Weirdhouse Cinema: Child of Peach

This week on Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe return to the wild world of Taiwanese 80s cinema, this time with “Child of Peach.” It’s a frantic, action-packed fairytale full of demons, glowing peaches and magic children. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob
Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And today's film for
Weird House Cinema is the nineteen eighty seven Taiwani is

(00:23):
action fantasy film Child of Peach, A truly special work
of art, without a doubt, I will say, one of
the most frenzied and feral movies we have ever watched
on this show. This movie is so bizarre, so much
and so fast, and it certainly has a reputation online

(00:45):
for being just a tornado of weirdness that I'm genuinely shocked.
I had never heard of this movie before you selected
it for today's episode, Rob, So how did you find
Child of Peach. Well, I think my earliest exposure to
it was and Everything is Terrible Bowl two minute clip
mash up of scenes from the movie. And I watched

(01:06):
this at some point and was just blown away by
the weirdness, but also just assumed, well, these are just
the highlights they took the You know, get a weird movie.
If you get all the weirdest moments, you probably got
about two minutes worth, and so I laughed and then
I kind of moved on. But then when we were
talking about Thrilling Bloody Sword, another Taiwanese fantasy film in
the last year or so on Weird House Cinema, I

(01:29):
ran across it again when I was looking into Taiwanese
cinema in general, and some of the extras on that
disc from Blue Justin to Clue of the Gold Ninja video,
and that put it back in my radar, and I
was like, oh, well, if we've enjoyed Thrilling Bloody Sword
this much, then I guess we've got to come back
around to a Child of Peach. There are certainly some

(01:52):
esthetic ways in which this movie did remind me of
Thrilling Bloody Sword, but I'm going to make a very
strange comparison. I kept thinking it had an other kind
of bizarre but familiar energy, and I finally realized what
it was, and it's that this movie kind of reminds
me of Morosco aka Jack Frost, the nineteen sixty four

(02:14):
Soviet fantasy film that we covered a couple of years
back around Christmas, and we can get into more of
the similarities and differences in a bit, But I was
trying to think why that isn't. I think one reason
would be, despite the fact that you could argue these
are both kind of, whether intentionally or not, a kind
of psychotronic cinema, they're both actually based on folk tales,

(02:36):
so they have a kind of old soul to them,
despite how weird they are. Absolutely, yeah, And there's something
we always have taken into mind when we're looking at
at a quote unquote weird film from another from another
country's film tradition, you know, like how much of it
is genuine weirdness? And I think there's a lot of
genuine weirdness in this movie. Oh yeah, yeah, But then

(02:58):
there are you know, there's certain aspects of it that
are entrenched within a different film culture than one might
be used to. And then there is this aspect of
it it comes from folklore, and of course folklore is
also it's a it's a rich twelve of wonder but
also weirdness. Well, yeah, fairy tales are like all fairy
tales are kind of weird if you're unfamiliar with them.

(03:18):
There's just like the set you grew up with, so
they don't feel weird anymore. But you experienced the fairy
tales of an unfamiliar culture, and you're like, whoa, that
is odd. Yeah yeah, and yeah the ones in your
own culture are weird too, you just don't necessarily have
the distance to realize that. Oh yeah, the idea of
Paul Bunyan and a giant blue ox, that's strange. That's
strange stuff. Yeah. But anyway, the particular folk tale here

(03:42):
the heart of this is a Japanese folk tale, the
folk tale of Momotaro. This is about a hero child
born from a giant peach, and it's actually quite famous.
It was I was reading that it was utilized in
World War two war propaganda animation in Japan. It's been
it's been echoed in various video game adaptations. In fact,

(04:05):
I was astounded by this. My son super into Pokemon.
He's super into this Pokemon Scarlet and Violet game. It's
the latest switch game for Pokemon. And there's DLC coming
out that is going to have three characters in it
that are based on three magical animals in this story
that are also in this movie. So it's like it's

(04:27):
it's actually the Momentaro folktale casts a long shadow is
just one that not everyone is exposed to or doesn't
realize they're looking at it. Wait, Rob, are you telling
me that the three Guardians of the Garden in this
film are now pokemon. Yes, I've seen the photographs, my god,
or they're not photographed. They're still they're not actual like

(04:48):
wildlife photographs. But yes, they're on the way. This will
become more hilarious as we proceed to explain the plot.
I also thought it was interesting because, Okay, in this
basic idea child a baby and urges from a giant
peach and is raised by old people. This story is
also reminiscent of the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, another
Japanese tale listens about a baby found inside a stalk

(05:09):
of glowing bamboo, which has also been been adapted many times,
including in the twenty thirteen Studio Ghibli film The Tale
of Princess Kaguya from twenty thirteen, which I watched not
too long ago, and it was it's quite good, beautifully animated. Well,
that's another thing that makes Child of Peach unique. It
is mostly this, yeah, a wild, madcap dance of monsters

(05:34):
and giant peaches peeing on people and stuff. But it
also there are moments where it really has kind of
a sweet core to it, especially with the story of
the old couple who lives in the bamboo for us,
who end up adopting the peach kid as their son.
There were moments there where we were genuinely like, this
is so sweet. Yeah, it's a movie that tacks a

(05:56):
lot in. I mean, it's just bulging at the at
the stitches. There's so much packed in here, and and
you know, it feels like a very full meal, but
very satisfying one. Okay, maybe we should do the elevator
pitch though this is one of those movies where you
have to see it to understand it, just like explaining

(06:16):
what happens, and it doesn't really communicate the vibe. But
the pitch goes like this, When the King Devil steals
the Sword of Sun from the peach garden, it's up
to a baby hatched from a giant, obnoxious peach to
kill the devil and recover the sacred mcguffin. That's it,
that's the quest. And now there's also some rescuing of

(06:38):
a princess somewhere in there. There's there's a big, old
rotund knight named Knight Melon you'll hear a lot more
about him. There are guardians that turn into animals, so
there's a lot going on. And this is another thing
that kind of reminds me of the Soviet fantasy film Morosco,
because whereas in that movie you get the feeling that

