August 9, 2023 • 51 mins
We're kicking off Shawgust with a Shaw Brothers-adjacent fantasy/action/horror film directed by the GOAT Chang Cheh. Spinning skulls, pesky demons, revenge, shirtless men, and water skiing. This one has it all and then some! Available to watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAvosauFDpQ Also under The Nine Venoms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYMD5ha2AZc and https://tubitv.com/movies/626964/the-nine-venoms Join our discord! https://discord.gg/F8WsTzE9qt Follow this podcast on Instagram and Facebook @unsunghorrors. Follow Lance on Instagram and Letterboxd @lschibi Lance’s shop: https://lanceschibi.bigcartel.com/ Follow Erica on Letterboxd or Instagram @hexmassacre Logo by Cody Schibi Part of the Prescribed Films Podcast network (www.thepfpn.com) Next Movie (Ghost Eyes, 1974): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXfkl3vfKZc&t=3s
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Prepare yourself for the terror the prisonof madness. We have a few inter
and Nonritter. Welcome to Unsung Horruswith LUNs and Deerica. Leave all your
(00:32):
sanity behind, it can't help you. Now. Welcome to another episode of
Unsung Horrors, the podcast where wediscuss underseen horror movies, specifically those which
have fewer than one thousand views onletterboxed. I'm Erica and I'm Lance and
it is sh August. It is, and it's also my pick, so
(00:52):
no one will be surprised that Ibent the rules a bit on this one
and I picked a movie that isnot act a Shaw Brothers production, right
because I did mention last episode.I was like, Shaw Brothers does Faust
kind of thing, and you know, they did have involvement with it,
and we do have pretty much likeeveryone that's ever been involved with Shaw Brothers,
(01:15):
especially the director who is most wellknown with Shaw Brothers being involved with
the production. So we'll call itShaw adjacent. Yeah, I mean it
totally works. I mean, asI was watching it, I completely forgot
that you said it wasn't a ShawBrothers. I thought it was the whole
way through. I mean, eventhe production. I mean everything it looked
like it was on a shaw set. Yeah, exactly. I mean it's
(01:37):
the director, some of the castmembers, the way it looks, you
know, you know, the onlything you don't have is you know,
the shaw scope intro and that's it. Yeah, it ends the same way.
It's all. I'm gonna have toadmit that was upsetting to not see
the and here put it in here. Okay, yeah, right now,
(02:10):
Okay, now I'm ready to fuckingdo this. Okay, now it's August,
guys. So the movie that Iam talking about, my pick is
The Nine Demons from nineteen eighty fouraka The Nine Venoms. As of this
recording, it has two hundred andforty six views on letterbox and is available
to watch on YouTube. So quicksummary of the film. Best friend zoo
(02:32):
Kei aka Joey and gan Jun akaGary. I don't know where that came
from, but is what it is. They witness their father's murder at the
hand of their manners enemies. Joeymanages to escape the ambush, only to
fall into the underworld through the gateto Ashura's Palace, which opens once every
(02:54):
three hundred and sixty years. Sothis is basically like he just fell into
hell. Yeah. There he isgranted superpowers by allowing nine demons to possess
his body so that he may saveGary and avenge the deaths of their fathers.
The demons, which require blood forsustenance, soon have a stronghold on
(03:15):
Zoki or Joey, and they leavea trail of carnage wherever they go.
So I mentioned, the director ismost well known for working with Shaw Brothers,
and that is the goat chen Che. He has directed almost one hundred
movies, a good number of thembeing Shaw Brothers classics like Five Element Ninjas,
(03:36):
which is the ultimate crowd pleaser.If you haven't seen it, or
if you know people who haven't seenit, and you're having folks over to
watch something like this, you cannotgo wrong with that film. He directed
the Hammer Co production The Legend ofthe Seven Golden Vampires, The One Armed
Swordsman starring Jimmy Wong Yu, theboxer from Shangtung, and a handful of
(03:57):
others that I will mention when weget to the quote unquote Venom Mob part
of the cast. So a fewthings that I learned about him that I
didn't know prior to this. SoI have both the Shoscope Volume one and
Volume two set, and there isa mini documentary about cha in volume one.
So Chay actually started as a filmcritic and was recruited by Shaw Brothers.
(04:23):
He also wrote poetry and novels.John Wu was an assistant director for
him and has nothing but amazing thingsto say about about him, of course,
and Chay actually lived at Shaw Studiosin a luxury apartment up until his
death in two thousand and two.Oh interesting, so you live there's almost
his whole almost the whole life.Yeah, that's wild. Yeah, I
(04:44):
mean, I'm curious stopped making brothers. Yeah. They were like, yeah,
you can stay here. You werelike, he's a godfather of yeah.
Yeah. So some of the thingsthat Chay is known for, some
characteristics of his film that you'll kindof see the more of them that you
watch, is that his heroes oftendied in his films, so there's not
(05:08):
generally, you know, a completeredemption or very happy ending. And Chang's
biography editor said that he thought thatdeath was the sublimation of self value,
so he saw a lot of meaningin the hero dying at the end,
versus like just having the happy ending, right. A lot of his films
(05:30):
have a focus on friendships, specificallybetween men or sworn brothers. There's less
of a focus on love or romanticrelationships between a man and a woman.
And in fact, there's very fewwomen in a lot of his films.
He very purposefully left them out,and he really advocated for having male leads
(05:51):
because at that time, you know, you had movies like Come Drink with
Me, where a lot of filmshad a woman in the lead, and
he said, no, we needto have men in the lead. One
person in the documentary called it misogynyby omission, you know, whatever,
is what it is. I lovehis movies, so I'm not going to
be mad about it. Yeah,and I'm just going to get it out
(06:12):
of the way right now. Theseare beautiful men that he casts and are
made up. Joey and Gary aregorgeous. Oh yeah in this yeah,
so and so. And I'm notsaying that doesn't replace having women in leads
or anything like that. I'm justsaying, no, if you do want
a woman in a lead Chang movie, these Joey and Gary wirk like just
(06:33):
imagine. Yeah. What's interesting,though, is that So Tony Rain has
an interview on set one talking aboutChang Che and he talks about this underlying
homosexuality in Chang Che's films. Now, Chey has adamantly denied this, and
not surprisingly especially given the time thathe was making films. But like I
(06:57):
mentioned, you know, him beinga proponent of moving away the folks from
women as the stars in Hong Kongfilms to more masculine leads that his films
included a lot of phallic imagery,had a lot of good looking, usually
shirtless men, especially when they diedand were getting impaled. There's a lot
of slow motion shots to like,you know, for you to be able
to take in like there's naked glisteningnot half naked glistening bodies. You know.
(07:23):
So he's basically the David Dakoto ofHong Kong, right, except he
knows how to direct movie right.Yeah, And going back on like the
shirtless men, I do love ithappens in a lot of shot movies,
but especially Chang movies where he thinkhe said slow motions, but it's their
their deaths. The deaths are usuallyorgasmic feeling. Yes, the men slowly
(07:43):
get up, they try one lasttime and then they're like, h yeah,
it's over. The feet is over, Like yeah, it is orgasmic
very well. But okay, sothat's Chang che. We'll talk a little
bit more about how those elements comeout in the Demons when we get to
the discussion of the film. AndI do want to talk quickly about the
(08:05):
screenwriter here, and that's Ni Kwog. He has written over three hundred wusha
and sci fi novels. He's actuallybest known for the Wisely series sometimes called
the Wesley Series, which are detectivemystery stories which feature extraterrestrial life. There's
actually two films based on Quang series, the Wisely Series, and that's The
(08:31):
Seventh Curse starrying chaw Yung Fat andthe Legend of Wisely. And so in
the Seventh Curse, chaw Yung Fat'scharacter is Wesley, but then in the
Legend of Wisely the character is Wisely. So it gets you know, the
name is sort of interchangeable. Butyou can learn more about you know,
Ni Kwang and the Wisely series andthese sort of mystical adventure movies in an
(08:54):
upcoming essay for me in a futureVinegerson Drome release for a different movie,
not any of the ones that Ijust mentioned. Hell, yes, I'm
not giving anything away, is it? I mean, you're not giving anything
away? But is it horror movie? It is a Hong Kong movie,
and that's all I will say.Okay, Okay, no hints, no
hints. Nice. So, besideswriting these sci fi novels, he has
(09:16):
written over two hundred film scripts.I mean, honestly, if you're looking
at Shaw Brothers movies, if you'relooking at the writer, chances are very
high that he is the one whowrote it. Thirty six, Chamber of
Shell, in the Five Venoms,Dirty Hoe, five Element, Ninja's Super
Inframan, Human Lanterns, Mighty PeakingMan, Black Magic one and two,
and tons more that we'll discuss nextepisode. I'm sure, yes, I
(09:41):
mean, he's basically written like almostevery Shaugust pick we've done. Pretty much.
Yeah, yeah, that'd be Witchedor Portrait and Crystal. I don't
think. I don't know. It'shard to keep track. There's too many,
Yeah, there is, Okay,So production wise, Nine Demons was
much later in Shang Che's It's nineteeneighty four. It's quite a bit past
the height of his career with ShawBrothers, and this was actually a Taiwanese
(10:07):
co production and one of six filmsthat was from his own production company,
chang Hei Film Company. It alsohas an alternate title of nine Venoms in
order to capitalize on his much morepopular Five Deadly Venoms from nineteen seventy eight.
Cinematography is by wu Quo Wren andthe score is by Huang Moshan,
(10:28):
who has over three hundred film creditsspanning from nineteen sixty eight to nineteen ninety
nine. And is the height beinglike late seventies to early eighties, where
I mean the number of the shehernumber of films in each year is insane.
I'm sure a lot of it's likereused and repurposed, but still an
insane number of film credits going onthere. Okay, So getting into the
(10:50):
cast, talk about Joey and Garyfirst, So keep thinking of SpongeBob.
Every time I hear Gary. Who'sGary? He's literally never watched sponge He's
this, like this, the petthey like the like Spongebobs pet snail.
Okay, his name is Gary,Okay, I just always they're just very
basic names. It's funny. Joeyand Gary. Yeah, it is,
(11:13):
Yeah, it is interesting. I'mlike, so the DV, the Terracotta
DVD that I have, you know, I watched the subtitled version and so
it was there, you know,their original names, you know, Gun
Young and too Quo, right,zu Qui and uh. But then I
(11:33):
know, like the dubbed version isthe one on I mean they say Joey
about a thousand times. Yes,Like, did you watch the one on
YouTube as well? That was whenI first watched it a long time ago,
and I remember that, and Ithink I actually went through the YouTube
one to grab some screenshots from itbecause I was like, it's easier for
me to do it on my laptopthan to you know, take a picture
(11:56):
of my TV with DVD. Sobut yeah, they they say his name
a lot. Yeah, there's definitelysome translation issues and that I take note
of it in here, but it'sit's fun. I mean obviously English versions
of films kind of add to thehumor of it. But yeah, prefer
the subtitled for sure. So yeah, there is the DVD out there.
If you do want the subtitled version, you can pick that up. It's
(12:20):
Terracotta DVD. I don't remember whenI bought it, but for how much
it was. But I mean,maybe this will show up in No,
it wouldn't be in a shoscope setbecause my Brothers movie. Maybe it's the
release you're talking about. I justkidd Oh God, I wish I'm not.
