

(03:42):
so this is a Bonker's adaptation of all of that,
seemingly even further removed from reality. Like watching this film,
you may have passing questions about where this takes place.
Is this supposed to be Japan? Or is or is
this not Japan. It's really a kind of a fantasy

(04:03):
world unto its own. We're in a world of almost
pure myth here. So if you want, you can go
back and re listen to our episode on Child of
Peach before listening to this episode. But on the other hand,
it's absolutely not required. We'll catch up to speed here.
I guess one of the things that we've discussed in
the last episode that's important to to drive home here
as well is that there was an energy to Taiwanese

(04:26):
action films of this era. And the way this is
often interpreted, or I've seen it interpreted, is that they
were competing against films released by far more established Hong
Kong cinema studios, but they were making up for it
with greater risks, crazier stunts, and just in certain films anyway,
an absolute commitment to absurd elements. As such, Child of

(04:48):
Peach goes big, it goes weird. The same goes for
Magic of Spell, and the same goes for a thrilling
Bloody Sword, another Taiwanese fantasy epic that we've discussed on
the show.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Yeah, that was a really good one too. I'm trying
to think about some common features these movies share. They
do tend to have, as you say, a real emphasis
on outlandish elements. There's no subtlety, there's no restraint. They're
going for bizarre characters and costumes, weird, just juicy set

(05:20):
action set pieces. You know, they're not trying to stay
close to realism or anything like that, just a pure
embrace of spectacle and weird fantasy and comedy. There's a
strong comedic element, very running. Yeah, slapstick. I would also
call out something about the pace of the editing and storytelling.

(05:43):
A lot of things just happen so fast. It's a
style that mostly cuts out connective tissue that would be
there in other stories and tends to kind of go
from one outlandish thing to another.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
Yeah, yeah, there is something about the Paine. This is
a movie where, at times seemingly every character can both
fly and teleport, and we'll do so. I mean it's
amazing to watch, but at times it's like, man, this
guy just teleported three times to move across a room. Essentially,
like a lot of work went into this effect. What

(06:17):
did it accomplish? I don't know. It keeps things moving
really quickly, and there's just it's something about the magical
nature of the world. And it is also worth reminding
her when the martial arts hits, it's amazing, like the
stunt works great, great fight choreography, great wire work, and
it just goes. It's just when the kicks start flying

(06:38):
and the blades are pulled out. I mean, it's just NonStop.
It's just all out, and I absolutely love.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
It, especially the final fight scene, which is huge. I
mean it's the last twenty minutes of the movie is
one continuous fight scene, and it's really excellent, like not
cheap at all, great sets and props and really good choreography.
It's fast, it's interesting, they keep changing it up, excellent, excellent,
final showdown.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
I think all three. I could be mistaken on this
because it's been a while since, certainly since we watched
Throwing Bloody's sword. But I think all three of these
Taiwanese fantasy films we've talked about, I think they all
have a climax that takes place in some sort of
a throne room somewhere like a massive, massive throne room
with lots of space for stunts and wire effects. All right, well,

(07:27):
let's briefly roll out the elevator pitch for this one.
It is an ancient evil Sorcer needs virgin blood and
thousand year old Jensen in order to retain his power.
Only Peach Boy and friends can stop him.

Speaker 3 (07:38):
This movie, did you notice has strong themes of medicine, health,
and rejuvenation. Seems like it was on the screenwriter's mind.
So the main villain, his problem is that he is old.
He's sometimes called the Elder Demon, also called King Devil,
but he's depicted as very old and decrepit, and he

(08:00):
has powers where he can like launch beams at people,
but he is also shown as being feeble of body,
so he'll like, you know, shoot a ray at somebody
and knock them down and then do a villain laugh.
And then then in the middle of the villain laugh,
he starts coughing, you know, like he's having trouble. So
it's this interesting combination of potency but also aging and

(08:24):
weakness in the villain, and he needs to counteract the
march of time and his own aging with evil magic.
And so that's one theme. There's a kind of dark
arts of healing that is central to the villain's plot.
Like one of his main hinchmen we were just talking
before we came on, Mike is sort of a black
magic concierge physician, like he's a he is a you know,

(08:46):
he provides medical services to rich evil ghosts. I think, yeah,
so that's like one big theme. But then on the
other side, there's also just a lot of talk about
what's good for health. The gen saying is good for health,
and foods and drinks are good for health. I don't know,
I was just noticing that knocking around a lot in
the story. I'm not sure exactly what to make of it.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
I mean, I guess a big part of it is,
you know, Jen Singh is going to play a role here.
So the first movie introduces us to Peach Boy, a
peach that becomes a child, and then they were like, well,
what should we team peach Boy up with for the sequel. Well,
let's go to Gen Sing, because Jen Sing, for those
of you are not familiar, you know, it has a
root like rhizome that grows in the ground that sometimes

(09:31):
looks kind of like it has limbs, and there are
folk traditions of Gen Seng becoming a child, and so
therefore it just makes perfect sense. And of course Jenseng
has all of these connections to traditional medicine. So this
story basically writes itself at that point. It's a movie
about wellness though.

Speaker 3 (09:50):
Yes, yeah, health and wellness, medicine, and also the power
of the Buddha. Power the Buddha really comes through in several.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Scenes absolutely all right. So for those of you who
now want to go out and watch Magic of Spell
and then come back for the rest of the episode.
Kind of a mixed bag here, because on one hand,
legitimate releases of this film, at least in the US
and elsewhere, it just seemed non existent. However, if you're

(10:17):
just looking for streams on various websites, it seems to
be widely available there in multiple formats and actually at
times in really good quality. I watched this on a
disc of unknown origin, and honestly, some of the streams
out there are better picture quality, but I don't think
it has had anything like as of this recording, anything

(10:39):
like an official DVD or Blu Ray release, at least
outside of its original markets. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (10:46):
I watched a stream of it that had fairly rough
subtitles that felt like an unofficial effort to me.

Speaker 2 (10:53):
Yeah, yeah, say, the subtitles on mine were a little
bit cheeky, but it's also hard to tell, because this
movie's a little bit cheeky. Yeah, it's hard to tell, like,
at what point is the subtitle composer going in for
business for themselves and having a little extra fun, and
how much of it is an accurate translation of the
original dialogue? So yea, that being said, I think both

(11:20):
of I think the two of us watch slightly different
subtitled versions of this film, so at times we're going
to be comparing notes on what may or may not
have been said in this movie. Luckily, it is a
very visual film that mostly tells its story through stunts
and spectacle, so it's not as important. All right, Shall

(11:48):
we get into the people behind this film? Sure? Now,
this is one of those films where, at times, piecing
everything together across multiple movie databases is a little challenging,
but I was looking at IMDb, TMDb as well as
a Hong Kong movie database and a couple of other
sources here, all right. The director, also the writer and

(12:10):
the stunt coordinator once again is Chung Sing Chaw, Hong
Kong born director and actor who apparently came up through
the Hong Kong Yun clan of filmmakers. His stunt coordinating
and directing credits include both Peach films, as well as
ninety one's Twelve Animals, eighty five's Drunken Dragon, and eighty
five's Hello Dracula, That's a Hopping Vampire film. He received

(12:32):
a nineteen eighty three nomination in the Hong Kong Film
Awards for Best Action Choreography in The Miracle Fighters. It's
my understanding that this is a guy who went to
Taiwan to really capitalize on a lot of excitement that
was building there for locally produced Wu Shaw style fantasy
martial arts epics for the whole family. Yeah, big magical elements.

(12:52):
Yeah yeah. And so you know, everything I've seen from him,
which is just two films at this point, is in credible.
It's just again just a real commitment to just over
the top action, laughs and absurdity.

Speaker 3 (13:06):
We have enjoyed the other JUNGHI hopping vampire movies that
we've seen, and so now that I know this guy
has one, I would like to seek that out.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, hello Dracula. I love the title. Yeah, it's a
great title. It's like the Big Bopper is given a
given given Dracula ring. Yeah, what all right? Now getting
into the cast once more, we have Child of Peach.

Speaker 3 (13:35):
Now, one thing I think people notice when they first
start watching these movie Child of Peach or Magic of
Spell is that the main character, Peach Boy, appears to
be played by an adult woman.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
And that is correct.

Speaker 3 (13:49):
The star playing Peach Boy is an adult woman.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Not a child. Absolutely. Yeah. It's much like you know,
various incarnations of Peter Pan and of course mister b
natural for MST fans out there, you know, knowing the
character is supposed to be a little boy, I still
end up processing Peach as a grown woman. So I'm
just gonna go and say bear with me because I'm
probably gonna use just all manner of pronouns when referring

(14:13):
to Peach here. And I think the film is pretty
self aware on this matter as well, Like, I think
part of its intended humor is like, yeah, peach Boy
is obviously like a twenty something meter a year old
woman playing the role, But that woman is sau Lao
ln aka lamsu Lao aka Sharon Foster. And then I

(14:35):
think her nickname was apparently peach Baby because of the
success of these films. Yeah, so born nineteen sixty seven.
Just again, a tremendous performance here, spirited, high energy, just
a real treasure here when she busts out the sword
or even when she's just going you know, punches and kicks,
amazing work here. She's great in this role for multiple reasons.