(07:01):
they're just combining so many different kind of fairy tale
elements together into a single narrative, this movie, I don't
know if they actually come from fairy tales in every case,
but this does have that very like lots of different
stuff thrown together into a blender feeling. Yeah, almost kind
of a circus feel like, well, you gotta have this act.
You gotta add your flowns, you gotta have you gotta

(07:22):
have your lion tang, right, you gotta have this And
so it's all there, three rings, all at once. Look
where every your eyes take you. Their similarity I think
has to do in part with the gorgeously weird sets
and costumes and the onslought of peculiar supernatural images and themes,
which again I think these are partly unfamiliar to us

(07:44):
because they are based in the fairy tales of a
culture that we're less familiar with in childhood. But Also,
they just contain a lot of strange original elements that
I suspect would be weird to anybody watching. So there's
that in common. But then I think there's another similarity,
one that's kind of hard to explain but really does
color our experience of a film, and that is about

(08:06):
the piecing of the introduction of unusual imagery and ideas.
Do you know what I'm talking about here, Rob, Yeah,
there's kind of a feeling like you're hit with one
supernatural element and one speculative element and then wham, here
comes a faery and to narrate things from the other direction,

(08:29):
and you can feel a little struck by it exactly.
Both of these movies have this habit of kind of
throwing a strange new character or image or statement or
behavior at you, and it usually does not give you
time to be like, wait, what is this? You don't
have that sinking end time. It's still just ripping ahead
at full speed to the next thing, right right. Another

(08:52):
thing about this movie, and this is partially a warning.
Love this movie, but it does have these major who
is this? Or issues? So you look at this, you'd
be like, oh, this would be good to show my
kids I would not recommend that it's so it has
a very silly, zany tone and subject matter that would
seem to indicate that this is a movie for kids,

(09:14):
but I think it is not at all. It is
full of inappropriate content. There is almost constant swearing in
the hard baked subtitles. So it has these subtitles much
like Thrilling Bloody Sword. At least in the version we watched,
they seemed like they like burned into the film itself. Yeah,

(09:34):
and I and just to just give ahead just a
little bit on quality like this is that there aren't
really official there's no official release of this film. Yeah,
outside of Taiwan, is my understanding. So any copy you
find of it seems to be like the same sort
of slightly degree. It's very watchable content. But yeah, it's
it's it's not restored, it's not pristining by any stretch.

(09:56):
And it has the subtitles and I believe Mandarin and
English just hard baked in there, and sometimes you can't
read them because those are white subtitles against white backgrounds. Yes, yes,
so there were parts where I really don't know what
was happening in the plot because it's being explained there's
like exposition dialogue and it's just white text on a

(10:17):
white background. So I don't know, But Okay, so there's
a lot of swearing in the subtitles. I don't know
if that means there is swearing in the original dialogue
or if this is a translation issue. Obviously, the as
we will note in several ways, the hard coded subtitles
we saw had a lot of I don't know what
felt like very approximate translations. Yeah, the subtitles are very

(10:40):
rough around the edges anyway, and then they hit way
too hard, especially with the swearing at times. And I'm
I'm I guess I'm willing to attribute this possibly to
just you know, the crude nature of the subtitles. It's
kind of like what if, what if any of us
were given the task of trans insulating Bart Simpson's insults

(11:02):
into a foreign tongue that we're not a master off.
You know, there's a certain nuance that has to be
in place where you know, Bart is saying crude things,
but they're not too crude or you want to imply
this thing but not stated outright in clinical terms. So yeah,
I kind of I've attend to give him a break
on that and chalk it up to less than perfect

(11:24):
subtitles in translation. Okay, so you got the swearing. There's
also some kind of jarring nudity, not of a sexual nature,
but just like Peach kid running around naked a lot.
And I think there's a scene where your night Melon
character gets pranked by just getting his pants pulled down
and stuff. There is occasionally really gory violence, but mostly

(11:46):
not like it. It's just these suddenly surprisingly gory moments
interspersed with mostly more cartoony martial arts action. Yeah, and
generally the violence is directed at some sort of a
demon underling. Yeah, but still you know, heads will pop,
brains will bleed, that sort of thing. Also, I don't

(12:06):
know whether this one goes in the kids movie column
or the anti kids movie column, but the movie is
obsessed with urine. There is so much pep on everything.
How many Pepe scenes were there? There's like Peach the
giant magic peach peeing on people. There's the dog like
animal creatures peeing in people's food. There's other monster there's

(12:30):
a lot of monster pe. I think there are at
least four or five pe scenes. Oh really, I counted three,
but I might have missed one in there. This is
ironic though, because okay, the day of publication this happens
to be Saint Patrick's day. And originally we were thinking, well,
we should do an Irish movie, and that ended up
being a whole slog trying to figure out what Irish

(12:52):
movie would be appropriate and would be fun. And for
a little bit we were looking at nineteen eighty six
is Rawhead Rex, which features famous features a urine scene,
and we were like, I don't know, really I want
to talk about that urine scene. So we pivoted to
Child of Peach, which has at least three urine gags.
But like we were talking about before we came in here,
I would say Rawhead Rex is a urine movie and

(13:15):
Child of Peach is a pee pee movie, and there's
there's a big difference between the two and often what
is in fact, in almost every case, the thing that's
peeing in Child of Peach is not a human. It's
big into animals peeing and peaches peeing, and Peach based
Mex peeing, yes, and very much played for comedy. Earlier,

(13:38):
I did describe the weirdness of this movie as an
on slot and I think that really is the right
term for it. When we were watching it, we had
to rewind many times because there'd just be something that
was like what and then it was so bizarre. But
then it was over too fast and we had to
take it back and were like, what just happened? Yeah,
it's this is actually a good movie to watch it

(14:00):
like a YouTube type format, because you need to be
able to go back and re examine things you think
you saw and think you might halfway understand. It is
indeed just a NonStop sort of picture. I mentioned that
Everything is Terrible two minute cut of Childhood Peach, and
I'll embed that in the blog post for this episode
at from utmusic dot com. Casey, anyone wants to check

(14:22):
it out. Like I say, with any other film, I
would think, well, you got the weirdest moments, and that's
two minutes worth the footage. Fair enough, pretty fun, But no,
there's so much more weirdness in the film. Like if
you just watch those two minutes with Everything's Terrible and
you think you've seen it all, you haven't. You can
then go and watch the full film and it's still
got so many things to exclaim about. Yes, the treats