I'm perfectly open to writing about thismovie, though, So just putting
that out there in the universe.Okay. So getting back to the cast.
(12:41):
So Gary or Gannon is played byChris Lee Kingsong. He's been in
Eastern Condors from nineteen eighty seven andBurning Paradise, which has a Vinegarson drum
release. Then Joey or zoel Keyis played by Ricky Chang Tien Chi.
He is recognize him right away fromFive Element Ninjas. He's also in a
(13:03):
movie called The Weird Man, whichif I can, if I remember correctly,
has a really great decapitation in it. That was a fun one.
Also, Chang che that one isWeird Man. Yeah, okay, yeah,
I mean I'm not surprised. Yeah, there's a million of them.
So then in the cast we alsohave two members of the Venom Mob.
(13:26):
So the Five Deadly Venoms, We'vegot two of them, plus another actor
who's been in plenty of other filmsthat Chang che has directed, but he's
not one of the actual five DeadlyVenoms, so he's not Venom Mob.
But Loufong who plays Lu Shan orThe Final Battle the Sun in this,
(13:46):
he's one of the Venom Mob,as is Chiang Sheng, who's one of
the three brothers that kills Gary.So those two members of the Venom Mob
have been in over twenty films withdirect that are directed by Chang Che.
Then there's also you Typing and he'sthere's also an interview with him on the
Terra Cotta David. That's the onlyspecial feature that's on there. But those
(14:07):
three actors have been in these filmsdirected by Chang Che, So as I
mentioned, five Deadly Venoms or theFive Venoms, whatever however you call it.
Crippled Avengers, Masked Avengers, ShallolinTemple, Chinatown, Kid Kid with
Golden Arm, Invincible, Shallin,the Flag of Iron, House of Traps,
Magnificent Ruffians, The Sword Stained withRoyal Blood, Heaven and Hell,
(14:30):
The Brave Archer series, which hasfour films, Two Champions of Shallolin,
The Rebel Intruders, Shallin Rescuers,Life Gamble, Legend of the Fox,
the Naval Commandos, and there's probablystill more that I didn't get, but
at that point I was like,Okay, I've got like twenty ant's people.
Understand that these people have worked togethera lot. I'm going to perform
through out one more. It wasShanghai thirteen that I watched for June'splitation,
(14:52):
which is part of Chang Chay's ownproduction company, one of his few.
But yeah, he pretty much gatheredevery show Yaw Brothers action star including those
two nice all right, moving quicklyon this one. That's how we do
in Shaugust, and you know what, these movies move quickly, so we're
gonna move quickly. Yeah, Ilike it. We'll get more into this
(15:13):
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(15:35):
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shows at www the PFPN dot com. Thanks for listening. Okay, so
(16:00):
the Nine Demons, I know,like it's you know, we talk about
underseening horror movies, and it's verymuch like it's a little bit of a
cheat. I mean, it isa it's not a show Brothers film.
B it's not very horror. It'svery much the action fantasy film. And
I will definitely lean very hard intothat with my double feature pick. But
(16:22):
it has horror elements and we've comeacross out a lot in Shaugust in the
past, especially with something like Portraitand Crystal, which moves at breakneck speed,
yes, where you can't even keepup with it. This one it
moves quickly, it does not nearlyas fast as Portrait and Crystal. Yeah,
I mean the setup for this issuper fast, which I loved,
(16:45):
like the first fifteen minutes especially,But I do think there is a little
bit of a lull On's like theUltimate Revenge or the original initial Revenge takes
place and then you start getting andis Joey a demon? Is he not
a demon? Let's figure this out. Yeah, that middle part of it
definitely lags a lot, like itloses a lot of momentum at that point.
I do think that it's one ofthose movies. It starts off really
(17:08):
strong, has a lot going onvisually, especially when you get into the
underworld. Oh but then yeah,like once that initial revenge happens, then
it's a lot of discussions about what'shappened already, what is going to happen
about this person, stuff that weas the audience already know. And so
(17:30):
it's not very well written in thatsense, like it's not really well paced.
You know. I mentioned The CrippledAvengers earlier. Yeah, and I
just watched that for the first time, and that movie is fan fucking tastic.
But that movie has really great pacingbecause like obviously the four who become
(17:51):
crippled and I'm using the word fromthere because that's what it is. You
know, you get like a sectioneach and it has this really great build
up. It's paced really well,like it's it doesn't you never have that
point to be like, Okay,how long have I've been watching this or
how much is left or anything likethat, right, and here you do
get that kind of at the midpointhere, Yeah, you do with almost
(18:15):
I mean I did a quick rewatchthis morning yeah, with almost like an
hour left. There's that's when itstarts like, Okay, well he got
his final revenge from the you know, from the gang and the people who
killed his father and Gary's father.But yeah, I mean it still works
because and when you selected this andsaid it was Chang Chay, I knew,
like wearing good hands. When itcomes to the action, sure,
(18:36):
you know you have you know,five venoms crippled Avengers, and it does,
like you just said, it leansway more. It's it's it's a
martial arts film, I think,with elements of the horror sprinkled in,
but when the horror does pop onon screen, it's very original, like
and it sticks with you. Imean, like we already said, the
(18:56):
setup is one of my favorite parts. It feels it felt like a Castlevania
game. Like first you quickly establishedthat Joey and Gary are best buds,
their pals. They're just going tojump into a fight on the street if
it's gonna you know, be fun, but you know, more importantly help
somebody that needs, you know,some assistance. But within two minutes you
know they're best friends and they're goingto fight for the for the you know,
(19:18):
for good for their good message.But then when Joey falls into the
the Black Paradise, which is whatit's called in the translation, it feels
like like an old Nintendo eight bitgame like video game, even with the
sound effects, like his equipment,his weapons, his his nine little demon
swords. Yeah, when they're equipped, it's all it's very like I'm playing
(19:44):
a Castlevania game and this is thebest, and it's kind of it's it's
not creepy, but it's you know, there's evil entailed in it, Like
you know that it's not going towork out, you know, this is
we're all the element the horror elementsare going to be pulled from with the
floating skulls. So yeah, Ithink it is way more action, like
you said, more martial arts,but it's a horror film. Yeah,
(20:07):
it has. It has the elements, you know, when he's down in
the Black Paradise and hell Shore's Palacewhatever you want to call it, and
he makes the deal too, AndI was gonna I was originally going to
pick a Foust movie for my doublefeature pick. Right, I started watching
the Richard Burton Elizabeth Taylor one andit was way too Shakespearean and I mean
(20:30):
it's it's christ few hours long too, or no, it's pretty short,
it's like ninety minutes. But Ihaven't finished it yet because I started watching
it before Ben, and that wasa mistake because I was like, oh,
they're not it's not a modern liketake on it. They're like going
straight to like the original Christopher Marlowtexts. So I do want to finish
watching it because anything Richard Burton andElizabeth Taylor, I'm in one hundred percent.
(20:52):
But that's not my double feature beingOkay, but I do I love
that story because there's so much thatyou can do with it. You know,
you've got Phanom, the Paradise,You've got Oh, I don't want
to say it because it might beyour double future picks. Well now you
can say it the pick of Destiny, like yeah, like that's not my
pick, okay, but yeah thatis a faust. Yeah. So there's
(21:12):
there's so many things to do withit, and you know, of course
leave it to Hong Kong to dosomething where the nine demons are these like
represented by these floating skulls who turninto a necklace and when they become real
demons, they are children. Becausechildren are demons, so fully support this,
(21:34):
but plus one woman in it,and they all need blood, so
they act kind of like vampires ina way where they'll like kill them.
There's like the slaughter at the brothelhouse that happens and they kill everyone there.
Yeah, and that is a surprisingscene to me because that's when you
start realizing, you know, thethe trouble that Joey's in, because those
(21:56):
are really the only time that likeinnocent people are killed. And he's kind
of fine with it. He's like, Okay, you guys need blood,
you know, have at it withthese unfortunate sex workers, like you know.
It's and that's where I was like, wait what, Okay, he's
starting to get the power hungry.He realizes he has this power. I
like it. Yeah, I likewhere this is heading. Yeah, it's
like your hero has to have somekind of conflict, and here it is.
(22:19):
You know, he's losing his innocenceto the demons. I do love
when the demons as skulls get theirblood because then they have that like stop
motion effect of like the blood goingin the veins in the skull. It's
like this is where hell Razor got. It's like ideas for the reverse you
(22:41):
know, blood and the I don'tknow, it can be too much.
You never know if I Margaret,I's seeing this, but you have like
blood sprays like you get in alot of chambar of films. There's one
at the end well, I dowant to talk about like the end fight,
but yeah, there is one pointwhere a villain gets impaled a bamboo
a bamboo rod, and so he'sgot basically this fountain of blood dripping down
(23:04):
and all the little children demon areunderneath it like lapping it up like they're
drinking rain drops or something like that. It's like you know Q Slayer rain
and blood. Yeah, I meanthose are those are my favorite scenes.
Like the final fight is, likeI said, we already said, you
know, we know we're having greatbattles. The very first fight where where
(23:26):
basically it's Joey and Gary when theirfathers are murdered, and then there's just
a bunch of they start throwing theseropes and they're all kind of doing these
acrobatic very well choreographed and just beautifulto watch. But that final fight on
the water where they're all in theselittle mini skis, yes, and they
build this little bamboo grid on top. Yeah, it's like you're watching a
(23:47):
new Olympic sports like ice skating withlike balance beams on top of the rink
and you get this melted water.It's I mean that fight scene makes it
all worth it, that one inparticular, Like I feel like, you
know, because we talked about thatlull that hits in about the one hour
mark or so, and that feelslike the movie or Chay or whatever all
(24:07):
like just realized at that point,like, oh, we've kind of lost
track here a little bit. Let'slet's throw this wild thing out here at
the at the end to get everyoneto pull everybody back in, because that
scene feels like, you know,you could pull it out and just drop
it right in five element Ninjas,right, It's that kind of scene.
Yeah, And that is kind ofwhat Shaw is known for us having an
(24:29):
epic final battle or like you said, I don't know if it is specific
to most Chay films, but yeah, I'm thinking of the what was it
the boxer from what's it called ShangTung Shang Tongue. Yeah, that final
fight like wor yeah, axes andhatchets in them, He's just taking on
the world. That's this final battleis worth sticking around for if you do
feel any type of loll I mean, my favorite scenes too are when the
(24:52):
d not only is there like thatweird, the love story is a little
weird. You know, after theinitial revenge is completed, it gets a
little slow when they start talking aboutJoey, and I feel like when the
Nine Demons pop up, it youexpect it. Basically when it happens,
you're like, Okay. I satback and I was like, when is
this going to happen again? AndI want it to happen again because it's
(25:15):
my favorite parts. But it iskind of repetitive. But when the nine
the nine Demon child, there's onescene I think it is it in the
brothel or I think he's attacking.It's like the third fight where they goes
after a bunch of the guards whenthey figure out the demon Joey, but
they are they all start doing likethis acrobatic like tumbling act and stuff,
and it felt like I was watchinglike an old Russ Tamblin movie or something
(25:37):
like him dancing around or the Rosssisters, you know, just doing all
these tumbling and jumping on each other'sshoulders and backflips and stuff, and that
was one of my favorite scenes.And then I think in that scene too,
one of the skulls bites on oneof the guys dicks. Yeah,
yeah, I loved that so much. Yeah, I think those kids doing
(25:59):
the acrobatics were mind me. Iwas like, Oh, I wonder if,
like the they pulled these kids fromlike you know, the Peaking Opera
or something like that, you know, that would have would have been neat.