Speaker 3 (14:58):
Number one, she's just really good and the action, the
fight choreography and the action scenes, she radiates lawful good
She's one of those people, yeah, just beams out rays
of goodness. So you really buy her as this as
this kind of angelic, cherubic hero. And then also she
has a groundedness and maturity, especially when compared to the

(15:23):
more clownish character. Is like the puppeteer character we'll talk
about in a minute. When the other characters are doubting
or panicking, the character peach Boy keeps a cool head
and she portrays that very well.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yeah, true hero, and yeah, we'll have a lot to
say about her performance as we roll through here. But
as for the actress here active from nineteen eighty through
twenty sixteen. According to the Hong Kong Movie Database, I've
seen her described as a Kung Fu wonder kind of
her time. She apparently attended a peaking opera school in
Taiwan but quickly made a name for herself as an

(15:54):
adorable fantasy action movie performer. On the various databases, her
acting credits go back to nineteen eighty, but her career
seems to really take off with eighty six's Kung Fu
Wonder Child, sometimes presented with the title Kong Fu Wonder Child.
And this was a Woosha film in which our youthful
hero battles evil forces. That seems to be that's how

(16:17):
she was type cast, but hey, she's great at it. Yeah.
Child of Peach in eighty seven was the big one.
This was a big hit, and we of course get
this Peach sequel. But I think there are other Peach
sequels as well. I'm not sure if they're like one.
Here's another adventure of Peach Boy or if it's kind
of just you know, playing with some of the same

(16:39):
themes when we have a you know, a youthful figure
fighting evil with a lot of crazy action. Yeah, riffing
on the on the central idea. Yeah. Her other credits
also include nineteen eighty nine's The Iceman Cometh, the movie
about Frozen, then Thoweds Swordsmen from the Ming Dynasty. Well
regarded sword play in that film. I've actually seen it,
but it has been a long time and I'm not

(17:02):
sure if she's still active in any way, depending on
the different databases you look at. Her last film was
possibly in twenty sixteen or twenty eighteen. All Right, So
that's our star, without a doubt. That's our title character.
But we have some fun supporting characters here as well.
First of all, Yaome Fong born nineteen fifty eight returns

(17:22):
playing Peach Boy's mother, the Old Woman. She only has
like eight films credited on the databases I was looking at,
including Child of Peach and Hello Dracula, But she's very
funny in this once more.

Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah, it's funny they write a line because most of
her scenes are comedy scenes, Like there are several scenes
where it's funny because she doesn't understand what's happening or
doesn't understand that there's danger. For example, when the puppeteer
is attacked by a boxing skeleton and.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
She thinks it's just a puppet show.

Speaker 3 (17:52):
Yeah, and so that kind of thing is great. There's
also some humor at just her being kind of nagging
or harassing of people, like she harasses the clown character
in a funny way. But also you get some real
heart strings with this character. Like spoiler coming, she dies

(18:14):
in this film. She's killed by the King Devil's ghost soldiers,
and like the moment after that happens, you get kind
of a montage of her life raising Peach Boy, and
I was out of nowhere. I was finding myself feeling
very emotional in the middle of crazy movie.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
Yeah. Same, absolutely, will we get those flashbacks to scene
from the scenes from the first film where she's raising
Peach Boy.

Speaker 3 (18:39):
She's feeding him like a hundred plates of food in
a row to make him big and strong.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
Yeah. So yeah, it's a fun performance that does pull
up the heart strings when it gets serious, which is
something to say for this whole movie, because there are
times for this movie is just flapstick, you know, to
eleven and then other times, you know, quite sad and
emotional or a little bit gary, like it really manages
to do it all.

Speaker 3 (19:02):
Yeah, ninety five percent hilarious with five percent tier jerkers.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah, yeah, with stunt work that at times you can
feel in your bones. And and also just some of
the choreography just makes you like, I'm watching it by
myself and I'm essentially like fist pumping in the air,
you know, because it's just so intense. All right, let's
move on our other. One of our other main characters
here is I believe we can agree at this point

(19:28):
that he is some sort of a puppeteer or a
traveling bard.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
Right, Yeah, he is a performer. He explains this to
Peach Boy's mom, that he's been making a living as
a traveling puppeteer. But he's also I think a kind
of stock character from fantasy martial arts movies of this type,
who is the aspiring disciple of the great Master. He's
wandering around looking for a mentor to teach him, you know,

(19:55):
the to teach him courage and wisdom and martial arts.
And so he's he's where that Peach Boy exists and
is out looking for Peach Boy to teach him something
and take him on as a student, even though he's
obviously significantly older than Peach Boy.

Speaker 2 (20:09):
Right and doesn't recognize Peach Boy when he finally meets
Peach Boy.

Speaker 3 (20:13):
Yeah, but he's been making a living as a puppeteer,
so he like walks around with this big backpack that
I first interpreted as a shrine or like sometimes in
these movies there's a scholar character who has a wooden
backpack like this in which they carry their books. But
I think his backpack is it functions as a shrine,

(20:33):
but may also work as like a kind of puppet stage.
I wasn't exactly clear on that.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, at first I thought he was a
priest of some sort as well. But yeah, but anyway,
this character, his name is let's see sau Ye Don
And in my subtitles they translated his name as one short.
I don't know if they my subtitles.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
As far as I could tell, my subtitles never gave
him a name through in my notes, I was just
calling him the puppeteer or the disciple or the traveler.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
Okay, so we may refer to him by a number
of names, similar case with other characters here.

Speaker 3 (21:09):
But he is the lovable, naive, buffoonish clown of the movie.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
Yeah, this is the guy who's going to get his
butt bit by zombies, whose butt is going to catch
on fire. He is going to be the butt of
many a joke.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
So much happens to his nether regions. He gets a
lot of testicular trauma, and a lot of stuff butt burning,
butt biting, but boiling. It all happens to his butt.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, so yeah. Comedic character played by the Taiwanese actor
and comedian Kupao Ming, who lived nineteen fifty through twenty
twenty two, and he was active on screen from seventy
nine through twenty twenty. His other credits include ninety seven's
Wolves Cry under the Moon, ninety two Secret Love in
Peach Blossom Land Unrelated, and two thousand and sevens of

(21:54):
the Warlords. So yeah, he's the clown of this film.
But it seems like he had a pretty long career
in pretty a staff bush career as a Taiwanese comedic actor.
All right, now we're going to get into more villain
territory here, our big bad our chief antagonist we already
mentioned him is King Devil, also sometimes called the Elder,

(22:15):
an ancient withered evil who ultimately needs virgin blood and
gen sing in order to attain all of his powers
once more.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
Yeah, I had a question, did you know if this
character was played by the same actor in both forms?
Because we see him for most of the movie in
the withered aged form, where I don't know, we'll have
some comments later on how that form looks, but he's
wearing a mask, like an old man mask, and then
later in the film he has a rejuvenated form, and

(22:44):
I didn't know if it was the same guy.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
Hard to say. As far as I could tell, only
one actor has like an actual credit for playing this character,
but it probably is, I guess, But there are other
actors who on the databases I was looking at, their
names don't match up with a character, so it could
be two different guys for all we know. But the
credited actor playing King Devil is Chin Shan born nineteen
fifty nine, active from seventy nine through ninety four. As

(23:09):
far as I can tell. His other credits include Kung
Fu Wonder Child, eighty seven's Ninja Hunter, and many other
action films, a whole bunch of like Ninja films and
other WUSHA style adventures.

Speaker 3 (23:21):
Well, I really liked this guy, great villain energy, and
there was one part that was especially funny because it
made me wonder if he was, in addition to playing
King Devil, doing some voices in the movie, because do
you remember this when it's the scene where peach Boy
has to fight the boxing skeleton that attacks the puppeteer,

(23:42):
and while he's fighting the boxing skeleton, the skeleton is
snarling and kind of going making noises like that, and
then we cut to King Devil's palace and King Devil
laughs and it sounds exactly the same as the skeleton did.
So it's like ten seconds and I was like, wait,
is he King Devil doing these voices?

Speaker 2 (24:03):
I had to wonder. Yeah. I mean it could also
could be just the same dub dubbing artists who's brought
it who was brought in to dub multiple characters, which
might be the case, especially when you're dealing with a
lot of performers whose main skills are probably related to
action choreography and stunts. But yeah, this guy's pretty great,

(24:24):
especially once he gets the full transformation at the end
and retains his youthful form, which you know he's going
to do. He takes on.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
I was going to say, he becomes the silver version
of the Goblin King Jara.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Yeah, kind of a cross between Goblin King seventy stage magician,
and it's kind of a typical, like wushaw, big Bad
kind of a character. Pretty amazing, all right. So, like
any any self respecting big Bad, you got to have
some underlings, and he has some great underlings. First of all,

(24:58):
there is this we've referred to him already, this warlock,
this sort of dark alchemists, dark Lama character. In my subtitles,
they kept calling him doctor Mongolia. I have also seen
him called doctor Demon in the various databases. I don't
know if he had a name in the version you watch.

Speaker 3 (25:17):
Well, once again, like with one short, the version I
watched did not give this character a name, so I
didn't know what to call I was calling him like
the sorcerer, because he resembles these you know, evil magic
sorcerers from some other movies like this, these fantasy martial
arts movies. But yeah, like we said earlier, he's actually
he does have sorcery powers, but he's very focused on

(25:39):
evil healing, like taking care of the health of ghosts
and demons.

Speaker 2 (25:44):
Yeah, and often busting out like strange gases and elickxus
and so forth. Yeah. So this master of substances, yeah
for sure. So yeah, so strong sort of alchemist vibe here.
He's played by an actor by the name of Semi
And this guy was also an action director on Child
of Peach, martial arts choreographer on this film, and has

(26:07):
a handful of known acting roles including Kung Fu Wonder
Child and eighty nine's Magic Warriors. Just a deliriously fun character. Though,
every time this guy was on the screen, I was
having a great time. Like literally, this character is like
twirling his facial hair. He's that kind of over the
top villain.