(14:45):
just abound. Now. As we discussed in our episode on
Thrilling Bloody Sword, it's our understand that Taiwanese cinema at
the time was kind of the underdog versus Hong Kong cinema,
and so there's this feeling in Taiwanese movies of this period,
particularly fantasy action films, like the filmmakers really felt they
had to go big. They had to be weirder than
Hong Kong, they had to be riskier, and the stunts

(15:07):
had to maybe be a bit more dangerous. And I
think you can totally see all of this in Child
of Peach and a film that you can well imagine
critics of the time and of the intended region thinking
it might even be trying too hard, you know what
I'm saying, like like like, oh, well, they just they
just really are trying too hard in this film. I
don't think that's what most contemporary viewers make of the film,

(15:28):
though it has certainly become a cult classic, I don't
know what that means trying too hard, Like think of
some outrageous comedy that not only has to have just
a gag a minute, but also really wants you to
make sure you got that gag? Hey, did you get
that gag? We just did. Let me remind you of
you know it, like that energy of just like I'm

(15:49):
going to assault your senses and I just really want
you to like me kind of energy, which can be
very obnoxious if you're encountering a film in its time,
it hasn't had time to sort of, um, you know,
cure in the in the in the in the in
the Seller or anything as this film has. Like maybe

(16:10):
maybe I'm thinking of something like an ace Ventura, you know,
And I don't know to what extent ace Ventura has
matured in the Seller either the Mad Dusk, Yeah, nineties
Jim Carrey movies. Yeah, yeah, not exactly the same energy,
but you know, I don't know, just trying to think
of movies that are a lot and maybe that changes

(16:31):
over time and with different audiences. Okay, I get you now.
But at any rate, this film, like we said, it
seems to have been a hit because it spawned at
least one sequel, Magic of Spell from eighty eight and
perhaps Magic Warriors from eighty nine, both starting the same
actor and both from one of the same directors. Now,
there's no actual trailer that I could find for this film.
So we're just going to listen to just a little

(16:53):
bit of the audio from the film, just give you
a little little taste. So this isn't going to be
our normal trailer audio treatment, but heavily listen. All right,

(17:40):
Hopefully what you got from that, it's fun. Now if
you want to watch the film before continuing on with
the episode, just have to remind you that this one,
this one's hard to come by. If you're looking for
anything like an official release, I think you're generally going
to be looking at imported DVDs or burnt discs. I
know Video Drum in Atlanta that they say they have

(18:01):
an acceptable copy of it, and you can find its
streaming in various formats online. It's exactly the sort of
film that I keep expecting Golden Ninja Video to put
out at some point, but it hasn't come to fruition.
So look around. There's there's some good places to find it.
And also there's that everything is terrible two minute cut.

(18:22):
If you just want to want to sample platter of
what the full film would consist of, all right, you
want to talk about some of the people involved, Yeah,
and I'm not going to go as in depth on
the cast, but there are some interesting folks to discuss. Now,

(18:44):
just a note before I go to I had to
use multiple databases to to get some of this info,
so IMDb, TMDb and also the Hong Kong Movie Database.
Um so some things, especially the movie like this, some
things are listened on one database and they're not on another,
or can be slightly different. So just keep that in
mind as we proceed, all right. Starting at the top here,

(19:06):
one of the two directors and also one of the
stunt coordinators is Chung singh Chow. Dates unavailable on this
particular director. Taiwanese director and his stunt coordinating and directing
credits include both Peach films, so you know this one
and then the Definite sequel, as well as nineteen ninety
ones twelve Animals, which I've heard good things about, nineteen

(19:27):
eighty five's Drunken Dragon had nineteen eighty five's Hello Dracula,
which is a hopping vampire film and film franchise that
is gonna We're gonna mention it multiple times in the
art discussion of the people in this movie. I was
looking this up. I think there is also a Korean
TV series of the same name, that is, as far

(19:48):
as I can tell, unrelated. Yeah, I have a lot
of questions about Hello Dracula, like is it a definite
franchise or is this like the Italian zombie franchise where
it's all about how these movies have been released outside
of the original market. Well, I was looking for a
stream of Hello Dracula to try to see if I could.

(20:08):
I don't just get a little flavor of it, because
I loved the name when you told me this, I
first heard it in the big bopper voice. But yeah,
this looks like a franchise. I would love to check
out if I can actually get a copy of this movie.
The other director is Chun Lang Chen, who lived nineteen
forty two through twenty sixteen. Additional planning and directing credits

(20:30):
include dragon Ball The Magic Begins from nineteen ninety one,
and yes, this is connected to dragon Ball Z. So
as somebody who was never a Dragon Ball Z van,
I've only seen little bits of it and heard other
people talk about it. I did have friends who were
into Dragon Ball Z. It seemed like a show that
was very oriented around the concept of powering up. Is

(20:54):
that accurate? Yes, I think, and I think it has
almost as large, if not as large a footprint in
many people's sort of pop culture upbringing as Pokemon. But
I personally don't know a lot about it. My son
has not gotten into dragon Ball Z. But I know
this is the kind of thing like if you have
dragon Ball Z in your childhood, then it is a

(21:15):
part of who you are for the rest of your life.
Seems like it provides a useful set of metaphors for
whenever you're getting ready to do something important, you know,
like you're going into dragon Ball mode. Maybe you're powering
up for this test at school. Yeah. Yeah, So this
is a live action nineteen ninety one adaptation of the

(21:35):
dragon Ball manga and TV series that led to dragon
Ball Z. So, for instance, this movie from ninety one
has Goku in it, if that means anything to you
out there. But anyway, Chen also worked on Hello Dracula,
all right, And then the writer for this film is
Ching Kang Yao born nineteen forty six. Extensive screenplay credits
between forty nine and fifty three films, depending on the

(21:56):
database you're looking at. His earliest credit is the Bruce
I know, I've it's Bruce Lee l I. I've also
seen this pronounced Bruce Lae, which is kind of fun
because it's not really Bruce Lee. It's just a guy
who looks almost exactly like him. I guess are close
enough to market him as such. But anyway, he is
the nineteen seventy five film super Dragon Versus Superman. That's yeah,