I mean, I'm sure there's plentyof other schools where they learn stuff
like that. Like it's not likethose kids are acting at any point,
like they're just tumbling around and screamingand drinking blood. So yeah, I
mean they're literally just giggling and laughing, and yeah, it's creamy, it
(26:21):
is. I do like the uhsort of the rainbow strobe lights that go
on every time the demons do comearound, because just adds like it's not
like that gel lighting that we've seenin other Shaw Brothers movies. It's just
much more like it's sort of there'ssupposed to be these menacing demons, they
drink blood, but like yet we'vegot this rainbow strobe light going on.
(26:45):
So it's like almost the antithesis ofwhat you would expect with something that is
supposed to be menacing. These demonsthat possess your body and are turning you
evil. It's yeah, because they'reeven they're referred to as like black magic
by I think the girl that fallsin love with him, and she's like,
this is black magic, but I'mlike, no, it's just pure
magic. It's like will you walkin the Chocolate Factor. Yeah, they're
(27:10):
evil, but you know they're likelittle evil balloopas that are just doing their
host's work. Like yeah, there'sone other part too, where so Gary
Gary ends up getting so I mentionedin the summary. You know, Joey
got away from the ambush at thebeginning, Gary ends up getting kidnapped.
Joey is able to save him,but then they split up and Gary ends
(27:36):
up getting killed by these three brothersand he's killed. He gets stabbed by
these daggers. So Joey ends upusing those same daggers that killed Gary and
the demons to kill the three brothers. But I think it's Chang shing like
the last of the three brothers hisdeath, like the skulls. At first,
(28:00):
I thought they were just like underneathhis clothes and like biting him.
But then I was like, wait, are they inside his body? Because
when he dies, it's like alienchest burst, like sprain blood everywhere exactly.
Yeah. I was also reminded ofthat scene. Is it the Black
Cat or she's in the subway andjust kind of y Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I was hoping it wassomething like that, but yeah, it
(28:22):
kind of rips out of like hisbelly and his hard area. Yeah.
That was violent and very good.Yes, yeah, it was. Yeah.
And then during the last fight too, all the guards are fighting.
It's when Joey kind of conjures thenine Demon spirits and because he promised he
(28:42):
wasn't going to use magic, buthe decides to because you know, he
has he has the control of thedevil. He's evil. At this point,
he's kind of accepting it. Andthen the nine Demon children you know,
pop up their smile and they're they'rehopping around, and then they start
chewing on the ends of the spears. Yeah, and then they spit it
back and all the spear heads likego into the guards and they're all,
(29:04):
oh, love it. Yeah.It's it's one of those things where even
though it's not a horror movie.It does have some of the most inventive
kills that happen. And I've seenit in quite a few Hong Kong movies
where people get impaled and you know, you see like the blood dripping out
of like the bamboo or like thepipe or whatever it may be, it
(29:26):
happens. It happens in quite afew Hong Kong movies, So they know
what works. Yeah, they're Imean Shaw brother films, and I know
this isn't Shaw, but they're comforting. Like if I can't find anything that,
you know, if I can't decideon something to watch, I know,
if I do decide to just popon a Shaw Brothers film, it's
like, yeah, it's comforting.Yeah, you know what you're gonna get.
You're gonna get someone who wants todominate the martial arts world. You're
(29:48):
gonna get usually revenge. Yeah,there's some sort of revenge, any kind
of revenge happening. If it's Chengche movie, there's not gonna be any
women in it. They are,they're gonna have very limited lines or beside
workers relly beautiful men, and you'regoing to have a kick ass battle at
the end. Yeah, and theending is a little I like it.
I like it all, but Iespecially like and respect how they just throw
(30:11):
in that random monk. Dude,he's just sitting there like, yeah,
that's who's this guy. It's sortof like like, oh, how are
we actually going to solve this?And like it just last minute right in
do sex macana or Buddha x macana, whatever you want to call it.
I mean, yeah, he justshows up out of nowhere and it doesn't
make sense, but at the sametime it makes perfect sense. It's like,
(30:33):
well, of course there's just arandom monk sitting there, right,
Yeah, and he's kind of likethat. Like I said, the English
dubbing I definitely has problems, likethey call all the villains or the bad
guys. They call him batties,like oh, you're a baddie, you
must be a baddie, and thenthey say Joey a million times. But
when the monk is like he popsup, he's just so like dismissive.
He's like go away, you know, He's like get lost, stay back.
(30:56):
But I know he's there to savethe day. And it is a
little different than other Chay films wherethe lead dies you know, and he's
kind of sacrificed. So this endingI thought was a little cheesy as far
as like I loved it. Iloved the very last freeze frame where this
is the ending, but the monkis like Budo will resurrect you, and
(31:18):
Joey's like doing a backflip and afreeze frames on him and you know,
like, oh, he's gonna he'salive again. Like that's very weird.
Weirdly, it's a strange happy endingthat you're not used to in other Shaw
action films. Yeah, he explodesat the end, right, like he
stabs all the skulls. Yeah,technically those are kind of child kills.
I was thinking about that. Iwas, I was like does this count?
(31:41):
But then like no, because likeit's killing their spirit. They're probably
just back in the underworld now,so it's like killing. It's like an
exorcism. Yeah, find exactly it'sweird, is I think while he's doing
it too, the blood which looksreally cool, it's in reverse, like
it's going back into a system almostlike he's healing them. But maybe that's
part of the chant that his friendwas doing, like Booda was helping him
(32:05):
survive, yeah, because he stabsall the skulls and then Joey explodes and
then like you have this ending.So it's weird because it kind of shifts
to Loe Sean being the new sortof hero protagonist because he's like, oh
my my father was killed and nowhe's got the revenge. So it kind
of got the girl too. It'salmost seems like, yeah, it kind
(32:28):
of shifts over because like rick Ricky, I know, his name is Ricky,
but Joey is like, oh no, I can't be with you,
you know, so it shifts tolike we have a new hero. So
now it's like when Joey does die, does that even really you know,
it's not quite in sync with likewhat normally happens in Chang Che films.
(32:50):
Well at the end, yeah,but like I'm saying, like his death
like normally that would just sort ofbe the end and like that all the
hero's death and whatever. But he'snot really the hero anymore, even though
like he got his soul back presumably. So yeah, I mean the hero
is the monk, like he's yeah'sthet shows up and just steals the movie
(33:10):
the last fifteen minutes. It's it'slike he's a true hero here. But
yeah, I mean there is youknow, again, you know what you're
expecting with Shaw Brothers movies or ChangChay movies. This one does have.
The ending is surprising, it's differentthan most, and that yeah, makes
it well worth watching for sure.Yeah. I think so too. I
(33:31):
know this was you know, quickand breezy on this one. But you
know, we've talked this is ourthird sh August, Yeah, that we've
done. We've talked a lot aboutShaw Brothers and a lot of these actors
and directors and writers and all thatbefore, so I'm not surprised this is
a shorter episode. Yeah, We'vealready spent a lot of time on casting
crew in the past. Yeah,So, I mean, and I know
(33:52):
this isn't technically Shaw Brothers film,so you know, I'm not We're not
going to spend a lot of timetalking about Shaw Studio. Is there anything
like that? We've on that inprevious episodes as well. You should go
back and listen to those you know, happy Shaugusts. Listen to all those.
Yeah, there's only what I guessfour episodes our fifth, so but
(34:13):
we've got some double feature picks totalk about and then we'll get into Lance's
pick. So, Lance, what'syour double feature pick for Nine Demons?
Okay, well it was Tenacious Statepick if DestinE that was kidding. Okay,
Now there was a lot of likeyou said, Faust inspired like adaptation
movies. But now the first thingI thought of was the Brood with these
killer kids who kind of hang out, they hop out of nowhere start kind
(34:35):
of attacking their victims. Yeah,they're like these and they're kind of they
respond and act on targets, youknow that that their hosts are kind of
focusing in on. So they're doingthe bidding of kind of like Joey does
with the Nine Demons. Yeah,of course Heckel and Hype himself is in
the Brood Olive read right, Butthen I thought, no, I don't
want to bring up Heckel and Hype, and I kind of went in an
(34:59):
odd direction. And while watching this, so when the Nine Demons first popped
up, and like these rules arelaid out by that, you know,
the Prince of Darkness, the Devil, there's some rules tied to them.
They start making their appearances throughout thefilm, kind of popping up, you
know, being wild I kept thinkingof Gizmo getting wet and Grimlins and you
know, the Magua then eating aftermidnight and turning into Grimlins and they're just
(35:22):
out of these out of control monsters. So and I was watching this and
I began envisioning each demon child havingtheir own personality and look and mannerisms.
I'd be cool if they had theirown individual nine Demons. Yeah, and
I was like, man, whatwould a sequel look like? You know?
And it didn't happen. It neverwould happen. So Grimlins to the
(35:44):
New Batch is the sequel if you'dwatch After the Nine Demons. Right,
It's just so The Nine Demons isessentially, like we said, like a
rough adaptation or inspiration from Faust,almost a parody. It's exaggerated comedy.
And Joe Dante's on to say thatGrimlin's two the New Batches straight up a
parody of Gremlins. He's basically like, let's just make a cartoon like especially
(36:07):
how the Grimlins act and look,they're funny, they're kind of cute,
they're still deadly and out of control. They just have a wild time together
wherever they go. And the NineDemons physically are kind of like puppets and
they float around. When they turninto skulls, they're contorted, you know,
not like Rick Baker, like youknow, more effects, but special
effects. But they're just having ablast in their human form and murdering people
(36:31):
and they're killing scenes are basically likeGremlins hanging on ceiling fans and jumping over
bar skulls. That's true. Yeah, so I got this feeling of these
floating skulls having personality. So that'smy double feature. Pick Grimlins two.
I like it. The new batchamazing, that's okay. So this I
(36:51):
haven't seen either of the Gremlins moviessince I was a kid, but something
that always bothered me and still bothersme. It's like, okay, you
can't feed them after midnight? Whendoes that period end? Like when is
it not like technically after midnight?You know probably I'm just gonna take a
guess. I'm gonna say at sunset. You think sunset? Okay, but
(37:15):
I don't know. Yeah. Seethere we never get a definitive answer in
the whole like don't feed after midnight. It's like, well but until when,
like when can I start? Likesunset makes sense, but there was
never a definitive answer given to thatand always drove me fucking did you ever
watch Key and Peel. There's asketch where they it's like in the boardroom
(37:35):
the ideas of the production company comingup with Grimlins too, and it's just
it's hilarious. I would I wouldactually pair that in with the double feature.
It's like a six minute sketch.But it's just them walking around saying
like it's Jordan Peel who's saying,all right, let's just have crazy fun.