Speaker 3 (26:25):
It's also a great villain performance.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Yeah, all right, So that's one of the underlings. And
then we have a character that has sometimes called Miss
White Demon or sometimes Miss White.

Speaker 3 (26:37):
My version called her a little ghost.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Little ghost. Okay, that'll work as well, played here by
Ping Li Cheang, one of only four credits for this actor.
Tremendously fun, over the top drag performance clearly based on
the Yuki Ona character of Japanese tradition, you know, the
woman of the snow with various powers of the cold.
This is a tongue in cheek version of that.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
Is that the same monster type or character type that
was in the dream sequence in Kurosawa's Dreams.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
Yeah, they're hiking up the mountain and.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
There's that frightening woman with the soft close voice and
the snow.

Speaker 2 (27:14):
Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah, it's been Versions of this character have
been utilized to great success in various films. Here they're
mostly having a laugh with it.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
Here it's played for comedy. She many times gets her
hair singed in fire and is upset by this, so
she takes She's very careful about her appearance, like she
doesn't like getting her hair singed. There's also a really
bizarre seduction of the clown character and maybe drinking of
his blood. During the final fight scene. She just kind

(27:45):
of leads him off with a scarf around his neck,
and then he shows up later being like, oh wow.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
All drained of blood and loved up. Yeah, so I
think it was a successful seduction based on that. Yeah,
all right. Another Hinchman we have here is big rock demon.
This guy is is pretty fabulous. You want to describe
this character for our listeners.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
He's huge, gray, like a rock, kind of granite colored,
has a bald head, and then he has green Ambrose
Burnside facial hair. So if you've never seen the Civil
War General Ambrose Burnside, he's got the sideburns that come
down and connect to the mustache, but without a beard below.

Speaker 2 (28:27):
It's that look.

Speaker 3 (28:28):
But the hair is green and he's wearing a leather apron.
He's got big muscles, and he carries around a giant
rock cylinder on his shoulder that he uses to hammer people.
In my version, this guy did have a name and
he was called Stone Stone.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
Yeah. I think he may be in my subtitles, so
they called him Stone as well. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
So, and he also has a transformed shape in the
final fight where he can like turn himself into this
rock that's just a rock with a face that goes
remember and then you know, how do you beat a rock?

Speaker 2 (28:59):
It's difficult. Yeah. So this is essentially some sort of
an one type character here, a big, strong demon with
some sort of connections to rock and Mountain played by
Yong Sung. Pretty long career for this guy. He was
active from seventy two through twenty eighteen, and his credits
include eighty one's Thrilling Bloody Sword. I don't know that
he played a major character in that, but he was

(29:21):
in there somewhere. And then we have another henchman who
I don't know who played. I couldn't figure out who
actually plays this henchman, but I kept thinking of him
as Rocket Grimlin. He's some sort of almost Kappa esque
looking Grimlin orcish kind of a character, and he has
he either has some sort of a rocket launcher or gun.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
I was him as a laser orc yeah. Yeah, but
he's got blonde hair. He's green skin, blonde hair, and
a laser or rocket gun.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Yeah, and he's just he fires this when he starts
firing this gun off, like the pyro technics are amazing.
He's like just blowing up the whole set. So a
lot of fun was that with this character.

Speaker 3 (30:04):
I was excited though to see. You know, so in
the final showdown, a lot of the villain henchmen get
their own interesting come uppance, you know, when they're finally
beaten by the heroes, and this one has very anti
climactic end. He just they hit him with the sword
and then he disappears.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
Well, but it was after I think Peach ends up
taking out his gun. Ye throws a peach at him
and it clogs up his gun and then it misfires.
And then yeah, then they make pretty short work of
him after they cut off his ears. I think they
pull his ears. I think do they cut them?

Speaker 3 (30:34):
I remember them grabbing his ears and pulling them.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
That's good, all right. I mentioned the pheasant, monkey and
dog friends from the first film. Well, they come back
without reintroduction, so they're going to be in play again.
And then we also have Gen Singh, the thousand year
old Gen Synh character is going to show up in
this film, played by a child actor shin Ye Tah,

(31:02):
only known role for this actor as far as I
could tell, So I have to acknowledge the possibility that
this is just actual Gen sing in this film in
the same way that this just the Rocket Goblin could
just be the actual Rocket Goblin. It might not be
a performance at all.

Speaker 3 (31:16):
The Gen sing child is another character like the mom,
who alternates between funny action set pieces and then genuinely
tugging at the heartstrings.

Speaker 2 (31:26):
Yeah, yeah, a strange character to be sure as well discuss.
And then finally, the music is attributed to Chick You Lung,
who was also credited on Magic of Spell. I'm not
super clear this is Magic of Spell. You mean I'm
also credited on the Child of Peach. Yeah, so I'm
not sure exactly what the full origin story on the

(31:47):
music here is. However it comes together. I did really
like it. It's got some fun electronic vibes in there. Yeah,
all right, are you ready to talk about the plot?
Let's do it.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
So the opening shot of the film pulled me in
many different directions at once. It's kind of throwing some
different feelings and tones in a blender because we open
on a shot of a dirt road cutting through this hazy,
overcast landscape with a blue gray sky. It kind of
reminds me of the gloomy, fogged over look of some

(32:27):
of the exterior scenes in Monty Python and The Holy Grail,
you know what I'm saying. They're kind of just desolate,
gloomy gray. And then all around the road are tall
thickets of weeds blowing in the wind. But then within
this sad world, we see coming up the road a
young man carrying this big wooden backpack with a cloth

(32:48):
canopy mounted over his head, and at first we cannot
see his face because he is holding a giant, round
loaf of bread in front of his head like a
bread mask. So you've got this weird whimsical character image
within this desolate landscape, and then bouncy whimsical music plays

(33:09):
to match the character. So this young man makes his
way down the road, taking big bites of bread while
he walks. And this is the character we were talking about earlier,
who at first I think we both thought maybe he
was a priest or scholar of some kind, but he
is supposed to be a traveling performer or puppeteer.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
So he's got this backpack.

Speaker 3 (33:28):
That he uses for shrine like purposes that we'll see later,
and he is going to be this type of character
who is an eager drifter who wanders around looking for
a master or mentor to train under, either in martial
arts or sorcery. And a lot of times this type
of character, the disciple seeking a master, is played in

(33:51):
these movies as a kind of dufis or bumpkin who
provides comic relief, and that is the case here. Yeah,
So he's walking down the road eating this big disc
of bread which is burned in the middle.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
By the way, do you notice this.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
It's like white on the edges, black in the middle,
and then it's got a ring of brown around it.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
Interesting, Yeah, I wonder, Yeah, I don't know what kind
of traditional bread this might be, and you know, now
we're supposed to interpret it.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
I actually tried to look up what kind of bread
this was, and I couldn't get a solid answer. There
are multiple kinds of round loaves of bread in different
regional Chinese cuisines, or types of somewhat leavened or unlevened
Chinese flat breads. I don't think this is a flat bread.
This does look like.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
It's you know, it's a disc shaped, but it's a
sort of puffy disc. So I don't know.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
Anyways, walking down the road eating this bread until he
walks straight into a three foot deep pit in the
middle of the path, and then after he falls we
get the literal sad trombone music cue they use it,
and then we see there's a sign in the road
right on the other side of the pit, which is
a I think it's supposed to be a warning to
watch out for potholes.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
That would make the most sense comedically, yeah.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
And then later that night, the puppeteer has made camp
in a forest, and I really like the spooky atmosphere
and the depth, the depth of composition, and the establishing
shot of this camp. Like, so we hear crickets chirping
on the soundtrack, and you have the camp with a
glowing fire in the foreground, and then these shadowy forking

(35:23):
tree trunks in the middle distance, and then in the
deep background there is an unidentifiable white light shining into
the fog, and I don't know, it makes for a
really cool scene.

Speaker 2 (35:33):
Yeah, great setting here.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
So the puppeteer is crouching scattering a line of white
powder on the ground in a circle around his camp.

Speaker 2 (35:42):
Rob, do you know what this white powder would be?

Speaker 3 (35:44):
I mean, it could just be a magic circle made
out of anything like chalk. But I was also wondering
could this be like glutinous rice meal or something.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
That would definitely add up, you know, that would make
sense based on some of the topics we've covered on
the show before about like the sacred powers of rice.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
So suddenly he hears a bunch of guttural coughing and
kind of horking.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Noises out in the woods. And we then hear the
howl of the wolf.

Speaker 3 (36:09):
So evil is afoot and he is afraid, trembling with terror,
he yanks out some incense sticks and he prays to
his master for help, and then he goes to a
makeshift shrine that's in his backpack. This might be a
kind of puppet booth thing turned into a shrine, and
he offers his master a drink. Meanwhile, nearby, some undead

(36:29):
ghouls start popping up out of the ground and snarling,
and here begins what I was thinking of as a
Mister Magoo style fight scene where the puppeteer accidentally beats
up the attacking undead. So a few examples of this.
He's got this drink I think is probably an alcoholic
beverage of some kind. He throws his head back to

(36:51):
take a drink, and he head butts and a zombie
that was sneaking up behind him. And then there's another
part where a zombie dives to him, but at the
last second, the puppeteer bends down to eat a meat skewer,
and so the ghoul misses him and crashes into a tree.
He he impales one on a stick that he just
is throwing away over his shoulder.

Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
And then finally at the end of the fight, he
accidentally falls down backwards and crushes a ghoul under his
his puppet theater backpack. And in my version, when this happens,
the crushed ghul looks at the camera with glowing green
eyes and croaks concussion.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
So, in this scene, and also with some some upcoming
scenes with Peach's mom, we're having what I'm assuming is
some good natured fun with ancestor veneration, with like the
offering of various items to the spirit of the deceased,
but then also maybe having a little bit yourself and
so forth. Yeah, there's that.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
Well, in this case, I don't know if it's the deceased.
I think he's making offerings to his master he hasn't
found yet, right right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
So essentially this will learn his master is Peach Boy.
He just doesn't know what Peach Boy looks like, right.

Speaker 3 (38:03):
So Anyway, after this, we see the title you know,
Magic of Spell and Red on the screen, and then
we get a musical sequence where there is a recap
of everything you need to know about Peach Boy. We
see him working out. He's doing squats with a giant
log the size of a car. He is fighting bad
guys with a sword that throws electric sparks every time
it hits their armor. There's one part where he climbs

(38:26):
into a tree and there's a bird with just a big, bloody,
gaping wound on it, and he pours white powder on it.
I guess that's like sulfa powder. So he's tending to
the needs of the animals.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Yeah, there's one sequence here. I honestly don't remember if
this was in Child of Peach or if this is
something new for this film, but it's pretty great and
I think it sums up the whole vibe rather well,
Peach Boy's vibe. So we see some hunters. Hunters see
some cute bunnies. Hunters shoot an arrow at the bunnies.
Peach Boy sees this flies through the air, are fast

(39:00):
enough to catch up with the speeding arrow. Peach raises
their hand as if to snatch it out of the air,
but then instead zooms ahead at an even greater speed
to scoop the bunny out of the way of the arrow. Instead.
The hunters apologize and leave. Yeah, sorry about that, yes, Yeah.
And then there's also a scene where Peach Boy rescues

(39:23):
some children or a child from a river like the
child is or it might be like a swimming hole,
but anyway, the child's out in the middle of the water.
And then Peach Boy does a weird thing. I was
wondering if is it part of.

Speaker 3 (39:36):
The peach Boy lore that Peach Boy can't go in
the water, because why does Peach Boy not just swim out.
Peach Boy like throws these buckets out and uses them
like Super Mario hopping platform.

Speaker 2 (39:48):
Yes, yeah, it's some crazy wire effects. I don't know,
it's just more impressive to watch Peach Boy. Peach Boy
doesn't have to get wet because Peach Boy can do
these things. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:57):
But so that's peach Boy for you, Helping animals, helping
local children, keeping the local poachers on their toes, lawful,
good child with brutal, vicious magic powers.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yeah. And then we cut to Transylvania. That's right.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
So first we see a model of the castle from
the outside with lightning peeling across the sky, and then
we cut to an interior hall in the castle where
a pair of heavy doors swing open and in walks
a big parade of evil. So we've got a pale,
long haired ghost woman dressed all in white with flared
shoulder pads on her robe. I think this is Little

(40:37):
Ghost or the pale devil woman that we were talking about,
probably based on the Yuki ona. And then we have
the character we were calling Rocket Grimlin or Laser Orc,
a green fleshed or light creature dressed in silver and
gold with blonde hair. And then we've got the character
Rock Rock Demon or Stone.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
This is the huge.

Speaker 3 (40:59):
Muscle man with the ambrose burnside facial hair which is
green again, the leather apron, the big rock on his shoulder.
And then you've got the character your subtitles called doctor Mongolia,
the sort of wusha sorcerer villain with a long black goatee,
wearing black robes and a cap. And then also just

(41:20):
a bunch of there's an army, a ghost army, we're told,
so there are ghosts. They are ghosts in armor with
pale makeup and fangs, sometimes so kind of vampire looking,
but dressed up like earthly warriors, wearing armor and carrying
flags and banners. The flags and banners are those of
the King Devil aka the demon Elder.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
Yeah, who has a great logo. By the way, yes,
some sort of we're describing it as possibly like a cowskull,
but also a little bit of a almost kind of
a cuddlefish vibe to it. It's very Yeah.

Speaker 3 (41:54):
So there's a golden statue on the wall at the
end of the throne room here, and I was thinking, well,
it could be a cowskull with horns, because it has
these big lobes that go off the top of the
head and split and go out. But it even more
than horns. Really, it looks like a bunch of hair
parted in the middle going out to pigtails on the sides.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
I don't think that's what it's supposed to be, but
that is what it looks like.

Speaker 3 (42:20):
And then the face, Yeah, it's partially like a long
snouted bovine skull with glowing eyes, but it also looks
a bit like a squid head is like the snout
could be tentacles.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
So the procession moves up to the head of the
throne room and you've got the timpany drums going hard
on the soundtrack. The soldiers in this column are carrying
something big cauldrons that look like cupped dragon hands, and
there is a rectangular pool on an elevated platform at
the head of the hall. When the soldiers reach the pool,

(42:54):
they tip their cauldrons out and pour just gallons and
gallons of red liquid, presumably blood into the pool. No,
it is blood, and they're spilling a lot of it.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Did you notice this.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
It's there's getting a good amount in the pool, but
part of it is just spilling over the side. And
the pool is lined with the statues of golden fish
that have.

Speaker 2 (43:17):
Like jade eyes.

Speaker 3 (43:18):
These green eyes that are we learn later are light
bulbs that can light up.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Yeah. Essentially, they're all going to light up if this
blood bath reaches like maximum potency full power.

Speaker 3 (43:30):
Yeah, so the golden monster fish with green eyes light
up in accordance with the potency of the blood pool. Yes,
so we see the the black Magic Sorcerer. We see
doctor Mongolia here come up and scatter some green dust
over the blood in the pool. Did you notice Rob
that when we see his hand, he's holding this hexagonal

(43:51):
little canister of magic dust, and he's got the one
long fingernail, the pinky nail.

Speaker 2 (43:57):
Yeah. Yeah, I got to use that for maybe for
measuring out some of these various ingredients, yeah, the biological teaspoon. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
But so when he throws the stuff into the pool
and then we get sparks and the golden monster faced
fish statues with the jade eyeballs, they start vomiting blood
into the tank, and the Sorcerer turns around and says,
welcome elder, and then like a green energy ball zooms
into the hall from the outside. It electrifies the cow

(44:29):
squid head at the end of the room, and then
it spits out a human form, which is a wizened
old man in a blood red robe over some purple
undergarments who's got long white hair, a bald head, big
bushy white eyebrows and mustache and a lot of dark
eye makeup. His skin is gross. His skin is kind

(44:52):
of like an overcooked pizza. It's like you see a
little sauce peeking through. It's kind of white and pink
and red again the heat, huge white eyebrows, in the
bushy mustache, his hair. When we first see him as
just billowing in these gales of magic, he looks really mad. Also,
I have to notice the texture on the King Devil's
bald head, so it's a mask of some sort or

(45:15):
at least some very thick makeup, But I think it's
actually just like a rubber latex rubber. Yeah, it's a mask,
and the texture on the bald head has all these
little lines and channels in it that don't look exactly
biological in nature. They look almost like a machine. So really,
his head looks kind of like a death star made
out of raw chicken.

Speaker 2 (45:37):
Yeah. Yeah, he's pretty gross looking for sure.

Speaker 3 (45:40):
But here the Elder gives a speech. He says, we
the Evil used to be powerful and almost control the
human beings, but ever since the Peach Boy appeared to
fight against us, there is no one survived except us
out of the Boy's hand. So it seems like Peach
Boy has defeated all of the ghosts and the Devil's
and the Evil except them. This is the last bastion

(46:03):
of evil here at the castle, and they're going to
make a bid to reassert control over the world. However,
here's something I alluded to earlier. In the middle of
giving this evil speech, the Elder Demon suddenly falters and
he lets out this pathetic coughing fit. So we quite
early on learn that even though he is the devil

(46:25):
King and he is very powerful, and he has all
these magic powers. He is old and ailing beneath all
of the bluster, and then we see set out before
him kind of the answer to his ailing health.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
It is the pool of Blood.

Speaker 3 (46:40):
At this point I noticed it looks like it has
a frothy, pink foam floating on the surface, like a
bloody bubble bath. It's not exactly deep red and thick
like you would imagine blood is.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
It's kind of a yeah, well, you know, we have
doctor Mongolia put an additive in there, you know, clearly,
and that's probably when we get the frothing. The frothing
means it's it's working. It's almost time to get in. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:03):
If you ever like boil fresh, you know, ground up
perade tomatoes and you're trying to make a tomato sauce
and reduce them, At first it kind of looks like this.
It's kind of frothy and pink, and then it deepens,
but his speech resumes. So the King Devil says, today,
I want you to swear to me that we're determined
to terminate the peach Boy. And in response to this,

(47:24):
one of the Devil's soldiers steps out of formation and
he protests. He says, but Elder Peach Boy is too tough,
oh man, And.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Then we get a dop zoom in.

Speaker 3 (47:38):
No, he does not like to get this kind of feedback,
so no hesitation. He instantly emits death beams to annihilate
the complainer. That's really good and uh and at this point,
uh the sorcerer, Uh, doctor Mongolia. He pipes up with
this toadying chant.