(22:21):
a good title and you know, implies some certain things
that I'm not sure the movie's going to deliver on.
He also wrote Hello Dracula, dragon Ball, The Magic Begins,
One Armed Swordsman versus Nine Killers from seventy six, The
Seven Commandments of Kung Fu from seventy nine and nineteen
eighty ones Chivalry, Deadly Feud. Okay, a few good sounding
titles in there. All right. Our star, though, is wrapped

(22:46):
up in this character of the peach kid, peach boy,
whatever you want to call him. Basically, like we said
in the movie, a male baby is born from a
peach and is rapidly grown up into a youth. That
youth is played by the female actor h Saolo Lin
or Lamsu Lao or also Sharon Foster. So the name

(23:09):
is listed different ways. I think these are maybe different
aliases certainly. Sharon Foster is an americanized alias that was probably,
you know, used as some of these movies were marketed
and in other parts of the world. But this movie
was apparently big enough a deal for her that it
kind of earned her the nickname Peach Baby. So I

(23:31):
think we can we can call her Peach Baby if
we want, or we can just call her the kid
however you want to cut it. But she doesn't play
the baby. She plays like the grown up peach boy
who is ready to fight evil. Yes, playing a male character,
but definitely has this kind of punky Brewster kung fu
spirit to her, very very peppy. I've seen her described

(23:55):
as a kung Fu wondertand of her time. She apparently
attended a peaking opera school in Taiwan, but quickly made
a name for herself as an adorable fantasy action movie performer.
On various databases, her acting credits go back to nineteen
eighty but her career seems to really take off with
nineteen eighty six. Is Kong Fu Wonder Child a Wu

(24:17):
Shaw film in which our youthful hero battles evil forces. Okay,
could also describe the movie we're talking about Today or
probably many others Yep, yep, and then comes child to
Peach in eighty seven, which apparently earned her the nickname
Peach Baby. The Peach sequel follows, as do some other
general youth versus demon films, including Twelve Animals, sometimes with
the actor playing a female youth, other times of male youth,

(24:40):
and she seems to cross over into Hong Kong productions
for a while as well, which isn't surprising given the
apparent exchange that went on between the Hong Kong and
Taiwanese films seen during this time. As Justin Daclue discusses
and some of the extras, I'm thrilling bloody Sword, but
I think I've even seen one of the Hong Kong
film she's in. I don't think it's a very big
role at all. But nineteen eighty nine's The Iceman Cometh,

(25:03):
a movie about frozen then thoughts swordsmen from the Ming
dynasty who then have to battle it out in modern
day Hong Kong. WHOA, that's a good premise. Yeah, I
don't remember much about it, but I remember I ended
up watching it because it became highly recommended from some
particular like Hong Kong film enthusiasts who were like, if
you want to see a sword fight, watch this movie.

(25:24):
Set your highlander aside because the ice man cometh. Anyway,
Peach Baby's tremendous, so much energy. Yeah, just wonderful charisma.
She's wonderful. Totally agree. Peach Kid rules all right. Now
we have an old man and an old woman who
are going to be important to the plot. They end
up raising Peach Baby, and the old man is played
by Tu Chen who lived nineteen thirty two through two

(25:47):
thousand and one. Beijing born actor known for such films
as Dragon Ball The Magic Begins. He plays Gohan If
that means anything to you dragon Ball fans. He was
also in Hello Dracula one, two, three, and five. Note
they to go up to six, so he's a very
fun actor in this. He has a lot of you know,
old man act kung fu comedy. Uh. He has one

(26:08):
hundred and seventy acting credits on the Hong Kong Movie database.
He's also in Magic of Spells. This is one half
of our Bamboo Forest Power couple who who end up
adopting Peach Kid from the Peach Oh yeah, they're they're
they're a lot of fun there. There are a lot
of nuances to them in their relationship. Yes, old Woman
and again there. I think these are their names, at

(26:28):
least in the subtitles, because they refer to each other
as such, a like old man to do this, and
then he's like old woman, do this, and so forth.
But anyway, the Old Woman is played by Yo Ma
Fong born nineteen fifty eight. She's apparently only in eight films,
including Magic of Spell and Hello Dracula three. But I
thought she was delightful and this very funny. Obviously a

(26:49):
much younger actor playing an older woman, but it was.
It's a very spirited performance. She does great. There's a
whole like chase scene between her and the peach where
it involves the peach peeing on her. It involves her
butt catching on fire because she's going too fast at
one point. But it's great, and she and the old

(27:11):
Man have some really great exchanges that I don't know
exactly what is getting lost in the translation, but like
the moments where she says like I could born a
melane and the old man says, you can't even born
a potato. Yeah. Yeah, they're one of the main themes
with her character is that, yeah, she desperately wants to

(27:32):
raise a child, and at one point and their their
agent as they remind each other, but yeah, they're like,
should we just raise Melan Knight? What if we raised Melanknite?
What if Melan knighte was our son sent from the Buddha?
And they seem to entertain this idea until something better
comes along. Melan Knight, who is a very large, full
grown man, yes, yes, but they do note that he

(27:53):
looks cute like a baby. Yes, yes, he does have
those big cheeks all right. One of the villains we
counter in this is Um. I've seen her credited as
Zombie Mother, but I think we can think of her
as the Witch. She's very much a witch character. There's
some big Boba yaga energy to this role, and I
didn't realize it was a drag performance for the entire

(28:15):
my entire viewing of the film. It wasn't until I
started looking through the credits that I realized this was
the case. Played by actor Lindquang Young dates unknown to me,
but a stunt performer and actor who has a lot
of fun as are over the top hell Escape matriarch
of evil. Yeah, there are multiple really good cross gender
performances in this, and yeah, the witch is fantastic. She

(28:40):
wears a ziggy stardust wig. Basically, am am I right
about that? I believe, so yes, yeah, So she has
a lot of a lot of pizzazz. She's a fun
witch and basically she just wants to find a good
match for her her two sons, a nice princess for
one of them or both of them to marry. That's right.
She kidnaps a princess from a castle and like brings
the princess back to Hell and he's like, well you