What do you got, Like likea girl Grimlin. He's all okay,
(37:55):
okay, like a Grimlin, likewith girl with makeup on, just
showing off. Yeah, or moviesin the movie and like going down.
Everybody's just throwing out wild ideas.One guy's like Hulkgin, He's all,
you want to wait, let meget this straight. You want the Holster
to break the fourth wall and bein this movie. I love it.
It's in the movie. It's it'sjust a wild sketch. That would be
(38:16):
great. And that's Grimlin's too.It's it's fucking wild. Yeah, it
would be great. Pre you know, put it in the pre show for
this double feature. There we gothere you go. So you mean,
like, what if there's like abrainy grandmlin, a brainy gremlin. You
talking about a gremlin with glasses whocould talk and sing New York, New
York. That's brilliant. It's inthe movie Done. Whoa, Whoa.
(38:37):
You said that nothing was final.That was before I heard the words brainy
and gremlin in the same sentence together. It's done. I love it.
It's in the movie. Next,what about a spider grimlin You means gremlin
with eight legs and the four raxjust catching pretty ladies in a web in
an office building. Oh my god, it's in the movie. I love
it. Next, what about abat gremlin? You mean a gremlin when
(38:59):
every wing is just flying around,flip flopping, bust through a wall.
Make a perfect bat symbol in thewall. Get outside, getting some wet
concrete, Jump up on a buildingthat just drying place like a gargoyl whoremenon,
we are cooking with gas. Now, I love it. It's in
the movie. Next, could therebe a female grammar nipstick boobies? Bitch?
You have me and little gremlin?But jj I love it so much
that it's not only in the movie, but it's definitely in the movie.
(39:22):
There's no vaccines on now one,no plenty tag teams, Yes, yes,
that's in the movie. Done.What about yours? So I did
want to definitely go with a ShanBrothers proper movie for this double feature,
and I did mention earlier that Iwanted to definitely lean into that action fantasy
aspect of it. You know,I think it teeters off the rails a
(39:45):
little bit. It never quite goesfully, you know. It has some
like wild elements that you know,are like WHOA, But I want one
that's like people are just gonna belike what. So there was one that
I did want to watch. Ididn't get a change. John has it
downloaded and he couldn't He's got iton one of his like twenty hard drives,
(40:06):
so he couldn't find it, buthe has it somewhere. So I
haven't watched it yet, but I'mgoing to try to get to it before
we record your episode. And that'sHeaven and Hell from nineteen eighty and that
was written also by A. NiKwong, and so I do want to
get to that, so hopefully Ican talk about that next episode. John
can ever find it so I did. It was going to be between that
and my actual double feature pick,and that ended up being Demon of the
(40:31):
Loot from nineteen eighty three, alsowritten by Ni Kwong. So that's my
only connection here other than like somegenre overlay with the action fantasy part.
But this one, if you watchit, the opening credits are animated as
if it's like some kind of likesuperhero anime type movie, and you're like,
(40:52):
wait, am I watching the kidsmovie? It's like it is like
a comic book movie almost, becauseeverything is like so over the top.
Everyone's got some kind of superhero powerto one in one way or another,
and it's basically about, you know, the big Battie has this demonic loot
(41:13):
and he can play the instrument andit kills people, and he wants to
use it to, you know,take over the martial arts world, as
you do in these I don't knowhow a lout helps with that, but
it does. And the only wayto stop the lout is with the magic
bow and arrow. And so youhave these two characters I can't remember their
names off hand, I just watchedit, of course, a man and
(41:35):
a woman who team up and they'relike, okay, we got to find
the They have to go to allthese different places and put together all these
clues to figure out, like theyhave to find this person to get the
bow and this person get the arrow. They team up with this father and
daughter who have this like puppet showbut are also thieves. And there's tons
of great characters. I just posteda picture on Instagram of one of the
(41:58):
villains in it, who's got thiswild fluorescent red hair. It's super fun.
It moves at like, it neverstops, like it's always something like.
There's a few scenes where you're like, yeah, we didn't need the
scene of the kid getting drunk,like we could, but they skip over
so much they're like, oh we'rehere now. Okay. It's not like
(42:19):
Breakneck Portrait and Crystal Speed, butit's definitely you will never get bored.
And it's massively, massively entertaining.It's not gory at all. It's kid
friendly. So I would actually Iwould start with nine Demons and then I
would just push the throttle into hyperdriveand throw on Demon of the Lute nineteen
eighty three. I did have todownload this one, I think I when
(42:45):
I looked it up, I didsee that there are some like foreign Blu
Ray releases of it, so youknow, maybe this will get a proper
stateside release at some point. Butit's a lot of fun, so I'd
definitely recommend checking it out Discord folksif you're interested, if you really want
to watch the one, just messagedme on there and I can share it
on Google Drive or something like that. But yeah, send it my way
(43:06):
too. That sounds like a videogame too, like it is the Bows
and the Loot and like it's Zeldathe legend. I didn't bring up to
the power plaque in the Nine Demons. They call it the power plaque in
the translation, and again that feltvery like when he has it floating and
it just appears in his hand.I'm like, this is like you're equipping
(43:27):
your character. Yeah, I loveit. I forgot about that too.
Yeah. It's got a great costumetoo, like the cape and all of
that stuff like gold and you know, yeah those complimentary colors of that purple
and gold. Like it's Joey's themost gorgeous man, I mean, he
really is. Yeah, Chang chethinks so too. All right, Lance,
next pick, Okay, this isn'tChang che This is Shaw Brothers.
(43:49):
So Ghost Eyes from nineteen seventy four. Oh Yes, directed by Kwai Chi
Hung. So you know you knowyou're in good good hands again. Yes,
my favorite Shaw brother horror films havequite young Boxer's Omen, Bewitched,
Corpsvania. I'm sure we'll talk aboutsome of those. They all just get
better and better with every rewatch.So I'm excited to watch Ghost Dice again.
I watched it for the first timefor last August. I have a
(44:12):
feeling I'm gonna like it even morethis time. It has a wacky premise.
Bowling is a near sighted manicurist anda stranger strolls into the beauty shop
she works one night for her treatment. He's very suave. He's a suave
guy. He seems to take aninterest to Bowling while also being very aware
of the placement of the mirrors inthe beauty shop. After the shop closes,
(44:34):
Bowling is crossing the street and thestranger saves her from a near fatal
car crash that destroys only her onlypair of glasses and claiming to be an
optometrist, the stranger comments that sheshould consider contacts, and after a scheduled
eye exam. He gives Bowling apair of possessed contact lenses, which have
(44:55):
an unwanted side effect given her theability to see dead people. There's some
other effects to it. Also hasthe ability, uh well, he has
the ability hypnotizer into performing these sexacts night after night. So is this
stranger, mister she mister Shai.Is he some weird, horny vampire with
(45:16):
like glowing eyeballs who just happens towork as an optometrist by day and has
supernatural powers by night. We're goingto watch it and find out. We're
going to talk about it. It'sa wild one. Probably. It's like
we've already said, like most ofthese don't have the arguably obnoxious pacing of
Portrait and Crystal. This one movesfast, but it also has it's a
little slow in some parts. Wehad a blast covering Portrait and Crystal last
(45:38):
year with our friend Ian Jane fromRock Shop Pop. And you know what,
Erica, he's going to join usfor this episode. Yes, he's
joined us for every Shagust and I'mkeeping the tradition alive so we always have
a fun time chatting with him whenhe's on. So he's going to help
us out with ghost Eyes and joinus for this next episode. It is
(46:02):
on YouTube with English subtitles. Itcurrently has two hundred and twenty nine views
on Letterboxed but ghost diuys august IanJay Hell yeah, can me a great
episode, folks, be sure notto miss it. If you're not already,
You can follow this podcast on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook all at
Unsung Horrors. You can follow meon Instagram, Twitter, and letterboxed at
(46:27):
hex Massacre, and I'm on letterboxedand Instagram at l Shiby Joiner. You
know, you can also join ourdiscord. We've got people sharing what Shaw
Brothers movies are watching. If you'reon Instagram, share those in your stories.
Tag us love to see what otherfolks are watching, because there's you
know, they don't have to beShaw Brothers horror movies. People are I'm
(46:47):
watching stuff that I haven't seen beforeand say there's seven hundred movies. None
of you have seen all the ShawBrothers movies. I guarantee that, so
I mean not, I know,not all of them are available to watch.
You know, brothers that they don'tmake it easy, thanks Mona Phong,
But uh yeah, I mean sharewhat you're watching, Instagram even Twitter
(47:08):
discord all of those things. Yeah, we want to hear from you,
see what you're watching. Otherwise wewill see you next episode for ghost guys.
Bye bye o. Dang Marshall expert. There's not many who can match
up with him. Get your heartconvision that the cap I'm niggas want to
(47:43):
test my stage. Nigga, pleasea black dad, I like bees.
You better preeze that you tracks right, change him up. He's on your
backs. I'm counting foot on howhe put the plat on the side.
You want it all? Don't wantit all like that. Let's have my
own bolves in the back. Butwith that Nigga's like, damn, why
you want it like that? IfI'm a door him, I got no
mother for the caps shout into hiscold like the dog pupa caps. But
(48:06):
the little booma dumble backst wild,how like go strats? What guns gotta
be jacks? And they black onecats now on, man, don't the
rats the none don't let up onthe contracts. Wake up, mother,
got your put the bunker on contacts. One in the scle one half cracks
and then begin to give up andI'm mother to take it back, telling
hell it maybe where you rat I'mrunning away and train that be running on
(48:28):
your tracks and now with gonna downhere from madawn, I got my thank
man. I shot to love tosee yo. Tell her what's happening?
That what I tell you? It'sthrowing all that and got no yeah yo.
(48:50):
I swing funky rack foot to tapthe chaws, put to twenty point
things. The deal can't score becauseyou ain't got no points in this game.
Get you from my own mother,he be buying brush up the toil.
Then I got my ship together.When I'm good, I'm good.
When bad, I'm better. Youwant it whatever I beat the stormy weather
brained them in there to forget mybucks jacket and they go wear that ass
(49:12):
hacket. Was talking like a match. Come in the track and stuff at
you get plan done that ship plan? Cut your hands. I check it.
See me in the head from myback so much to think, oh
brother, I can't do away,got me us niggas. Now I walk
back and me to ask them allin the fucking me up, giving my
eyes. They're gonna get back.And what is the cat saying something?
The taal the more to that andthen so my line without on tour.
(49:36):
But when the sun I hold youwithout the same. Boy can't get dirt.
Hold that my name, but youcan't pull on my path. You
don't know me and you don't knowmy staff man. That dad like that's
there. Yeah, I'm putting maddoing the everybody you love doing bike.
(50:01):
I love doing the bike. Youlove jo the bike. How you doing
that? I know you thought Ididn't when I did. But the cat
sad. I told the boy,if you can't get to sell tin,
the least you can do is forfive too. And yeah, yeah,
(50:59):
hey, hey, it's Death byVideo. I'm Phil, I'm Kit,
and I'm Graham saying, welcome toour podcast full of merry movie mayhem.