Speaker 2 (47:55):
He says, we shall follow the elder to kill the boy, and.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
Then all of the ghosts aunt along and we get
a great villain laugh from the King devil. He just
laughs and laughs and raises his arms up to the heavens.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
Everyone liked that. Yes, all right? So from here we
pick back up with Peach Boy's mom. There's some more. Again,
I'm assuming good natured comedy about ancestor veneration. I mean,
as with anything, I'm sure somebody didn't like this humor,

(48:29):
but given that this is like a mainstream family comedy,
I'm assuming that this is all in good fun. And
then our puppeteer shows up. Wandering puppeteer shows up, and
there's a lot of great back and forth between him
and Peach Boy's mom. Peach Boy is not here yet. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:45):
Now regarding yeah, the comedy at the shrine, I think
I could be wrong about this, but I think maybe
it was not supposed to be an ancestor she was
talking to, but her deceased husband.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
I think yeah, because there is a lot of talking
about it. She was talking about all I don't have
anyone to quarrel with anymore, and this quarrel with the
old man.

Speaker 3 (49:03):
Yeah, I love Yeah, the good old day is when
we would fight about things. She says, they're all a
sweet memory now. But she's tender to the shrine. She says,
I make the best cakes for you. I leave the
best cakes for you. She offers him tobacco products, and
then the puppeteer wanders into peach Mom's yard in the forest.
He shows up looking for water. She gives him water.

(49:25):
He drools everywhere while he's drinking. It's kind of like
the psychic and deep red again. Then she also gives
him food, and he hungrily wolfs down the food she
gives him. She actually gives him the cakes she originally
put at the shrine. She like goes to the shrine
and says, you get to eat every day. I'm going
to feed this guest, so she's being generous, a good,
good host, hospitable, and then the puppeteer asks her if

(49:50):
he can offer some of her cakes to his master
at his shrine. But he also is like cheating a
little bit at this. He's like offering the cakes to
his master at the shrine, taking bites.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Of them as his one.

Speaker 3 (50:04):
And Yeah, I was wondering, like, I can't tell if
this is a kind of serious theme of the movie
or just a random gag about taking food away from
like those venerated in spirit after it has been offered
to them, or is it trying to say something about
I don't know, people shirking on traditions in favor of
their hunger or something.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
I don't know. I would kind of assume that this
movie is not getting too serious with any of its themes,
but it could be wrong.

Speaker 3 (50:32):
Peach Mom is kind to the traveler and she likes him,
but then they get into an argument because they have
a disagreement over who is the greatest hero. The traveler
says his master, who he hasn't found yet, is the
greatest hero, and Peach Mom says no, her son, Peach Boy,
is the greatest hero. So peach Mom is one of
these moms who is jealously guarding her son's reputation. You know,

(50:56):
She's like, he's the best. You're not gonna argue with
me about that. And then Peach Boy happens to return
home while the traveler is still scarfing food there, and
this leads to the revelation that the master the traveler
has been seeking on his journey is Peach Boy. What luck,
very very lucky, And then crying, he says, Master, it's

(51:17):
really hard to find you. And he falls down and
crushes some of the furniture. But I think Peach Boy
is going to take him on as a student.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
Meanwhile, out in the Haunted Forest, the evil dead or
fixing each other up so they can continue to hunt
down the puppeteer.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
I liked this scene a lot. We were really laughing
at zombie Hospital. So like the skeletons are taping each
other up with bandages and like testing joints for mobility,
and then one of the zombies looks at a hole
in the other zombies' head and says, what a big hole,
but it's like in this deep, echoing, scary voice, and

(51:54):
then patches it up with gauze. They tie a bandage
around the top of his head to pull his jaw
up like Jacob Marley, and the skeleton says, it hurts,
I'll revenge, and so he heads off to get his revenge.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
And so then we of course picked back up back
at the forest hut of Peach. We get some more
character building and some more jokes. There's this bit where
the priest is making a hot bath for Peach, and
there's some jokes about giving Peach a bath, but Peach
manages just fine without his help.

Speaker 3 (52:26):
I interpreted the joke is that the puppeteer is now
being too much of a supplicant. You know, he's trying
to take care of Peach boys every.

Speaker 2 (52:37):
Whim and this is a little bit annoying. Yeah, And
when he's kind of like pushed aside, then he goes
back to Peach's mom and it's like, oh, let me
help you with everything.

Speaker 3 (52:44):
He starts giving her a massage with these feathery drumsticks
or he's like drumming on her back and he talks
about his backstory in the scene. He says, as a child,
he was always bullied and made fun of, so he
has been seeking a teacher who can give him great powers.
Then he's gonna once he has these powers, he's going
to go back and get even with his bullies. And

(53:06):
Peach Mom says, okay, good reason, and then she asks
how does he make a living. He explains that he's
in show business. He does puppet shows. He's very good
at it, and he offers to give her a demonstration.
So he sets up like a shadow puppet theater. But
while he's getting ready to do the puppet show, he
is attacked by the skeleton from the forest.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
And this is a.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
Scene played for comedy because Peach Mom thinks that the
attack is the puppet show.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
She's like, oh wow, this is great.

Speaker 3 (53:34):
And eventually they tumble through the screen and Peach Boy
gets kind of pulled into the fight.

Speaker 2 (53:40):
Yeah yeah, pretty hilarious sequence here. Let's see the puppet
here manages to get his butt bitten by the skeleton
by the zombie.

Speaker 3 (53:49):
In my version, the skeleton says bite your bottom, gets
him right on the butt cheek.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
Yeah, And then when peach jumps into help, she like
flips him around, and then the puppeteer and the zombie
end up like lip to lip and then is Peach
like moves the puppeteer out of the way. The puppeteer
gets slammed crotch first against a support pole in the hut.
So a lot of a lot of damage is being
done to our puppeteer character here. But then Peach makes

(54:18):
short work of the skeleton, just takes him apart with
chops and pulling off limbs and so forth. Yeah, snapping
limbs off the skeleton one at a time while the
skeleton makes these hilarious yammering sounds. Like.

Speaker 3 (54:32):
Eventually though, Peach Boy has victory. Did you notice that
while they're squaring off and boxing, the skeleton's arms moved
like the arms of that little type of like boxing puppet,
you know, Yeah, yeah, I thought that was interesting, And
I didn't know if that had something to do with
the the disciple here being a puppeteer.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
Yeah maybe, so they also could have just been having
fun with the nature of the special effect, you know.

Speaker 3 (54:56):
Yeah, But then we gotta we gotta check back in
with King Devil. Right, what's going on? How's the bath
building up?

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Well, the doctor is still getting the bath just right.
We see him dump a plate full of like snakes
into the blood path and it seems to be going well.
We see the lights on the monster fish light up,
but oh it doesn't light up all the way. The
blood bath won't fully power up in King Devil is
not pleased, that's right.

Speaker 3 (55:21):
It fails at the fourth fish. You get three fish
light up, fourth one. It kind of it peters out.
So Doctor Mongolia is like, I need more. I need
some more blood.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
That's right, the blood of a thousand versions to be clear,
and you know, maybe the spirit of some gin scene
as well added to that blood bath. This is all
he need. So he sets out with the ghost Army
and we see them immediately sacking towns and collecting the
children of the villagers and putting them into carts, dragging

(55:51):
them away.

Speaker 3 (55:52):
This was one of those tonal whiplash scenes because the
comedy of the previous scene is immediately gone and it's
just this horrifying scene of like children being stolen from
a town. Yeah, but then you're also thinking, like, what
is King Devil doing In the meantime, He's just sitting
in the bath, just having a bath ory soak in
the blood tub.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
Yeah, I mean absolutely, he's in the tub. He's waiting
for it. To heat up power up. He's not going
to get back out again, and he's going to be
cold if he does that.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
So the next big thing after this is the Gensing
ambush scene, which I loved, Rob Can you describe this all?

Speaker 2 (56:26):
Right? So we're in the mountains and I have to
have to mention that this this scene really got me
interested in Jen singh as a topic. We may in
the near future do some core episodes of stuff to
blow your mind about Jenseyng because I started reading Gen
Sing The Divine Root by David A. Taylor, which is
a great great book thus far and I think is

(56:46):
very well regarded and talking about gen sying like just
as as a global topic. But one thing that the
Taylor mentions in the book is that Jen sing harvesters
Jen singers, if you will have I think in various
parts of the world traditionally been a father son duo.
Where we see that here and we see that here

(57:08):
as well. Yeah, we see I think unnamed gin singers
out one's an old man, one's a younger adult man.
They're out there looking for gin sing. They've been tracking it.
And that's one of the things about Jin sing wild
gen sing like true wild gen sing, especially the older varieties,
they're gonna be harder to find. You really have to
know what you're looking for. It can be very subtle,

(57:31):
and so there does seem to be a certain skill,
almost an art to it.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
And this setting appears to be a secluded, almost hidden
or protected kind of setting. It's this forest clearing in
the mountains, surrounded by tall cliffs, and the Ginseng harvesters,
the old man and his son are setting out a
bunch of toys on the ground, and then they go
hide in the bushes to watch what happens. And so
what's the logic of the toys here?

Speaker 2 (57:55):
While the older.

Speaker 3 (57:56):
Man explains to the younger one the gen sing king
is a kid. Only the toys can attract it, can
attract it. And then the Gensing harvester's son says, your
experience always fails.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
But yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:12):
So they're sitting there waiting and then the moon glows yellow,
it zaps the ground with lightning, the earth cracks open,
a child in a giant root costume comes up, starts
like coming out of the out of the soil with
tindril snaking out everywhere, and then obviously the Gensing harvesters
are excited because here's like the big Gensing this is

(58:34):
the one that this is the real payday. But unfortunately,
our evil doctor arrives on the scene. He kills the
Gensing harvesters with flying needles, and he tries to catch
the Gensen Kid but fails and ends up just pulling
up a giant radish or turn up that's like bigger
than his own body.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
Right, hitting enormous turn up instead, and yeah, that's when
the gen singers laugh at him, and he kills him
with needles, and he's like, oh, the boss is not
going to be happy with this. I need something else instead.
A thousand year old Gensing Peach boy, that's what I
need to collect to put into the soup.