(29:00):
will marry my two sons now, and the princess is
not interested, and then she yells at the printers. She
calls the princess some cuss words, but she also says,
you're engaging in fault finding with my sons. So yeah,
fun performance this particularly actor. I think it looks like
maybe did a lot of like smaller roles, but maybe
some bigger ones as well. So a lot of like swordsmen,

(29:22):
a lot of thug credits. So you know, in action films,
one of the underlings who gets into fights with the
hero that sort of thing. Oh, but then let's talk
about Night Melon, also sometimes credited as Watermelon Boy. This
is played by the actress Saan Ping. You know, sometimes
a movie like this will just cast a big guy
because they like he looks funny in the scenes, or

(29:43):
so they think, but it's it's not actually as funny
as they think it is. In this case, it is
like this guy has a lot of moment I mean,
his character is written in a hilarious way, but also
he has a lot of just kind of look into
the camera moments where I don't know it works, he
just looks funny. Yeah, yeah, I mean they also he
has kind of a ridiculous haircut. He's constantly in kind

(30:05):
of silly looking clothes, so it's really played out. But yeah,
so this is we're talking about a guy who's you know,
obviously a heavy set comedic Taiwan. He's actor, and you
look at the various roles he's played and you see, like,
for instance, in Hello Dracula, he just plays fat cop,
which there's no way that that's not just a comedic
bit part. You know, I'm imagining just a cop that

(30:26):
is frightened by a vampire and runs away. I would
bet money on that. Being the case. But in this movie,
while he is certainly the butt of jokes and pranks
by the demons and so forth, he's also a genuine hero.
So he's, like he is in this film both a
figure of fun and a figure of strength and courage. Yeah,

(30:49):
and I you know, I think something that really is
telling about this is that this actor also played the
character Pigsy from Journey into the West in at least
three films. Pigsy, for anyone who's not aware, this is
one of the major characters and Journey into the West
alongside the Monkey King. And you know, I think this
is that's kind of the energy of that character. It's

(31:10):
like a rotund, poor sign of a character who is
humorous but also is a hero, is also you know,
very much fighting on the side of good. So that
that might be part of it. And we was maybe
seeing some Pigsy energy in this role, because yeah, he
certainly gets to act cowardly at times, he some prat

(31:31):
falls and lots of humor, but he also gets to
just really kick butt too. He busts out of souplex
at one point, there's a part where he does like
a really killer Sinton drop. This is where like there's
a demon on the ground and he jumps and brings
all his weight down on the demon, like back first
onto him. So yeah, he gets to whoop some butt

(31:51):
as well. He also gets powered up for extra heroics
at the end of this movie, and I thought the
mechanism they chose here was interesting. The way they power
him up is they have the little fairy like do
a Cupid's arrow into him and the princess, so they,
against all odds, fall in love with each other, and
this brings him extra strength to fight the devils to

(32:13):
rescue her. Yes, yes, love is his energy source. And
then once she's out of her jail cell, they're just
like kissing through the entire final battle. Yeah. So lots
lots of fun with that character. I ended up. It
grew on me, Like at first I thought, it's like,
this is just going to be a one note, one
dimensional comedic character. But they're at least two dimensions in
play here. Oh totally. I love night Milan. I think

(32:33):
he's great. Okay, now, this is a much smaller character,
but at one point, one of the demon underlings that
they battle is referred to, at least in the subtitles
as hercules. He's very much this kind of muscley ogre
character played by Huang Jin Wi. And if you're wondering, hey,
is this the same big muscled ogre dude there was
in Thrilling Bloody Sword that got stabbed up the butt

(32:55):
with the Thrilling Bloody Sword, Well, let me assure you
that it absolutely is no way, Yeah, it's him. He
has a sixteen bulging acting credits on the Hong Kong
Movie database, playing mostly like giants, musclemen and bodyguards, you
know the type. His earliest credit his nineteen seventy three's
Kung Fu Inferno, and this is actually his penultimate role

(33:15):
before nineteen eighty nine's King of the Children aka Hello
Dracula four. What does he play a vampire? I'm assuming
he plays a muscle dude. I don't know what kind
of muscle dude. Maybe a muscle vampire in this so
he's a muscle demon here. But in Thrilling Bloody Sword,
he was a statue that came to life. It was

(33:36):
in that scene where like each statue had only a
specific place on their body where they could be wounded.
And then with the I think he was the last
one left and it's like, oh wow, we cannot find
his weakness until finally The Thrilling Bloody Sword also had
a little fairy character that ya strange thing in common.
But the little the little fairy in that movie like

(33:58):
used her X ray vision on him to do herman
that he had to be stabbed and I think, I
think youphimistically called it the thigh and then but when
they show it, he stabs him in the butt. So yeah,
they had a different person on subtitle translation duties for
that film. Yeah, I feel like the subtitles for Child
of Peach would have been a little Cruider. But speaking

(34:19):
of that fairy, not the same actor playing the fairy
in this film. Shadau Lou plays the fairy born nineteen
seventy eight, a child actor who is in I think
mostly Hello Dracula movie. She played ten ten in Hello
Dracula's one, two, three, and five, and I think she
is actually a Dracula, a vampire, a hopping vampire. Oh

(34:39):
cham in that movie you mean the actresses in real life?
Maybe maybe? And then finally, there are other wonderful cast
members in this But the last one I'm gonna mention
is Huang Chung You playing the Demon King or the
Spirit King their various ways. He has described the main
villain born nineteen sixty one Tai when he's actor who
seems to have played a fair number of wise masters,

(35:02):
vampires and so forth. He was also a martial arts
choreographer and director. King Devil also rules. The villains in
this just across the board have awesome Hellish charisma. King
Devil is great, The Witch is great, all the all
the little demon fighters. We should get into more about
the individual demon fighters as we talk about the plot,

(35:22):
but yeah, everything from Hell is good in here. All right. Well,
let's let's break down the plot here. All right, Well,
it gets right into it. We just start somewhere in
the mountains, and it is clearly it's an indoor set

(35:43):
meant to represent the mountains. It's kind of like, you know,
it's like the guts Agro Crag, but with with with
like trees and and happy vegetation everywhere. Yeah, yeah, we're
telling this is somewhere in the Himalayan Mountains. It's the
peach garden. It's lush and warm due to the power
hour of the Sword of the Sun, which is embedded
in the hilltop. Ex Caliber style. Now pretty much right

(36:05):
off the bat, you start figuring out that you're not
going to be able to read some of the hard
burned subtitles because it tells you, you know, we're here
in the Peach Garden. And then you see, but right
there in the peak there is a different world, the
Peach Garden as the natural power absorbed by the Sword
of sun It. And then it's just a white text
on white background. So something about the garden, I'm not sure.