Ever, wonder what an Irish kungfu movie would look like. It's called
Fatal Deviation and we covered it.Ever, wonder what a movie about a
thousand cats would look like. It'scalled Night of a Thousand Cats and we
covered it and it stars Higo Stiglitz. Listen to Death by Video to hear
(51:20):
us discuss and dissect some of theweirdest, wildest, and wackiest films ever
made. All this and more ondeath by video
Prepare yourself for the terror the prisonof madness. We have a few inter
and Nonritter. Welcome to Unsung Horruswith LUNs and Deerica. Leave all your
(00:32):
sanity behind, it can't help you. Now. Welcome to another episode of
Unsung Horrors, the podcast where wediscuss underseen horror movies, specifically those which
have fewer than one thousand views onletterboxed. I'm Erica and I'm Lance and
it is sh August. It is, and it's also my pick, so
(00:52):
no one will be surprised that Ibent the rules a bit on this one
and I picked a movie that isnot act a Shaw Brothers production, right
because I did mention last episode.I was like, Shaw Brothers does Faust
kind of thing, and you know, they did have involvement with it,
and we do have pretty much likeeveryone that's ever been involved with Shaw Brothers,
(01:15):
especially the director who is most wellknown with Shaw Brothers being involved with
the production. So we'll call itShaw adjacent. Yeah, I mean it
totally works. I mean, asI was watching it, I completely forgot
that you said it wasn't a ShawBrothers. I thought it was the whole
way through. I mean, eventhe production. I mean everything it looked
like it was on a shaw set. Yeah, exactly. I mean it's
(01:37):
the director, some of the castmembers, the way it looks, you
know, you know, the onlything you don't have is you know,
the shaw scope intro and that's it. Yeah, it ends the same way.
It's all. I'm gonna have toadmit that was upsetting to not see
the and here put it in here. Okay, yeah, right now,
(02:10):
Okay, now I'm ready to fuckingdo this. Okay, now it's August,
guys. So the movie that Iam talking about, my pick is
The Nine Demons from nineteen eighty fouraka The Nine Venoms. As of this
recording, it has two hundred andforty six views on letterbox and is available
to watch on YouTube. So quicksummary of the film. Best friend zoo
(02:32):
Kei aka Joey and gan Jun akaGary. I don't know where that came
from, but is what it is. They witness their father's murder at the
hand of their manners enemies. Joeymanages to escape the ambush, only to
fall into the underworld through the gateto Ashura's Palace, which opens once every
(02:54):
three hundred and sixty years. Sothis is basically like he just fell into
hell. Yeah. There he isgranted superpowers by allowing nine demons to possess
his body so that he may saveGary and avenge the deaths of their fathers.
The demons, which require blood forsustenance, soon have a stronghold on
(03:15):
Zoki or Joey, and they leavea trail of carnage wherever they go.
So I mentioned, the director ismost well known for working with Shaw Brothers,
and that is the goat chen Che. He has directed almost one hundred
movies, a good number of thembeing Shaw Brothers classics like Five Element Ninjas,
(03:36):
which is the ultimate crowd pleaser.If you haven't seen it, or
if you know people who haven't seenit, and you're having folks over to
watch something like this, you cannotgo wrong with that film. He directed
the Hammer Co production The Legend ofthe Seven Golden Vampires, The One Armed
Swordsman starring Jimmy Wong Yu, theboxer from Shangtung, and a handful of
(03:57):
others that I will mention when weget to the quote unquote Venom Mob part
of the cast. So a fewthings that I learned about him that I
didn't know prior to this. SoI have both the Shoscope Volume one and
Volume two set, and there isa mini documentary about cha in volume one.
So Chay actually started as a filmcritic and was recruited by Shaw Brothers.
(04:23):
He also wrote poetry and novels.John Wu was an assistant director for
him and has nothing but amazing thingsto say about about him, of course,
and Chay actually lived at Shaw Studiosin a luxury apartment up until his
death in two thousand and two.Oh interesting, so you live there's almost
his whole almost the whole life.Yeah, that's wild. Yeah, I
(04:44):
mean, I'm curious stopped making brothers. Yeah. They were like, yeah,
you can stay here. You werelike, he's a godfather of yeah.
Yeah. So some of the thingsthat Chay is known for, some
characteristics of his film that you'll kindof see the more of them that you
watch, is that his heroes oftendied in his films, so there's not
(05:08):
generally, you know, a completeredemption or very happy ending. And Chang's
biography editor said that he thought thatdeath was the sublimation of self value,
so he saw a lot of meaningin the hero dying at the end,
versus like just having the happy ending, right. A lot of his films
(05:30):
have a focus on friendships, specificallybetween men or sworn brothers. There's less
of a focus on love or romanticrelationships between a man and a woman.
And in fact, there's very fewwomen in a lot of his films.
He very purposefully left them out,and he really advocated for having male leads
(05:51):
because at that time, you know, you had movies like Come Drink with
Me, where a lot of filmshad a woman in the lead, and
he said, no, we needto have men in the lead. One
person in the documentary called it misogynyby omission, you know, whatever,
is what it is. I lovehis movies, so I'm not going to
be mad about it. Yeah,and I'm just going to get it out
(06:12):
of the way right now. Theseare beautiful men that he casts and are
made up. Joey and Gary aregorgeous. Oh yeah in this yeah,
so and so. And I'm notsaying that doesn't replace having women in leads
or anything like that. I'm justsaying, no, if you do want
a woman in a lead Chang movie, these Joey and Gary wirk like just
(06:33):
imagine. Yeah. What's interesting,though, is that So Tony Rain has
an interview on set one talking aboutChang Che and he talks about this underlying
homosexuality in Chang Che's films. Now, Chey has adamantly denied this, and
not surprisingly especially given the time thathe was making films. But like I
(06:57):
mentioned, you know, him beinga proponent of moving away the folks from
women as the stars in Hong Kongfilms to more masculine leads that his films
included a lot of phallic imagery,had a lot of good looking, usually
shirtless men, especially when they diedand were getting impaled. There's a lot
of slow motion shots to like,you know, for you to be able
to take in like there's naked glisteningnot half naked glistening bodies. You know.
(07:23):
So he's basically the David Dakoto ofHong Kong, right, except he
knows how to direct movie right.Yeah, And going back on like the
shirtless men, I do love ithappens in a lot of shot movies,
but especially Chang movies where he thinkhe said slow motions, but it's their
their deaths. The deaths are usuallyorgasmic feeling. Yes, the men slowly
(07:43):
get up, they try one lasttime and then they're like, h yeah,
it's over. The feet is over, Like yeah, it is orgasmic
very well. But okay, sothat's Chang che. We'll talk a little
bit more about how those elements comeout in the Demons when we get to
the discussion of the film. AndI do want to talk quickly about the
(08:05):
screenwriter here, and that's Ni Kwog. He has written over three hundred wusha
and sci fi novels. He's actuallybest known for the Wisely series sometimes called
the Wesley Series, which are detectivemystery stories which feature extraterrestrial life. There's
actually two films based on Quang series, the Wisely Series, and that's The
(08:31):
Seventh Curse starrying chaw Yung Fat andthe Legend of Wisely. And so in
the Seventh Curse, chaw Yung Fat'scharacter is Wesley, but then in the
Legend of Wisely the character is Wisely. So it gets you know, the
name is sort of interchangeable. Butyou can learn more about you know,
Ni Kwang and the Wisely series andthese sort of mystical adventure movies in an
(08:54):
upcoming essay for me in a futureVinegerson Drome release for a different movie,
not any of the ones that Ijust mentioned. Hell, yes, I'm
not giving anything away, is it? I mean, you're not giving anything
away? But is it horror movie? It is a Hong Kong movie,
and that's all I will say.Okay, Okay, no hints, no
hints. Nice. So, besideswriting these sci fi novels, he has
(09:16):
written over two hundred film scripts.I mean, honestly, if you're looking
at Shaw Brothers movies, if you'relooking at the writer, chances are very
high that he is the one whowrote it. Thirty six, Chamber of
Shell, in the Five Venoms,Dirty Hoe, five Element, Ninja's Super
Inframan, Human Lanterns, Mighty PeakingMan, Black Magic one and two,
and tons more that we'll discuss nextepisode. I'm sure, yes, I
(09:41):
mean, he's basically written like almostevery Shaugust pick we've done. Pretty much.
Yeah, yeah, that'd be Witchedor Portrait and Crystal. I don't
think. I don't know. It'shard to keep track. There's too many,
Yeah, there is, Okay,So production wise, Nine Demons was
much later in Shang Che's It's nineteeneighty four. It's quite a bit past
the height of his career with ShawBrothers, and this was actually a Taiwanese
(10:07):
co production and one of six filmsthat was from his own production company,
chang Hei Film Company. It alsohas an alternate title of nine Venoms in
order to capitalize on his much morepopular Five Deadly Venoms from nineteen seventy eight.
Cinematography is by wu Quo Wren andthe score is by Huang Moshan,
(10:28):
who has over three hundred film creditsspanning from nineteen sixty eight to nineteen ninety
nine. And is the height beinglike late seventies to early eighties, where
I mean the number of the shehernumber of films in each year is insane.
I'm sure a lot of it's likereused and repurposed, but still an
insane number of film credits going onthere. Okay, So getting into the
(10:50):
cast, talk about Joey and Garyfirst, So keep thinking of SpongeBob.
Every time I hear Gary. Who'sGary? He's literally never watched sponge He's
this, like this, the petthey like the like Spongebobs pet snail.
Okay, his name is Gary,Okay, I just always they're just very
basic names. It's funny. Joeyand Gary. Yeah, it is,
(11:13):
Yeah, it is interesting. I'mlike, so the DV, the Terracotta
DVD that I have, you know, I watched the subtitled version and so
it was there, you know,their original names, you know, Gun
Young and too Quo, right,zu Qui and uh. But then I
(11:33):
know, like the dubbed version isthe one on I mean they say Joey
about a thousand times. Yes,Like, did you watch the one on
YouTube as well? That was whenI first watched it a long time ago,
and I remember that, and Ithink I actually went through the YouTube
one to grab some screenshots from itbecause I was like, it's easier for
me to do it on my laptopthan to you know, take a picture
(11:56):
of my TV with DVD. Sobut yeah, they they say his name
a lot. Yeah, there's definitelysome translation issues and that I take note
of it in here, but it'sit's fun. I mean obviously English versions
of films kind of add to thehumor of it. But yeah, prefer
the subtitled for sure. So yeah, there is the DVD out there.
If you do want the subtitled version, you can pick that up. It's
(12:20):
Terracotta DVD. I don't remember whenI bought it, but for how much
it was. But I mean,maybe this will show up in No,
it wouldn't be in a shoscope setbecause my Brothers movie. Maybe it's the
release you're talking about. I justkidd Oh God, I wish I'm not.
I'm perfectly open to writing about thismovie, though, So just putting
that out there in the universe.Okay. So getting back to the cast.
(12:41):
So Gary or Gannon is played byChris Lee Kingsong. He's been in
Eastern Condors from nineteen eighty seven andBurning Paradise, which has a Vinegarson drum
release. Then Joey or zoel Keyis played by Ricky Chang Tien Chi.