Speaker 3 (59:12):
But he does say that the Gensing Kid would be
good medicine.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
Yes.

Speaker 3 (59:16):
In this scene, and this is a recurring theme in
the movie many times, the doctor observes that there is
a thing or person which, if chucked in, would improve
the restorative power of the King Devil's bloodpool, and he says,
that's good medicine. So the next scene, we're going to
go back to Peach Kid's house. All of the villagers

(59:38):
show up there it's a big crowd of people, and
they're saying, help us, our kids have been taken by
the elder demon. Peach Boy here's what they have to say,
and promises to help them. And then he talks to
his mom. In my translation, the subtitle said, Mom, the
devil is raging again. Those kids are pathetic. We have
to help them.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
So yeah.

Speaker 3 (59:59):
So after and then after this, peach Boy goes and
prays to a statue. I think this was supposed to
be a Buddha. They didn't say that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
They just say a god refers to the statue as
a god, but the goodness of the Buddha is repeatedly
referred to in this movie. And whoever the statue is.
He prays that the god will sweep the raging devil
from the edge of the world and leave the innocent
to live in peace. Yeah. Subtitles and dubbing for films

(01:00:28):
of this nature, you know, for like Hong Kong action films,
Taiwanese action films and so forth, they often really simplify
things to sort of a Buddha versus devil dichotomy that
is probably not you know, accurate even to what is
presented any given film. Yeah, but you roll with it
because it's just kind of this kind of the culture

(01:00:48):
of these things. There you go.

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):
So then we get some preparations for adventure. Of course,
the one short the puppeteer is sitting there getting ready
and he's obsessively sharpening one knife that we will get
to see him use against the bad guys. He is
a coward, he is naive, but he does kind of
put up a fight in a few scenes, and he's
going to use this knife.

Speaker 2 (01:01:09):
He will show great courage. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:12):
Meanwhile, peach mom is helping prepare them for the adventure.
She's wrapping some kind of food I think maybe dumplings
or rice cakes or something in leaves for the road,
and she starts telling one short about how the ghosts
will drink his blood and boil him in oil, and
he doesn't like this and gets really scared.

Speaker 2 (01:01:31):
Yeah. It starts off with her saying you need to
look after him, you need to look after Peach boy,
make sure he's warm at night. And then but then
it becomes like, oh, yeah, the devils are going to
come for you too. They're going to eat you and
drink your blood, and it really takes its toll on him, so.

Speaker 3 (01:01:47):
He gets upset until another traveler arrives at the house.
So this is somebody who claims to be the father
of a boy who has taken from the village, asking
for Peach Kid's help. But uh, oh, it's somebody in disguise.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
Yes, it is the doctor Doctor Mongolia or doctor Demon
who shows up and does this kind of like spin
around and disguises himself as his father seeking the return
of a devil stolen child, and she meets with Peach's mom.
Peach isn't there yet and says, here, give Peach this.
It's a special keepsake, a doll perhaps, but it's just

(01:02:22):
this little box and you just want to yell at
the screen. Don't trust him, mom. Yeah, he says, it's
his family's lucky doll. And then so Peach Boy shows
up and she's like, oh, here, you know this is
from the sky, but it's a trap.

Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
When he opens it, it is a little devil skull
with light up eyes, and the eyes flash and then
there's a puff of gas.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
Yeah, puff of toxic gas right to Peach Boy's face
and oh man, now we get a big fight scene
and it is amazing. So you had notes on this one. Right, yeah, yeah,
all right, go ahead. So Peach is down. At this point,
Doctor Mongolia transforms back into his normal form and he
laughs maniacally and one short decides, Okay, I need to

(01:03:08):
do what's right. I need to run up and protect
Peach and Peach's mom, at which point Doctor Mongolia delivers
one of the most thorough butt whoopings in cinematic history.
It's amazing. So he kicks the puppeteer into the stairs,
and then the puppeteer has that knife we were just
talking about. He stabs the doctor with it. But then

(01:03:29):
the doctor pulls the blade out of himself clean I think,
snaps the blade, administers a flurry of attacks that include
a kick and a face chop, and then he punctuates
all of this against the puppeteer by lifting him up
in a dead lift power bomb, spins him around, and
drives the puppeteer through a wooden barrel, shattering the wooden

(01:03:50):
barrel in slow motion, just absolute perfection. Was not expecting
a full blown power bomb in this movie, but there
you have it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:58):
I'm always glad when we look at action movies like
this that you you are there to know the names
of the moves. I don't reckonize, I just know he
slammed him into furniture.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
Yeah, it's yeah, it's amazing. So at this point, the
action continues because the Doc moves into attack Peach because
again he wants to take Peach Boy back and throw
him into that bloodmath. He busts out a bottle of
noxious gas that that he sprays Peach Boy with. This
causes Peach Boy to stumble and begin to like kind

(01:04:29):
of foment the mouth or even vomit.

Speaker 3 (01:04:31):
He's vomiting some white milky substance like like ash an alien.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
Yeah, but Peach, Peach is tough. Peach mounts to comeback
by doing a series of standing backflips that allows her
to then launch herself off the wall with a flying
punch to the doctor's forehead. The Doc then is back
on his feet. He busts out a pair of these.
It's an actual like ancient Chinese flail type weapon called

(01:05:00):
flaming meteor hammers, and these are indeed flaming, well they're
meteor hammers, but then his version is a flaming meteor hammer.

Speaker 3 (01:05:08):
And so like there's the sort of like little metal
cups that are on fire and attached to chains. Yeah,
throws them out to try to hit Peach boy with them.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
Yeah yeah, so, you know, a fantastic variation on some
sort of an actual flail weapon, and we get this
tense battle. Peach is wounded, crashes through a table, but
then manages to catch both meteor hammers, overpowers the dock
smashing the weapon, pulls him to the floor, and then
lifts him up over her head, spins him around, and

(01:05:37):
throws him out the front door into the yard. Now,
at this point, the doctor needs to bust out a
new strategy. He's all about strategy. We see that later
as well. So time to play some music. Yeah, he
busts out this little horn. He kind of he dances.
He does this kind of like traditional dance. It almost
seems like a break dance. At one point, this Summon's

(01:05:57):
lightning along with a squad of Ghost soldiers and two
additional underlings. We got Stone, the big rock Demon and
then also the Rocket Goblin and Rocket Goblin just starts
blowing stuff up all over the place, and Peach busts
out her katana sword and uh oh, the action really

(01:06:18):
gets intense here. So Peach is attacking enemies. Mom gets
in on it. She's like, she like busts a ghost
soldier over the head with some pottery or something. We
get some grapes. Yeah, Mom's doing a part. She's you know,
she's brave. But in the midst of this combat, like
first of all, it's a numbers game, Like Peach is
fighting really hard, but they're just too many enemies and

(01:06:39):
eventually Mom is tragically stabbed in the back by a
random ghost soldier. Very emotional scene as Mom dies in
Peach Boy's arms.

Speaker 3 (01:06:47):
Around here is the part I mentioned earlier that actually
made me sad, with the montage of like the mom
growing up with Peach Boy and you know, feeding him
all the plates of food while Peach Boy and sitting
on top of the log while Peach boys doing the squats.

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
Yeah, I was watching or rewatching this scene early afternoon.
My child's at school, and I'm just like, oh, I
just want to hug them. I need my Peach child.
But anyway, yeah, so things are looking grim. Peach is
wounded but keeps fighting. But we reach the point where
Stone and the Rocket Goblin have her all but defeated

(01:07:22):
the remaining soldiers. These two enemies. Also, the doctor is
there as well. They're moving in to get her. She collapses,
But then what rises up out of the well but
a giant, floating, glowing peach, which takes out most of
the remaining soldiers with a flurry of laser blasts like

(01:07:42):
Star Wars, and the bad guys just have to run
for the hills. Yeah, laser Peach.

Speaker 3 (01:07:48):
Yeah, And then the Peach just disappears, doesn't it does?
It doesn't remain for the rest of the adventures.

Speaker 2 (01:07:54):
Right right, Peach goes away. I guess this is like
sort of like the Guardian Peach spirit because with then
then we cut to the others and it looks for
a minute here like everyone has been killed, like Peach
is laid out, the puppeteer is laid out. We we
we believe that Peach's mom is dead as well, and
then we cut to her funeral, to the to Peach

(01:08:15):
Peach's Mom's funeral, and this is where we get to
learn that, Okay, it does look like like child of
Peach is okay. It looks like the puppeteer is okay,
And out of nowhere pheasant, dog and monkey are here
as well, the sort of animal hybrid fairy children friends
from the first film, and they are absolutely not reintroduced

(01:08:36):
for the audience here.

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):
It does not tell you who they are. Suddenly, they're
just here at the grave and they're along for the adventure. Yeah,
and the person crying the most at the grave side
is one short the puppeteer.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
But he's a sensitive soul. And then he loved her
to everyone loved mom. Yeah. Yeah, and flash more flashback
scenes here to sad stuff for the first film. It's
it's it's a it's a tear jerk.

Speaker 3 (01:09:07):
Here the movie transitions into Okay, it's time for us
to go confront the bad guys. So they're going to
start traveling to the bad guy's castle, and we get
to see them walking through some genuinely beautiful locations, like
excellent use of the landscape in this movie.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
Absolutely like a great shoreline scene, rocky shoreline, a wonderful
antique bridge. Some great scenes here for sure. And then
meanwhile the evil henchmen are up to something as well.
At first, it seems like maybe they're setting an ambush
for Peach, but no, it is an ambush for Gin Singh.