(36:29):
But then a song kicks off and I rewound and
listen to the opening song probably fourteen times. It's a
it's a great tune, really puts you in the mood
for happy, happy, fighting, and we get to see all
of the Guardians of the Peach Garden going about their
business and doing transformations. So who are the guardians here? Well,

(36:51):
the subtitles tell us that they are. Well, the songs
that the song that sells tells us they are the
Naughty Angels, right that the Guardians of the Peach Garden.
It says, it says turning into rainbows. Something can't read that.
Dad and moms start playing magic. Naughty Angels dance on

(37:11):
the roof. Yeah, that's that's exactlyurate. So, yeah, these three
Elfish guardians. The subtitles tell us that they are tiny cock,
tiny dog, and tiny monkey. I believe in general these
characters are associated with the pheasant with a domestic dog,
and with a monkey of some sort, and we encounter
them in their animal forms, and then we see them

(37:33):
in this scene transformed into their human forms. And don't worry,
they have a third form that we won't find out
about until the final battle. But they are the guardian
angels of the Garden. And the Garden is ruled over
by what is described as an intimate couple. I take
that demeano cult power couple who are raising a plump,
cute baby boy on the magic nectar of a giant

(37:55):
peach aka the Holy Peach. So Mother Peach tends to
the baby while Father Peach makes swords fly around their
cavern home. Yeah, he does sword telekinesis in the cave
while the mother like harvests the nectar that drips off
of I don't know if there's a word for this.
What is the little nub on the bottom of a

(38:16):
peach called? Oh, that's a good question. I don't know,
but it's prominently featured in many of the peach designs
we see in this film. Yeah, okay, so the little
peach nub drips nectar into a big glass punch bowl.
It's a punch bowl, and then I guess she gets
it from the punch bowl and then does she feed
it to their baby? I believe so this is like

(38:37):
the sacred elixir that is making peach baby strong. But
these two are the masters of the garden. And then
so they're living in peace and harmony. It seems like
almost kind of like a perfect existence it's implied to be.
But then oh, they one day something something feels amiss
and they say, stranger is coming. What is this? And

(39:01):
then like four big balls just roll into the garden yep,
and they explode, and out of them come Devil's where
this is the devil King or King Devil and his cronies.
They have come to claim the magic sword better protect
the baby. And just another myth note or folklore note here.
I think this character is generally referred to as an

(39:21):
one in the Japanese tradition and certainly has has ony
notes into the character design here. So how to describe
the King Devil He's wearing armor is this kind of
a Samurai armor. Yeah, it looks very very Japanese and
it's an inspiration, which makes sense given the origin of
the folk tale. And has big ony teeth, huge fangs

(39:43):
that it almost like fangs that look funny to try
to fit inside his mouth. Yep, yeah, like it's a mouthful. Like. Luckily,
this guy's not actually having to too much live vocal acting.
I think he's just kind of goes ah and somebody
dubs over it. But he's got a huge wigs, a redhair,
gigantic bushy red eyebrows, he's got pale makeup on his face,

(40:07):
the sort of samuraish armor. His helmet has a big
oh what do you call that kind of the upward
facing crescent moon shape on it, like horns. Yeah, he
cuts a great profile. Oh yeah, King Devil is so stylish.
And so he gets there and he says, I want
the sword, and of course, you know the master is
the gardener not just going to give him the sword.

(40:29):
So he manifests, he has his balls explode and they
transform into these devils with green hair and horns who
are wielding these long like polarm weapons. And then there's
a big battle that breaks out and the battle is amazing.
I watched the first ten minutes of this film multiple times. Yeah,

(40:49):
this is a film where I think a lot of
people you might not expect the martial arts action to
be this good, but the martial arts action and this
is great. I think maybe the martial arts is stronger
in this film than Thrilling Bloody Sword that was still
really impressive and thrilling Bloody Sword. Like, now, no matter
what your issues are with like not being you know
they about to understand all the subtitles or know what's

(41:10):
going on plot wise, well at any given point, the
action sequences absolutely makes sense. Like they have they have
build to them, they have callbacks, They tell a story
with the action, and I think it's kind of a
testament to just the tradition of Taiwanese and Hong Kong
cinema at the time that this was just sort of

(41:32):
this was so important to making a film. So it's great.
Highly recommend the action. We'll keep talking about it. But
while the battle is going on with so you get
the Master, the man from the Cave, and the three
guardians fighting off the devils. The King Devil goes up
to the sword of Sun and pulls it out of
the stone, I guess, and then it's like shooting this

(41:54):
green electricity all over the place. So as soon as
he takes it, the garden turns dark and snow starts falling.
So again, I think it was established earlier that the
sword is what makes the top of the mountainhabitable and
a lush garden instead of just a you know, snow
capped rock. Yeah, and then things go downhill from there. Yeah,

(42:15):
so the King Devil, unfortunately, he kills the man and
the woman, murders them, and casts the guardians off of
the mountaintop, but not before Mom makes a plan for
Peach baby. She pikes peach baby, puts him inside, puts
the baby inside of the holy peach, and the holy
peach flies off. That's right, So it is you know,

(42:36):
it's it's Moses in the basket, except it's a baby
in a peach. Yeah. And you know, since the peach
is alive and his personality, it's not just like random
like where will this baby wash up? It's like, no,
the peach must find a suitable parents for the baby.
That's right, It's it does a sentient peach. Also, while
the peach is flying away. This is where we first

(42:56):
meet the fairy. I think fairy just randomly shows up
and just says, it's strange the peach garden is gone.
She's mostly here, I think to move the plot along, Yeah,
in multiple ways. Oh and also as the peaches leaving,
she goes and talks to the dying woman in the cave,
who she calls the woman landlord. I thought was interesting.