He is recognize him right away fromFive Element Ninjas. He's also in a
(13:03):
movie called The Weird Man, whichif I can, if I remember correctly,
has a really great decapitation in it. That was a fun one.
Also, Chang che that one isWeird Man. Yeah, okay, yeah,
I mean I'm not surprised. Yeah, there's a million of them.
So then in the cast we alsohave two members of the Venom Mob.
(13:26):
So the Five Deadly Venoms, We'vegot two of them, plus another actor
who's been in plenty of other filmsthat Chang che has directed, but he's
not one of the actual five DeadlyVenoms, so he's not Venom Mob.
But Loufong who plays Lu Shan orThe Final Battle the Sun in this,
(13:46):
he's one of the Venom Mob,as is Chiang Sheng, who's one of
the three brothers that kills Gary.So those two members of the Venom Mob
have been in over twenty films withdirect that are directed by Chang Che.
Then there's also you Typing and he'sthere's also an interview with him on the
Terra Cotta David. That's the onlyspecial feature that's on there. But those
(14:07):
three actors have been in these filmsdirected by Chang Che, So as I
mentioned, five Deadly Venoms or theFive Venoms, whatever however you call it.
Crippled Avengers, Masked Avengers, ShallolinTemple, Chinatown, Kid Kid with
Golden Arm, Invincible, Shallin,the Flag of Iron, House of Traps,
Magnificent Ruffians, The Sword Stained withRoyal Blood, Heaven and Hell,
(14:30):
The Brave Archer series, which hasfour films, Two Champions of Shallolin,
The Rebel Intruders, Shallin Rescuers,Life Gamble, Legend of the Fox,
the Naval Commandos, and there's probablystill more that I didn't get, but
at that point I was like,Okay, I've got like twenty ant's people.
Understand that these people have worked togethera lot. I'm going to perform
through out one more. It wasShanghai thirteen that I watched for June'splitation,
(14:52):
which is part of Chang Chay's ownproduction company, one of his few.
But yeah, he pretty much gatheredevery show Yaw Brothers action star including those
two nice all right, moving quicklyon this one. That's how we do
in Shaugust, and you know what, these movies move quickly, so we're
gonna move quickly. Yeah, Ilike it. We'll get more into this
(15:13):
film right after this promo from ournetwork. You're listening to the Prescribed Films
Podcast Network, home to hundreds ofhours of free podcast entertainment. The shows
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(15:35):
movies and other forms of entertainment media. The PFPN hopes to fill your ear
holes with audio joy. Visit ourwebsite with links to all the other amazing
shows at www the PFPN dot com. Thanks for listening. Okay, so
(16:00):
the Nine Demons, I know,like it's you know, we talk about
underseening horror movies, and it's verymuch like it's a little bit of a
cheat. I mean, it isa it's not a show Brothers film.
B it's not very horror. It'svery much the action fantasy film. And
I will definitely lean very hard intothat with my double feature pick. But
(16:22):
it has horror elements and we've comeacross out a lot in Shaugust in the
past, especially with something like Portraitand Crystal, which moves at breakneck speed,
yes, where you can't even keepup with it. This one it
moves quickly, it does not nearlyas fast as Portrait and Crystal. Yeah,
I mean the setup for this issuper fast, which I loved,
(16:45):
like the first fifteen minutes especially,But I do think there is a little
bit of a lull On's like theUltimate Revenge or the original initial Revenge takes
place and then you start getting andis Joey a demon? Is he not
a demon? Let's figure this out. Yeah, that middle part of it
definitely lags a lot, like itloses a lot of momentum at that point.
I do think that it's one ofthose movies. It starts off really
(17:08):
strong, has a lot going onvisually, especially when you get into the
underworld. Oh but then yeah,like once that initial revenge happens, then
it's a lot of discussions about what'shappened already, what is going to happen
about this person, stuff that weas the audience already know. And so
(17:30):
it's not very well written in thatsense, like it's not really well paced.
You know. I mentioned The CrippledAvengers earlier. Yeah, and I
just watched that for the first time, and that movie is fan fucking tastic.
But that movie has really great pacingbecause like obviously the four who become
(17:51):
crippled and I'm using the word fromthere because that's what it is. You
know, you get like a sectioneach and it has this really great build
up. It's paced really well,like it's it doesn't you never have that
point to be like, Okay,how long have I've been watching this or
how much is left or anything likethat, right, and here you do
get that kind of at the midpointhere, Yeah, you do with almost
(18:15):
I mean I did a quick rewatchthis morning yeah, with almost like an
hour left. There's that's when itstarts like, Okay, well he got
his final revenge from the you know, from the gang and the people who
killed his father and Gary's father.But yeah, I mean it still works
because and when you selected this andsaid it was Chang Chay, I knew,
like wearing good hands. When itcomes to the action, sure,
(18:36):
you know you have you know,five venoms crippled Avengers, and it does,
like you just said, it leansway more. It's it's it's a
martial arts film, I think,with elements of the horror sprinkled in,
but when the horror does pop onon screen, it's very original, like
and it sticks with you. Imean, like we already said, the
(18:56):
setup is one of my favorite parts. It feels it felt like a Castlevania
game. Like first you quickly establishedthat Joey and Gary are best buds,
their pals. They're just going tojump into a fight on the street if
it's gonna you know, be fun, but you know, more importantly help
somebody that needs, you know,some assistance. But within two minutes you
know they're best friends and they're goingto fight for the for the you know,
(19:18):
for good for their good message.But then when Joey falls into the
the Black Paradise, which is whatit's called in the translation, it feels
like like an old Nintendo eight bitgame like video game, even with the
sound effects, like his equipment,his weapons, his his nine little demon
swords. Yeah, when they're equipped, it's all it's very like I'm playing
(19:44):
a Castlevania game and this is thebest, and it's kind of it's it's
not creepy, but it's you know, there's evil entailed in it, Like
you know that it's not going towork out, you know, this is
we're all the element the horror elementsare going to be pulled from with the
floating skulls. So yeah, Ithink it is way more action, like
you said, more martial arts,but it's a horror film. Yeah,
(20:07):
it has. It has the elements, you know, when he's down in
the Black Paradise and hell Shore's Palacewhatever you want to call it, and
he makes the deal too, AndI was gonna I was originally going to
pick a Foust movie for my doublefeature pick. Right, I started watching
the Richard Burton Elizabeth Taylor one andit was way too Shakespearean and I mean
(20:30):
it's it's christ few hours long too, or no, it's pretty short,
it's like ninety minutes. But Ihaven't finished it yet because I started watching
it before Ben, and that wasa mistake because I was like, oh,
they're not it's not a modern liketake on it. They're like going
straight to like the original Christopher Marlowtexts. So I do want to finish
watching it because anything Richard Burton andElizabeth Taylor, I'm in one hundred percent.
(20:52):
But that's not my double feature beingOkay, but I do I love
that story because there's so much thatyou can do with it. You know,
you've got Phanom, the Paradise,You've got Oh, I don't want
to say it because it might beyour double future picks. Well now you
can say it the pick of Destiny, like yeah, like that's not my
pick, okay, but yeah thatis a faust. Yeah. So there's
(21:12):
there's so many things to do withit, and you know, of course
leave it to Hong Kong to dosomething where the nine demons are these like
represented by these floating skulls who turninto a necklace and when they become real
demons, they are children. Becausechildren are demons, so fully support this,
(21:34):
but plus one woman in it,and they all need blood, so
they act kind of like vampires ina way where they'll like kill them.
There's like the slaughter at the brothelhouse that happens and they kill everyone there.
Yeah, and that is a surprisingscene to me because that's when you
start realizing, you know, thethe trouble that Joey's in, because those
(21:56):
are really the only time that likeinnocent people are killed. And he's kind
of fine with it. He's like, Okay, you guys need blood,
you know, have at it withthese unfortunate sex workers, like you know.
It's and that's where I was like, wait what, Okay, he's
starting to get the power hungry.He realizes he has this power. I
like it. Yeah, I likewhere this is heading. Yeah, it's
like your hero has to have somekind of conflict, and here it is.
(22:19):
You know, he's losing his innocenceto the demons. I do love
when the demons as skulls get theirblood because then they have that like stop
motion effect of like the blood goingin the veins in the skull. It's
like this is where hell Razor got. It's like ideas for the reverse you
(22:41):
know, blood and the I don'tknow, it can be too much.
You never know if I Margaret,I's seeing this, but you have like
blood sprays like you get in alot of chambar of films. There's one
at the end well, I dowant to talk about like the end fight,
but yeah, there is one pointwhere a villain gets impaled a bamboo
a bamboo rod, and so he'sgot basically this fountain of blood dripping down
(23:04):
and all the little children demon areunderneath it like lapping it up like they're
drinking rain drops or something like that. It's like you know Q Slayer rain
and blood. Yeah, I meanthose are those are my favorite scenes.
Like the final fight is, likeI said, we already said, you
know, we know we're having greatbattles. The very first fight where where
(23:26):
basically it's Joey and Gary when theirfathers are murdered, and then there's just
a bunch of they start throwing theseropes and they're all kind of doing these
acrobatic very well choreographed and just beautifulto watch. But that final fight on
the water where they're all in theselittle mini skis, yes, and they
build this little bamboo grid on top. Yeah, it's like you're watching a
(23:47):
new Olympic sports like ice skating withlike balance beams on top of the rink
and you get this melted water.It's I mean that fight scene makes it
all worth it, that one inparticular, Like I feel like, you
know, because we talked about thatlull that hits in about the one hour
mark or so, and that feelslike the movie or Chay or whatever all
(24:07):
like just realized at that point,like, oh, we've kind of lost
track here a little bit. Let'slet's throw this wild thing out here at
the at the end to get everyoneto pull everybody back in, because that
scene feels like, you know,you could pull it out and just drop
it right in five element Ninjas,right, It's that kind of scene.
Yeah, And that is kind ofwhat Shaw is known for us having an
(24:29):
epic final battle or like you said, I don't know if it is specific
to most Chay films, but yeah, I'm thinking of the what was it
the boxer from what's it called ShangTung Shang Tongue. Yeah, that final
fight like wor yeah, axes andhatchets in them, He's just taking on
the world. That's this final battleis worth sticking around for if you do
feel any type of loll I mean, my favorite scenes too are when the
(24:52):
d not only is there like thatweird, the love story is a little
weird. You know, after theinitial revenge is completed, it gets a
little slow when they start talking aboutJoey, and I feel like when the
Nine Demons pop up, it youexpect it. Basically when it happens,
you're like, Okay. I satback and I was like, when is
this going to happen again? AndI want it to happen again because it's
(25:15):
my favorite parts. But it iskind of repetitive. But when the nine
the nine Demon child, there's onescene I think it is it in the
brothel or I think he's attacking.It's like the third fight where they goes
after a bunch of the guards whenthey figure out the demon Joey, but
they are they all start doing likethis acrobatic like tumbling act and stuff,
and it felt like I was watchinglike an old Russ Tamblin movie or something
(25:37):
like him dancing around or the Rosssisters, you know, just doing all
these tumbling and jumping on each other'sshoulders and backflips and stuff, and that
was one of my favorite scenes.And then I think in that scene too,
one of the skulls bites on oneof the guys dicks. Yeah,
yeah, I loved that so much. Yeah, I think those kids doing
(25:59):
the acrobatics were mind me. Iwas like, Oh, I wonder if,
like the they pulled these kids fromlike you know, the Peaking Opera
or something like that, you know, that would have would have been neat.