(01:09:42):
They're putting out this time instead of I mean there
are some toys, but they've put out some shoes, some pinwheels,
some articles of clothing, and some sort of like a
hobby horse. And then they hide in the bushes.

Speaker 3 (01:09:55):
And once again the lightning electrifies the ground and the
gin singking comes out, and it is this child who
is very excited to play with his new toys.

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
At first, though first he dances a little bit. Oh
he's a good dance. And he goes on a lot
longer than you think it will. But you know, he's
been in the ground a long time. He needs to
he needs to move, and so I support.

Speaker 3 (01:10:15):
It in my version when he I wonder what it
said in yours. My subtitles when he came out of
the ground said I'm too dull. When he starts dancing.

Speaker 2 (01:10:23):
I got that as well. Okay, yeah, so yeah, he
has to dance a little bit. But then he starts
checking out the stuff that's been left out, and he's like, oh,
some shoes, I'll put those on, you know, some clothes,
I'll put those on. When he checks out the pin wheels,
Doctor Mongolia does something with one of his poison canisters
and it causes poison gas to shoot out of the

(01:10:44):
pin wheels at gen Sing Boy here, but Jensing Boy
just kind of like coughs a little bit and then
just keeps checking out the gusts. He says, ooh, it stinks,
and then goes over to one of the other things. Yeah,
the ship, the trap is already sprung, but he's still
checking out the bait. But then finally he realized is
it and he says, my subtitle said, anyway, seems bad
guys are after me. Yeah, and the Hinchman attack.

Speaker 3 (01:11:07):
Yeah, So they go up and sort of capture him.
They capture him on a pole, but then the Gensing
kid does an awesome move where he extends out of
his arm a giant like whip or vine sort of thing,
and like Indiana Jones swings across the chasm, Indiana Gensing

(01:11:27):
swings to the other side of the cliffs.

Speaker 2 (01:11:30):
Yeah, all while rocket Goblin blasts at him and like
causes all these explosions in the cliff side. So it's yeah,
it's it's overpowering. The Gensing escapes.

Speaker 3 (01:11:41):
He escapes and actually meets up with our heroes in
the next scene. So Peach Boy one Short and the
three animals are making camp in the mountains, and I
think it's that they see like a little root reaching
out of the leaves to try to take a cake
from their basket, and Peach Boy stops it. But then
they realize, oh, it's you know, Jenseng kid is hurt here.

(01:12:02):
So Peach Boy gives him some kind of medicine they have.
It's like a really potent kind of medicine that he
was supposed to be saving for himself, but he's very
selfless and kind, so he gives it to the injured
gen Sing boy, and Genseng boy is like, hey, you
are really nice and maybe I'll see you again.

Speaker 2 (01:12:19):
Yeah. So Peach and gen Sing are fast friends, and
we have some great comedy here as well, because once
because Jensing reveals that he is in fact a thousand
year old gen Sing, which the idea here is that
genseyng grows for a very long time, becomes more potent
the longer it is in the ground, especially in wild varieties. Now,

(01:12:41):
I will say that it is I think broadly thought
and could be mistaken in this because I haven't really
done all my gen sying research yet, but I think
there is like a tipping point in the gin Sing
where once it's been in the ground for like twenty
years or so, it's kind of reach maybe maximum potency,
but older gen sing is worth more. The idea that
a thousand year old gen Sing would just be almost

(01:13:03):
a miracle product is I think wrapped up more in
the folklore and the superstition. But the idea that this
is the thousand year old gin Sing almost irresistible. That's
good medicine. And one short realizes this and he keeps
sort of trying like he can't resist. He's like like,
can I just have a bite of gensey? Can I

(01:13:24):
nibble the roots just a little bit? And they're all like, no,
leave him alone. Yeah, they keep him in line. Yeah,
So Jensing leaves and the crew continues their journey towards
the castle. But then this is kind of confusing. It's
kind of felt like maybe a scene out of sequence
or something. Yeah, because the gen Sing then shows up
at a Buddhist shrine during a lightning storm, and then

(01:13:47):
the ghost army with the henchmen and King Devil himself
show up to claim him.

Speaker 3 (01:13:52):
Yeah, and the doctor i think in the scene explains
to King Devil like, hey, you need to eat that.
It will rejuvenate. You tried to catch the Gensen kid,
but the Jensen kid very cleverly runs to a Buddhist
shrine with it with a big statue of a Buddha,
which protects him by shooting laser blasts at the ghost army.

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
Yeah. Yeah, much Buddha magic ensues. A sacred Buddhist script
from a glowing stone ends up I think teleporting the
enemies away after the initial laser blasts, and then the
stone does something to Gensing like draws him in like
a magnet. But I don't know. Something good happens as
far as I can tell.

Speaker 3 (01:14:33):
Yeah, my subtitles did not say what the writing on
the stone said, so I'm not sure the significance of it.
But it seemed to be a kind of blessing, blessing
from the Buddha. Maybe that was going to power up
the gen sing even more.

Speaker 2 (01:14:45):
Maybe maybe so Buddhist magic intensifies as well. I can,
I can, I can figure out this part also has
This part also should be a whare it has use
of the swastika, but obviously it is the traditional religious
use of the swast not the Nazi appropriation. Correct. Yeah,
so we're doing assume this is a positive image tied to,

(01:15:05):
you know, ideas of equanimity and infinity. Yeah. We cut
back to the castle at this point and King Devil
has learned is told that hey, Peach and crew have
made it as far as the Evil Woods, which I
assume is like maybe just right outside, too close for comfort.
And so King Devil says, all right, miss white White demon,

(01:15:28):
Lady of the Snow, you go out and deal with them,
and she's like, all right, i'll be I'll go take
care of it.

Speaker 3 (01:15:33):
This scene where she's stalking them in the trees over
their camp actually has some quite creepy looking shots. There's
someone where she leans out from a tree limb and
she looks like, I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:15:43):
Know, it's spooky.

Speaker 3 (01:15:44):
But then it's funny because that is immediately contrasted with
comedy scenes where like her hair gets singed and she's
very very self conscious about that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
Right right, Yeah, And so then at that point seems like, oh,
this is just gonna be played for laughs, but no,
this is the sort of movie where you can have
laughs and then just furious action because we get a
great battle in the woods here at night, you know,
very atmospheric lots of frost blasts from the demon, flying
attacks from all concerned. Peach ends up inhaling the campfire

(01:16:15):
and then breathing fire out at the White Demon to
seal the victory. Amazing, and then Jensing finds them again,
and then we just kind of cut to the crew
busting down the doors to King Devil's inner chambers. It's like,
all right, we're here now. And I think at this point,
it's like we had maybe twenty minutes left in the film,

(01:16:37):
maybe thirty, but you realize at this point, like, oh wow,
it's just going to be NonStop from here on out.
This is just going to be one big boss battle
and it does not disappoint. I ended up making a
whole list like bullet point notes when I rewatched this
action sequence. I don't even know if it makes sense
to go through all of these, but I have them
in the notes here. Let's go through as many as

(01:17:00):
makes sense. So one thing we have to mention is
the Peach bowling scene. Oh god, yes.

Speaker 3 (01:17:05):
So the soldiers start running at our heroes in different formations.
They're calling out formations, you know, formation number one, and
so they organize in one way and charge and each time,
the peach kid creates a giant peach bowling ball that
bowls into them and knocks them over like pins.

Speaker 2 (01:17:23):
So that's very good.

Speaker 3 (01:17:24):
And then eventually one of the bad guys is like,
stop doing formations, I think because the formations are causing
them to line up like bowling pins. Yeah, so just
run at them. So they do that and that works better,
and then there's just a big melee fight with some
really excellent fight choreography once again, like some great stunts
and good fast paced fighting.

Speaker 2 (01:17:46):
But then lots of comedy thrown in there as well.
There's a great bit where one short is trying to
get in on the combat and the ghost soldiers won't
attack him, and he says, hey, why won't you attack me,
and the ghost so just says something like well, there's
not a light above you, so I don't attack you.
And then one short it's like, who whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
You've got to explain this to me. Explain yourself, what

(01:18:07):
are you talking about?

Speaker 3 (01:18:08):
Yeah, and the ghost is like, well, we only attack
people who are surrounded by light. And in my subtitles,
he says, light means you have hope in your life
and so because you don't have hope in your life,
there's no light around you, so you're not worth attacking. Yeah,
which it kind of reminds me of in Treehouse of
Horror when the zombies are going around looking for brain

(01:18:29):
and then they go to Homer and he's trying to
sacrifice himself but they just move on.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
Yeah. Yeah, they're like nothing here, I'm not interested. So
it's like that.

Speaker 3 (01:18:38):
But then the ghost finally decides, okay, I'll kill you anyway,
and he's about to stab him with the trident, but
then I think it is the ghost, the demon woman,
the ghost ye intervenes. She's like, no, no, no, don't
you hurt him. This boy's mind.

Speaker 2 (01:18:53):
He complimented my hair earlier. Yeah, and then she seduces
him successfully.

Speaker 3 (01:18:57):
We don't follow them into the bedroom, but she he
just like wraps a scarf around his neck and slowly
leads him out of the room into an adjoining chamber.
And then you're gonna see him. You're gonna see them
both emerge separately later looking I don't know, very self satisfied.