(43:18):
It was like, is the is the fairy paying rent?
But okay, we cut from here to meet the old
man and the old woman. They are living together in
the bamboo forest and they are going to a shrine
of the Buddha to pay homage. We see that they
are a you know, they kind of crack wise, but

(43:39):
they are also in many ways a pious and kind
hearted couple. And they go to the shrine of the
Buddha and have a conversation about how they are unable
to have children. But when the woman goes off to
wash clothes at the side of the river, she comes
across a giant peach and from here unfolds an amazing

(44:00):
chase scene. Rob. I don't know if there's anything you
want to mention about this, but it well, it goes
over sea, not see over river, water, air and land.
It has like a sort of dragging scene where the
lady's butt catches on fire. It does involve the peach
peeing on her, but she also does sort of catch
it in the end, right right, It is a frantic chase.

(44:23):
This this chase sequence is well represented in that two minute.
Everything is terrible cut and yeah, it's just includes a
lot of antics with indeed the peach peeing on her
to put out fire and so forth. But eventually she
catches it and kind of locks it in a room
back at the house, and so when the old man
shows up, she's like, old man, you gotta get in

(44:46):
here and deal with this peach. And he's like, oh,
old woman, you're just making things up. I can handle this,
and then goes in and encounters the peach. Yeah, he
says he's gonna eat it up. I'm gonna go in
and eat the peach up. Oh. There's also a very
funny moment where in the foreground the old man and
the old woman are talking and he's saying, you know,

(45:06):
that's okay, I'm hungry, prepare a meal for me, and
she's like, no, there's a haunted Peach. And then in
the background, if you just see the Peach zooming around
like behind their backs, it's like a ghost and a
horror movie. Yeah, just just zooming around ominously in the back.
They have no idea what's about to happen, and it's
doing poultry gey stuff. It makes the furniture dance and
spin around in the air, almost exactly like Trumpy from

(45:29):
Pod People. It has similar powers. Yeah, but I think
the fight stops when the fairy shows up to convince
the Peach to stop doing satanic black magic. Is Yeah,
there's kind of a fight that happens where like the
old man jumps up on the rafters and the Peach
chases him and he's like, you stink Peach. Yeah, it's
so good. But yeah, then the fairy shows up and

(45:51):
she's like, hey, Peach, cut it out. These are some
good folks. I think you need to open up and
let them raise the baby. That's all right, he says,
this couple are good persons. And then so the peach
cracks open, it hatches this beautiful holy light comes out
of it, and then there's the baby, and so the
old woman grabs the baby and she says old man,

(46:13):
take a look at it. Real cute. And from here
they adopted the baby. They make it their own, and
it is actually shockingly sweet. Like there's this sort of
montage of her rocking the baby and singing to it
as it falls asleep, and then we see the baby
growing older and in this bontage and Rachel and I
were watching this and she was like, what and why

(46:35):
am I having feelings? I know I felt the same way,
like the baby is very adorable and she's there's the
part where yeah, she's singing, touching your head and touching
your hands like a little lullaby, and it's very sweet's
legitimately sweet. Oh and we should mention earlier when they
were at the Buddhist shrine in the forest before they
get Peach Kid. This is when they meet night Melan.

(46:57):
So they're like, they're saying, oh, we wish we could
have a son. And then I don't know where night
Melon comes from. It's like he falls out of the sky. Yeah,
I don't know. He's on some sort of adventure, right, yeah,
and he drops down and at first you're like, who
is this? But they're like, oh, here's a big baby,
let's raise him. And then they realize like, oh, no,

(47:18):
he is cute like a baby, but this is a
grown man. And then we discovered this is night melon.
He's out hunting birds, i think, with his retainers, and they, oh,
he shows off his strength by chopping down a giant
stalk of bamboo, like a tree sized one with his
hands to get the bird out of it. Yeah. Now

(47:41):
there's a wonderful jarring transition because we have this wonderful
lullah by you know, rocking my sweet, my sweet peach
kid into into slumber, that sort of thing. But then
immediately we cut and it's like, meanwhile in Hell, in Hell,
So the King Devil returns to Hell where there is

(48:01):
a frozen old witch and all her evil demon children.
And this scene is actually, I think quite atmospheric and spooky. Yeah,
so this is supposed to be one of the cold hells. Now,
there are numerous cold narakas in Buddhism. I've seen. I've
seen it listed that they're a total of like maybe
eight cold hells, and they're defined by the cold sounds

(48:23):
that the inhabitants make and or what sort of damage
it does to the body. So, are your teeth chattering
at at in the cold, or are you going ha
ha in pain? Is your body merely covered with cold blisters?
Are those blisters bursting and then the pus freezing over
your body? Or are you so cold that like parts

(48:43):
of your flesh have fallen away and we can see
your internal organs. I don't know. It's one of those.
It seems real bad here because the demons are crying
out for relief. You see the demon children walking up
to a mound, and then this old witch comes up
out of the mound, like she pushes away the earth
the top of it. And the demons are saying or
I don't know if they're demons, that maybe they're damned

(49:04):
people that I don't know. The people there they're saying,
get up, mom, get up mom, And they say Mom,
we don't want to stay here. But the witch says
it's destined because we've done evil things before. I think
that means like in life, maybe they did evil things
so they're stuck here in jail. She says, we're all cursed.
We're locked up in jail. And they say, Grandma, get

(49:27):
us out of here. And then she says, it's impossible.
Let's spend our life like this again. I think maybe
something is getting lost in the subtitles here. But then
the King Devil shows up and he's got the sort
of son with him, and with the power of the
sort of sun, he turns Hell into a kind of
peach garden. Like He's like, Okay, now Hell isn't cold anymore,

(49:50):
y'all can chill out. Yeah, So he's recruiting himself some
nnions here with the power of the sort of the sun,
and yeah, instantly all of these newly won demonic minions
take on a new air, a new likeness. So the
old mom, the old witch here is suddenly suddenly has
the ziggy stardust Wig. We see Hercules, the big muscly

(50:14):
ogre dude. There's some other specialized demon troops as well.
I think one of my favorites is the wind guy.
He's like this demon underling that has a big sack
of wind that he uses in battles either to blow
his adversaries away or to create a really stiff wind
that they can't walk into, kind of comedically, and the

(50:34):
payoff on the wind bag demon is fantastic. Oh yes,
But so the King Devil has defrosted the demons of hell,
and the Witch says, thank you, my King Devil, you
give us new life and interesting, interesting take on the
harrowing of hell here, and so the witch is obviously interested.