I mean, I'm sure there's plentyof other schools where they learn stuff
like that. Like it's not likethose kids are acting at any point,
like they're just tumbling around and screamingand drinking blood. So yeah, I
mean they're literally just giggling and laughing, and yeah, it's creamy, it
(26:21):
is. I do like the uhsort of the rainbow strobe lights that go
on every time the demons do comearound, because just adds like it's not
like that gel lighting that we've seenin other Shaw Brothers movies. It's just
much more like it's sort of there'ssupposed to be these menacing demons, they
drink blood, but like yet we'vegot this rainbow strobe light going on.
(26:45):
So it's like almost the antithesis ofwhat you would expect with something that is
supposed to be menacing. These demonsthat possess your body and are turning you
evil. It's yeah, because they'reeven they're referred to as like black magic
by I think the girl that fallsin love with him, and she's like,
this is black magic, but I'mlike, no, it's just pure
magic. It's like will you walkin the Chocolate Factor. Yeah, they're
(27:10):
evil, but you know they're likelittle evil balloopas that are just doing their
host's work. Like yeah, there'sone other part too, where so Gary
Gary ends up getting so I mentionedin the summary. You know, Joey
got away from the ambush at thebeginning, Gary ends up getting kidnapped.
Joey is able to save him,but then they split up and Gary ends
(27:36):
up getting killed by these three brothersand he's killed. He gets stabbed by
these daggers. So Joey ends upusing those same daggers that killed Gary and
the demons to kill the three brothers. But I think it's Chang shing like
the last of the three brothers hisdeath, like the skulls. At first,
(28:00):
I thought they were just like underneathhis clothes and like biting him.
But then I was like, wait, are they inside his body? Because
when he dies, it's like alienchest burst, like sprain blood everywhere exactly.
Yeah. I was also reminded ofthat scene. Is it the Black
Cat or she's in the subway andjust kind of y Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I was hoping it wassomething like that, but yeah, it
(28:22):
kind of rips out of like hisbelly and his hard area. Yeah.
That was violent and very good.Yes, yeah, it was. Yeah.
And then during the last fight too, all the guards are fighting.
It's when Joey kind of conjures thenine Demon spirits and because he promised he
(28:42):
wasn't going to use magic, buthe decides to because you know, he
has he has the control of thedevil. He's evil. At this point,
he's kind of accepting it. Andthen the nine Demon children you know,
pop up their smile and they're they'rehopping around, and then they start
chewing on the ends of the spears. Yeah, and then they spit it
back and all the spear heads likego into the guards and they're all,
(29:04):
oh, love it. Yeah.It's it's one of those things where even
though it's not a horror movie.It does have some of the most inventive
kills that happen. And I've seenit in quite a few Hong Kong movies
where people get impaled and you know, you see like the blood dripping out
of like the bamboo or like thepipe or whatever it may be, it
(29:26):
happens. It happens in quite afew Hong Kong movies, So they know
what works. Yeah, they're Imean Shaw brother films, and I know
this isn't Shaw, but they're comforting. Like if I can't find anything that,
you know, if I can't decideon something to watch, I know,
if I do decide to just popon a Shaw Brothers film, it's
like, yeah, it's comforting.Yeah, you know what you're gonna get.
You're gonna get someone who wants todominate the martial arts world. You're
(29:48):
gonna get usually revenge. Yeah,there's some sort of revenge, any kind
of revenge happening. If it's Chengche movie, there's not gonna be any
women in it. They are,they're gonna have very limited lines or beside
workers relly beautiful men, and you'regoing to have a kick ass battle at
the end. Yeah, and theending is a little I like it.
I like it all, but Iespecially like and respect how they just throw
(30:11):
in that random monk. Dude,he's just sitting there like, yeah,
that's who's this guy. It's sortof like like, oh, how are
we actually going to solve this?And like it just last minute right in
do sex macana or Buddha x macana, whatever you want to call it.
I mean, yeah, he justshows up out of nowhere and it doesn't
make sense, but at the sametime it makes perfect sense. It's like,
(30:33):
well, of course there's just arandom monk sitting there, right,
Yeah, and he's kind of likethat. Like I said, the English
dubbing I definitely has problems, likethey call all the villains or the bad
guys. They call him batties,like oh, you're a baddie, you
must be a baddie, and thenthey say Joey a million times. But
when the monk is like he popsup, he's just so like dismissive.
He's like go away, you know, He's like get lost, stay back.
(30:56):
But I know he's there to savethe day. And it is a
little different than other Chay films wherethe lead dies you know, and he's
kind of sacrificed. So this endingI thought was a little cheesy as far
as like I loved it. Iloved the very last freeze frame where this
is the ending, but the monkis like Budo will resurrect you, and
(31:18):
Joey's like doing a backflip and afreeze frames on him and you know,
like, oh, he's gonna he'salive again. Like that's very weird.
Weirdly, it's a strange happy endingthat you're not used to in other Shaw
action films. Yeah, he explodesat the end, right, like he
stabs all the skulls. Yeah,technically those are kind of child kills.
I was thinking about that. Iwas, I was like does this count?
(31:41):
But then like no, because likeit's killing their spirit. They're probably
just back in the underworld now,so it's like killing. It's like an
exorcism. Yeah, find exactly it'sweird, is I think while he's doing
it too, the blood which looksreally cool, it's in reverse, like
it's going back into a system almostlike he's healing them. But maybe that's
part of the chant that his friendwas doing, like Booda was helping him
(32:05):
survive, yeah, because he stabsall the skulls and then Joey explodes and
then like you have this ending.So it's weird because it kind of shifts
to Loe Sean being the new sortof hero protagonist because he's like, oh
my my father was killed and nowhe's got the revenge. So it kind
of got the girl too. It'salmost seems like, yeah, it kind
(32:28):
of shifts over because like rick Ricky, I know, his name is Ricky,
but Joey is like, oh no, I can't be with you,
you know, so it shifts tolike we have a new hero. So
now it's like when Joey does die, does that even really you know,
it's not quite in sync with likewhat normally happens in Chang Che films.
(32:50):
Well at the end, yeah,but like I'm saying, like his death
like normally that would just sort ofbe the end and like that all the
hero's death and whatever. But he'snot really the hero anymore, even though
like he got his soul back presumably. So yeah, I mean the hero
is the monk, like he's yeah'sthet shows up and just steals the movie
(33:10):
the last fifteen minutes. It's it'slike he's a true hero here. But
yeah, I mean there is youknow, again, you know what you're
expecting with Shaw Brothers movies or ChangChay movies. This one does have.
The ending is surprising, it's differentthan most, and that yeah, makes
it well worth watching for sure.Yeah. I think so too. I
(33:31):
know this was you know, quickand breezy on this one. But you
know, we've talked this is ourthird sh August, Yeah, that we've
done. We've talked a lot aboutShaw Brothers and a lot of these actors
and directors and writers and all thatbefore, so I'm not surprised this is
a shorter episode. Yeah, We'vealready spent a lot of time on casting
crew in the past. Yeah,So, I mean, and I know
(33:52):
this isn't technically Shaw Brothers film,so you know, I'm not We're not
going to spend a lot of timetalking about Shaw Studio. Is there anything
like that? We've on that inprevious episodes as well. You should go
back and listen to those you know, happy Shaugusts. Listen to all those.
Yeah, there's only what I guessfour episodes our fifth, so but
(34:13):
we've got some double feature picks totalk about and then we'll get into Lance's
pick. So, Lance, what'syour double feature pick for Nine Demons?
Okay, well it was Tenacious Statepick if DestinE that was kidding. Okay,
Now there was a lot of likeyou said, Faust inspired like adaptation
movies. But now the first thingI thought of was the Brood with these
killer kids who kind of hang out, they hop out of nowhere start kind
(34:35):
of attacking their victims. Yeah,they're like these and they're kind of they
respond and act on targets, youknow that that their hosts are kind of
focusing in on. So they're doingthe bidding of kind of like Joey does
with the Nine Demons. Yeah,of course Heckel and Hype himself is in
the Brood Olive read right, Butthen I thought, no, I don't
want to bring up Heckel and Hype, and I kind of went in an
(34:59):
odd direction. And while watching this, so when the Nine Demons first popped
up, and like these rules arelaid out by that, you know,
the Prince of Darkness, the Devil, there's some rules tied to them.
They start making their appearances throughout thefilm, kind of popping up, you
know, being wild I kept thinkingof Gizmo getting wet and Grimlins and you
know, the Magua then eating aftermidnight and turning into Grimlins and they're just
(35:22):
out of these out of control monsters. So and I was watching this and
I began envisioning each demon child havingtheir own personality and look and mannerisms.
I'd be cool if they had theirown individual nine Demons. Yeah, and
I was like, man, whatwould a sequel look like? You know?
And it didn't happen. It neverwould happen. So Grimlins to the
(35:44):
New Batch is the sequel if you'dwatch After the Nine Demons. Right,
It's just so The Nine Demons isessentially, like we said, like a
rough adaptation or inspiration from Faust,almost a parody. It's exaggerated comedy.
And Joe Dante's on to say thatGrimlin's two the New Batches straight up a
parody of Gremlins. He's basically like, let's just make a cartoon like especially
(36:07):
how the Grimlins act and look,they're funny, they're kind of cute,
they're still deadly and out of control. They just have a wild time together
wherever they go. And the NineDemons physically are kind of like puppets and
they float around. When they turninto skulls, they're contorted, you know,
not like Rick Baker, like youknow, more effects, but special
effects. But they're just having ablast in their human form and murdering people
(36:31):
and they're killing scenes are basically likeGremlins hanging on ceiling fans and jumping over
bar skulls. That's true. Yeah, so I got this feeling of these
floating skulls having personality. So that'smy double feature. Pick Grimlins two.
I like it. The new batchamazing, that's okay. So this I
(36:51):
haven't seen either of the Gremlins moviessince I was a kid, but something
that always bothered me and still bothersme. It's like, okay, you
can't feed them after midnight? Whendoes that period end? Like when is
it not like technically after midnight?You know probably I'm just gonna take a
guess. I'm gonna say at sunset. You think sunset? Okay, but
(37:15):
I don't know. Yeah. Seethere we never get a definitive answer in
the whole like don't feed after midnight. It's like, well but until when,
like when can I start? Likesunset makes sense, but there was
never a definitive answer given to thatand always drove me fucking did you ever
watch Key and Peel. There's asketch where they it's like in the boardroom
(37:35):
the ideas of the production company comingup with Grimlins too, and it's just
it's hilarious. I would I wouldactually pair that in with the double feature.
It's like a six minute sketch.But it's just them walking around saying
like it's Jordan Peel who's saying,all right, let's just have crazy fun.
What do you got, Like likea girl Grimlin. He's all okay,
(37:55):
okay, like a Grimlin, likewith girl with makeup on, just
showing off. Yeah, or moviesin the movie and like going down.
Everybody's just throwing out wild ideas.One guy's like Hulkgin, He's all,
you want to wait, let meget this straight. You want the Holster
to break the fourth wall and bein this movie. I love it.