Speaker 2 (01:19:11):
Yes, So at this point we get just more crazy
sword play, more just insane wire martial arts action. The
three kids, their pheasant, monkey, and dog are just absolutely
kicking butt. There's more shenanigans, like one of the three
kids uses some sort of like a seesaw action on

(01:19:32):
the crotches of the of the ghost soldiers.

Speaker 3 (01:19:35):
I think it's monkey. The bird kid, the pheasant kid
or chicken kid gets very violent because one of their
hands is a wing and the other hand is a
bird like a chicken head, a bird head, and starts
pecking out ghost Soldiers' eyes, like pecking holes in them,
and they're all bloody.

Speaker 2 (01:19:55):
It's gross. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty amazing. Peach meanwhile, just
killing it, just just furious action. Cannot overstress that goblin
is blowing stuff up with this rocket launcher or whatever
it is.

Speaker 3 (01:20:10):
How about when Stone the Stone Warrior transforms into a
literal stone, just rock with a face.

Speaker 2 (01:20:16):
Into like a giant rock muppet head that begins sliding
across the floor and they all have to hammer it.
It eats a club that one of the kids tries
to use against it.

Speaker 3 (01:20:25):
A little dog, Yeah, little dog is trying to beat
it because of course Peach Boy has a sword and
the sword doesn't work against a rock. As we know
from the same rock, paper scissors. You can't beat a
beat a rock with a blade, but maybe the bone
will work because the dog's bone is like a hammer.

Speaker 2 (01:20:41):
So it starts hammering on the rock.

Speaker 3 (01:20:43):
But then the yeah, it just chomps up the bone
like the little rock mouth grinds it up until Peach
magically transforms his sword into a giant sledgehammer and then smashes.

Speaker 2 (01:20:53):
Up the rock. Yeah, just absolutely destroys this rock with
a giant hammer.

Speaker 3 (01:21:00):
This they defeat the rocket Grimlin as well. They end
up pulling his ears and doing something. I think there's
a Peach related attack. And then there is a horrible
scene where the King Devil is like, you know these
three animals, I'm gonna absorb them and does something like
like yanks them magically into the blood pool, and I
guess they just get melted down.

Speaker 2 (01:21:20):
Yeah, suddenly they're part of the blood pool. Oh and
did we mention that the White Devil lady she also
was taken out by the three kids in particular, Pheasant
use that pheasant arm to like peck her eye out. Yeah,
and then she turns into a puddle of white goo
right right after all three kids use some sort of
triple triple team energy blast effect on her. But yeah,

(01:21:43):
it's not long after that the King Devil's apps all
three of them into the blood bath and absorbs their power.
Peach jumps in, drives her sword through Devil's mouth, like
all the way up to the hilt, but he's already
too strong for that to stop him. He just spits
this sword back out. Yeah. Yeah. Doctor Mongolia at this

(01:22:03):
point pronounces he's like, Devil King has now absorbed enough
power to be young again. Hooray. But then at this point,
a returning loved up one short trips accidentally knocks the
doctor into the bath, and the Devil absorbs his power too.
He's like, you're part of this now too. He has
become good medicine. Yes, yeah, and so we knew we

(01:22:24):
were going to get here. At this point, the Devil
is fully charged. King Devil has full power again and
will transform into his youthful form once more. Yeah again.
Looks like a like a wushaw villain and a seventy
stage magician matched together. It's got the vampire fangs, big hair,

(01:22:45):
and just a lot of furious energy. The wind blown hair,
wind blown costume. All the stops.

Speaker 3 (01:22:51):
So I think Initially, there's a battle between King Devil
in this rejuvenated form and Peach Boy, and it's tough.
Peach Boy can't really withstand it. But a quite bizarre
intervention occurs. So one short I think after this love
making session with the ghost Woman has been also she
sucked his blood. I think he's drained of blood. So

(01:23:14):
he says, I need blood. So he drinks blood from
the blood pool, the magic rejuvenating blood pool, which then
transforms him into a giant baby with a lollipop, and
then he starts. He thinks King the King Devil is
his dad and runs around saying like, I love you dad.
You know I need a kiss, and King Devil is

(01:23:36):
so weird it out He's like, no, I'm not your dad,
just running around from him.

Speaker 2 (01:23:41):
Yeah, so yeah. At this point we get full blown
Benny Hill Shenanigans with flying and teleportation. We've gone in
just a full comedy mode.

Speaker 3 (01:23:50):
And this is when the intervention of gensing becomes becomes unavoidable.
You've got to have some gensing power up in order
to defeat this rejuvenated devil. So the gen Sing Boy
walks into the room and is like, I know what
you gotta do, Peach boy, you gotta eat me.

Speaker 2 (01:24:07):
That's right. There's a moment of sadness for those who
have passed. But yeah, Jensing makes the ultimate sacrifice. He
like uses one of his root tentacles to like pop
Peach in the throat, making her mouth open, and then
gen Sing like becomes small again like becomes the size
of an actual gen Sing root and then launches himself

(01:24:29):
into Peach's mouth. Peach swallows the thousand year old Gen
Sing and then takes on the full Buddha power of
the root. We get a full like mystical Buddhist power
up scene where we see the gen Sing root kind
of like growing and glowing inside her. She goes into
a meditative pose and we get all sorts of cool

(01:24:50):
light effects. But now we have finally reached the point
where where Peach has taken on the full magic of
spell and proceeds to just administer a massive butt whooping.

Speaker 3 (01:25:01):
Yeah, Peach Boy now destroys King Devil, just beating him
against the pillars of the room and smashing through rocks.
And there's a lot of electricity in this fight. I
think the beouta power gives him electrical energy yep.

Speaker 2 (01:25:15):
There also the pillar gets knocked over destroyed. She throws
the pillar at King Devil and then the pillar is
like cartoon steamroller style. It's like rolled over King Devil
as well. Yeah, very good.

Speaker 3 (01:25:30):
I don't actually remember what is the final move that
Peach Boy uses to kill the King Devil?

Speaker 2 (01:25:35):
What's the She administers a few more electrical strikes and
then she finishes him off with like a super powered
infinity strike where we get that symbol on the palm
right before she strikes, and the strike is just so
potent that it knocks the spirits of a dog, pheasan,
and monkey out of King Devil and then they rematerialize

(01:25:57):
on the ground behind him. King Devil's by falls over
dead instantly, ages to like a thousand years and then
turns to dust that scattered to the four winds. Awesome.
And then we just have our surviving heroes, which are
again the three kids, Peach Boy and the puppeteer, and
they're like, where should we go? And depending on the subtitles,

(01:26:19):
they either say to Paradise or to the peach farm.

Speaker 3 (01:26:22):
My subtitle said, let's go to Paradise. And then they
jump up in the air and fly.

Speaker 2 (01:26:25):
Away, yeah, freeze frame, and then we get this cool
theme music playing over the credits. It's a satisfying end
as long as you don't stop for a second and say, hey,
what happened to all those children that were kidnapped for
the blood bath? And then you realize, oh, I guess
they couldn't save any of them that. No, yeah, they
became the bloodbath because it was all powered up. Yeah. Yeah,

(01:26:47):
So they don't really address that. But I'm like, oh, man,
I think they got there too late to help out
with that particular problem.

Speaker 3 (01:26:54):
But the three animals were saved. They save by the
power of the Buddha, so they were recover.

Speaker 2 (01:26:58):
Now, wait a minute.

Speaker 3 (01:26:59):
If the power of the Buddha could unmelt the three
animals out of the blood pool, couldn't the power of
the Buddha also unmelt all of the other children, Because
that does happen and we just don't see it.

Speaker 2 (01:27:10):
This is a larger theological question we've wandered into. That
is that is beyond the scope of magic of spell.
But I think the main take homes here are that
friendship has won, vengeance has been achieved, and evil has
been defeated. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:27:30):
Maybe that good medicine is not always the answer, and
there are there is good good medicine, and there's bad
good medicine. And sometimes the only way to beat bad
good medicine is with good good medicine. And the only
way to make good good medicine really good is by
friendship and sacrifice and the power of the Buddha.

Speaker 2 (01:27:50):
I would say, I think so, I think so. All right,
there you have it, Magic of Spell. It is a party,
a party worth attending in my opinion, very much. So, yeah,
this is a hit. All right, Well, we're going to
go ahead and close out this episode of Weird House Cinema,
but we'd love to hear from everyone out there, especially
if anyone else has seen Magic of Spell or other

(01:28:14):
works of Taiwanese fantasy adventure right in. We would love
to hear from you, so always, of course, happy to
hear from anyone who has some sort of a story
about seeing any of the pictures that we discuss, seeing
them like during their original rollout, seeing them in the wild,
seeing them in theaters, or even your experience is like
being exposed to these films for the first time through

(01:28:36):
you know, vhs or DVD rental stores. Or you know,
wandering around online sort of in the heyday of weird
films online and finding them there. Whatever the case, Yeah,
right in, we'd love to have those conversations with you.
Just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on
Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays that's when we set

(01:28:57):
aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film.
You're on Weird House Cinema. We've been doing this for
years at this point. If you want to go into
our audio archives, just go go look up Stuff to
Blow your Mind. Wherever you get your podcasts, you'll find
all those episodes there. If you're on letterbox dot com,
you can find us there as well. Our username is
weird House, and we have a nice list of all

(01:29:17):
the movies we've covered over the years, and sometimes a
peek ahead at what comes up next.

Speaker 3 (01:29:21):
Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
If you would like to get in touch with us
with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow
Your Mind.

Speaker 1 (01:29:35):
Dot com Stuff to blow your mind is production of iHeartRadio.
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