It's in the movie. It's it'sjust a wild sketch. That would be
(38:16):
great. And that's Grimlin's too.It's it's fucking wild. Yeah, it
would be great. Pre you know, put it in the pre show for
this double feature. There we gothere you go. So you mean,
like, what if there's like abrainy grandmlin, a brainy gremlin. You
talking about a gremlin with glasses whocould talk and sing New York, New
York. That's brilliant. It's inthe movie Done. Whoa, Whoa.
(38:37):
You said that nothing was final.That was before I heard the words brainy
and gremlin in the same sentence together. It's done. I love it.
It's in the movie. Next,what about a spider grimlin You means gremlin
with eight legs and the four raxjust catching pretty ladies in a web in
an office building. Oh my god, it's in the movie. I love
it. Next, what about abat gremlin? You mean a gremlin when
(38:59):
every wing is just flying around,flip flopping, bust through a wall.
Make a perfect bat symbol in thewall. Get outside, getting some wet
concrete, Jump up on a buildingthat just drying place like a gargoyl whoremenon,
we are cooking with gas. Now, I love it. It's in
the movie. Next, could therebe a female grammar nipstick boobies? Bitch?
You have me and little gremlin?But jj I love it so much
that it's not only in the movie, but it's definitely in the movie.
(39:22):
There's no vaccines on now one,no plenty tag teams, Yes, yes,
that's in the movie. Done.What about yours? So I did
want to definitely go with a ShanBrothers proper movie for this double feature,
and I did mention earlier that Iwanted to definitely lean into that action fantasy
aspect of it. You know,I think it teeters off the rails a
(39:45):
little bit. It never quite goesfully, you know. It has some
like wild elements that you know,are like WHOA, But I want one
that's like people are just gonna belike what. So there was one that
I did want to watch. Ididn't get a change. John has it
downloaded and he couldn't He's got iton one of his like twenty hard drives,
(40:06):
so he couldn't find it, buthe has it somewhere. So I
haven't watched it yet, but I'mgoing to try to get to it before
we record your episode. And that'sHeaven and Hell from nineteen eighty and that
was written also by A. NiKwong, and so I do want to
get to that, so hopefully Ican talk about that next episode. John
can ever find it so I did. It was going to be between that
and my actual double feature pick,and that ended up being Demon of the
(40:31):
Loot from nineteen eighty three, alsowritten by Ni Kwong. So that's my
only connection here other than like somegenre overlay with the action fantasy part.
But this one, if you watchit, the opening credits are animated as
if it's like some kind of likesuperhero anime type movie, and you're like,
(40:52):
wait, am I watching the kidsmovie? It's like it is like
a comic book movie almost, becauseeverything is like so over the top.
Everyone's got some kind of superhero powerto one in one way or another,
and it's basically about, you know, the big Battie has this demonic loot
(41:13):
and he can play the instrument andit kills people, and he wants to
use it to, you know,take over the martial arts world, as
you do in these I don't knowhow a lout helps with that, but
it does. And the only wayto stop the lout is with the magic
bow and arrow. And so youhave these two characters I can't remember their
names off hand, I just watchedit, of course, a man and
(41:35):
a woman who team up and they'relike, okay, we got to find
the They have to go to allthese different places and put together all these
clues to figure out, like theyhave to find this person to get the
bow and this person get the arrow. They team up with this father and
daughter who have this like puppet showbut are also thieves. And there's tons
of great characters. I just posteda picture on Instagram of one of the
(41:58):
villains in it, who's got thiswild fluorescent red hair. It's super fun.
It moves at like, it neverstops, like it's always something like.
There's a few scenes where you're like, yeah, we didn't need the
scene of the kid getting drunk,like we could, but they skip over
so much they're like, oh we'rehere now. Okay. It's not like
(42:19):
Breakneck Portrait and Crystal Speed, butit's definitely you will never get bored.
And it's massively, massively entertaining.It's not gory at all. It's kid
friendly. So I would actually Iwould start with nine Demons and then I
would just push the throttle into hyperdriveand throw on Demon of the Lute nineteen
eighty three. I did have todownload this one, I think I when
(42:45):
I looked it up, I didsee that there are some like foreign Blu
Ray releases of it, so youknow, maybe this will get a proper
stateside release at some point. Butit's a lot of fun, so I'd
definitely recommend checking it out Discord folksif you're interested, if you really want
to watch the one, just messagedme on there and I can share it
on Google Drive or something like that. But yeah, send it my way
(43:06):
too. That sounds like a videogame too, like it is the Bows
and the Loot and like it's Zeldathe legend. I didn't bring up to
the power plaque in the Nine Demons. They call it the power plaque in
the translation, and again that feltvery like when he has it floating and
it just appears in his hand.I'm like, this is like you're equipping
(43:27):
your character. Yeah, I loveit. I forgot about that too.
Yeah. It's got a great costumetoo, like the cape and all of
that stuff like gold and you know, yeah those complimentary colors of that purple
and gold. Like it's Joey's themost gorgeous man, I mean, he
really is. Yeah, Chang chethinks so too. All right, Lance,
next pick, Okay, this isn'tChang che This is Shaw Brothers.
(43:49):
So Ghost Eyes from nineteen seventy four. Oh Yes, directed by Kwai Chi
Hung. So you know you knowyou're in good good hands again. Yes,
my favorite Shaw brother horror films havequite young Boxer's Omen, Bewitched,
Corpsvania. I'm sure we'll talk aboutsome of those. They all just get
better and better with every rewatch.So I'm excited to watch Ghost Dice again.
I watched it for the first timefor last August. I have a
(44:12):
feeling I'm gonna like it even morethis time. It has a wacky premise.
Bowling is a near sighted manicurist anda stranger strolls into the beauty shop
she works one night for her treatment. He's very suave. He's a suave
guy. He seems to take aninterest to Bowling while also being very aware
of the placement of the mirrors inthe beauty shop. After the shop closes,
(44:34):
Bowling is crossing the street and thestranger saves her from a near fatal
car crash that destroys only her onlypair of glasses and claiming to be an
optometrist, the stranger comments that sheshould consider contacts, and after a scheduled
eye exam. He gives Bowling apair of possessed contact lenses, which have
(44:55):
an unwanted side effect given her theability to see dead people. There's some
other effects to it. Also hasthe ability, uh well, he has
the ability hypnotizer into performing these sexacts night after night. So is this
stranger, mister she mister Shai.Is he some weird, horny vampire with
(45:16):
like glowing eyeballs who just happens towork as an optometrist by day and has
supernatural powers by night. We're goingto watch it and find out. We're
going to talk about it. It'sa wild one. Probably. It's like
we've already said, like most ofthese don't have the arguably obnoxious pacing of
Portrait and Crystal. This one movesfast, but it also has it's a
little slow in some parts. Wehad a blast covering Portrait and Crystal last
(45:38):
year with our friend Ian Jane fromRock Shop Pop. And you know what,
Erica, he's going to join usfor this episode. Yes, he's
joined us for every Shagust and I'mkeeping the tradition alive so we always have
a fun time chatting with him whenhe's on. So he's going to help
us out with ghost Eyes and joinus for this next episode. It is
(46:02):
on YouTube with English subtitles. Itcurrently has two hundred and twenty nine views
on Letterboxed but ghost diuys august IanJay Hell yeah, can me a great
episode, folks, be sure notto miss it. If you're not already,
You can follow this podcast on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook all at
Unsung Horrors. You can follow meon Instagram, Twitter, and letterboxed at
(46:27):
hex Massacre, and I'm on letterboxedand Instagram at l Shiby Joiner. You
know, you can also join ourdiscord. We've got people sharing what Shaw
Brothers movies are watching. If you'reon Instagram, share those in your stories.
Tag us love to see what otherfolks are watching, because there's you
know, they don't have to beShaw Brothers horror movies. People are I'm
(46:47):
watching stuff that I haven't seen beforeand say there's seven hundred movies. None
of you have seen all the ShawBrothers movies. I guarantee that, so
I mean not, I know,not all of them are available to watch.
You know, brothers that they don'tmake it easy, thanks Mona Phong,
But uh yeah, I mean sharewhat you're watching, Instagram even Twitter
(47:08):
discord all of those things. Yeah, we want to hear from you,
see what you're watching. Otherwise wewill see you next episode for ghost guys.
Bye bye o. Dang Marshall expert. There's not many who can match
up with him. Get your heartconvision that the cap I'm niggas want to
(47:43):
test my stage. Nigga, pleasea black dad, I like bees.
You better preeze that you tracks right, change him up. He's on your
backs. I'm counting foot on howhe put the plat on the side.
You want it all? Don't wantit all like that. Let's have my
own bolves in the back. Butwith that Nigga's like, damn, why
you want it like that? IfI'm a door him, I got no
mother for the caps shout into hiscold like the dog pupa caps. But
(48:06):
the little booma dumble backst wild,how like go strats? What guns gotta
be jacks? And they black onecats now on, man, don't the
rats the none don't let up onthe contracts. Wake up, mother,
got your put the bunker on contacts. One in the scle one half cracks
and then begin to give up andI'm mother to take it back, telling
hell it maybe where you rat I'mrunning away and train that be running on
(48:28):
your tracks and now with gonna downhere from madawn, I got my thank
man. I shot to love tosee yo. Tell her what's happening?
That what I tell you? It'sthrowing all that and got no yeah yo.
(48:50):
I swing funky rack foot to tapthe chaws, put to twenty point
things. The deal can't score becauseyou ain't got no points in this game.
Get you from my own mother,he be buying brush up the toil.
Then I got my ship together.When I'm good, I'm good.
When bad, I'm better. Youwant it whatever I beat the stormy weather
brained them in there to forget mybucks jacket and they go wear that ass
(49:12):
hacket. Was talking like a match. Come in the track and stuff at
you get plan done that ship plan? Cut your hands. I check it.
See me in the head from myback so much to think, oh
brother, I can't do away,got me us niggas. Now I walk
back and me to ask them allin the fucking me up, giving my
eyes. They're gonna get back.And what is the cat saying something?
The taal the more to that andthen so my line without on tour.
(49:36):
But when the sun I hold youwithout the same. Boy can't get dirt.
Hold that my name, but youcan't pull on my path. You
don't know me and you don't knowmy staff man. That dad like that's
there. Yeah, I'm putting maddoing the everybody you love doing bike.
(50:01):
I love doing the bike. Youlove jo the bike. How you doing
that? I know you thought Ididn't when I did. But the cat
sad. I told the boy,if you can't get to sell tin,
the least you can do is forfive too. And yeah, yeah,
(50:59):
hey, hey, it's Death byVideo. I'm Phil, I'm Kit,
and I'm Graham saying, welcome toour podcast full of merry movie mayhem.
Ever, wonder what an Irish kungfu movie would look like. It's called
Fatal Deviation and we covered it.Ever, wonder what a movie about a
thousand cats would look like. It'scalled Night of a Thousand Cats and we
covered it and it stars Higo Stiglitz. Listen to Death by Video to hear
(51:20):
us discuss and dissect some of theweirdest, wildest, and wackiest films ever
made. All this and more ondeath by video
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