(50:56):
She's like, King Devil, what's the sword in your hand?
And the King Devil explains that he's taken it from
the peach garden. And I think he explains what he
plans to do with the sword, But most of the
subtitles here are against a white background, so I do
not know what he says his plan is, but it
seems to me that his plan is to do evil
maybe and to rule over the people of the world

(51:19):
and make them miserable. Yeah. I mean, not to get
too deep on this, but in freeing these people from
one of the hells, like in the from the Buddhist perspective,
like he's interfering with like the natural order of the universe,
because again in Eastern traditions, the hells and hell realms
are more about transforming into something better like this is

(51:42):
No matter what the subtitles might say, I think we
might infer that these are people who are being processed
through this realm and eventually, in another incarnation will be
better for it. So he's interrupting that he's in. He's
breaking them out so they can continue to be bad
in a way that's out of the line with the universe.
I think in one of the subtitles they do say, well,

(52:04):
we've got a thousand more years here. Yeah, but yes,
he breaks it breaks it off short. They clearly are
not redeemed. They have not improved their souls at all,
so that they still just want to do evil and
they're gonna help King Devil in that regard by brutally
attacking a village. This is the next thing we see
them do. Like the Witch shows up and she says,

(52:25):
m I get a thrill as I smell these people.
I want to taste their blood, and she gets all excited,
and they just attack all these people in a village.
That one part, they're like setting fire to houses and
beating people down and just slaughtering them. And there's one
part where I think a demon attacks some kids that
are swimming in a lake and their dad is on

(52:48):
the lake shore and he I think he calls them
like Bobby and Denny or something in these subtitles, and
then he jumps into the water to save them. And
then they send like a mutant shark after him. Oh
have their shark demons, that's right, Yeah, those will come
up again later. Yeah. So they just they burn this
city to the ground or this town to the grounds village.

(53:09):
And this is something this film has in common with
Throwing Bloody Sword. Both films have, at least in my eye,
terrifying fire effects. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to this
kind of thing now, but I'm like, oh jeez, it's like,
like that's that's not just a magic staff shooting a
little bit of flame. I think they're using a flamethrower
that looks like jelly gasoline. Yeah, and we do see
what seemed to be unsimulated footage of like houses burning down,

(53:33):
so they burned some real huts and stuff for this.
So the Devil is up to some bad business and
it really needs to stop. We need a hero, is
what we need. We need a hero. And what do

(53:53):
you know, back in the bamboo forest, peach kids all
grown up, super strong. Now he's splitting wood with his
bare ends. He goes and he digs out a well
for his parents so they can have water. Now at
this point, yeah, that the fairy has intervened, sped up
the development of Peach Kid, because if she's the Fairy's like,
this isn't happening fast enough. We need to hear pronto.

(54:14):
And so by this point it is the grown actor
peach Baby playing the peach Kid. Oh yeah, I think
there'd been some earlier scenes where they were just like, wow,
peach kid sure eats a lot, but needs to grow
up faster. Yeah. And the grandma and the grandpa, the
old man and the old woman, they couldn't be happier
because there's like, oh, our son is so strong, he

(54:36):
can carry us around. Yes, So we see peach Kid
carrying are I think they work as like, I don't know,
loggers in the forest. We see peach Kid, I think,
by himself carrying a whole tree that has been felled.
But then also just yeah, carrying the old man around
in the forest, and the old man says, this is
my son. He bears me up. Yep, yep, he's very proud,

(54:59):
very proud. Now somewhere in here, the King Devil and
the Witch attack a castle and kidnap a princess. I
recall this going by very fast, but suddenly they've just
got a princess captive. Yeah, And then I forgot about
the princess for a while until she becomes important again.
So yeah, it comes by very fast. But the witch says,
it's your luck to have a chance to marry my son,

(55:21):
and princess doesn't want to marry her sons, and which
doesn't like this. She cusses the princess out as she says,
you're indulging in fault finding on my good sons. And
then the son say, mom, I want the princess. But anyway,
the fact that the King Devil has kidnapped the princess
leads to the organization of a gigantic rescue effort. So

(55:45):
they're like these armies as symbol they're going to go
to Devil Island to get the princess back. And who's
in charge of this rescue plan but Night Mellon himself. Yeah,
there are a couple of other kind of military individuals
who there's one one guy that is referred to as
Bowie in the subtitles for a smug priest, the Dallas Priest.

(56:09):
He's very yeah, he's very like full of himself. When
he shows up, he's like, I will defeat you know,
I will go with you. We will defeat the King Devil,
and night Melon taunts him by saying, like, what, You're
going to defeat him by praying at him? Yeah? Yeah,
he's very cowardly in this too. The first peeing scene
comes about though, because our hero, the peach Kid, shows

(56:30):
up and it's like, I'm strong, I'm ready to help.
There's also a lot of back and forth where the father,
the old man, is like, I will go to war.
You shouldn't have to go to war and fight the tavil,
and but then they realize, oh, the old man is
too old, he can't do it. It's got to be
peach Kid. So tears in their eyes. Peach Kid goes
off to join the army, but then aren't The generals
in the army are like, you're too young, you can't

(56:52):
do this. And then the three Guardian animals show up
and they're like, how can they bully our master? Like that,
let's go pee in their drinks and so that's all right.
The monkey and the dog go and pee in their
drinks that are set out without anybody, you know, looking
out for them. And then they show up and they're like, oh,
let's have our our alcohol now, and so they start
drinking their their drinks that now have animal urine in them,

(57:14):
and they start making comedic gross faces about how weird
it tastes. I think they have to run a night
Melon and Priest Bowie have to run behind a curtain
to vomit. Yeah, a good time has had by all.
Oh but Peach Kid eventually, so yeah, we assemble the characters.
So you've got night Melon and Priest Bowie in the armies.

(57:35):
And then Peach Kid eventually proves his worth by wrestling
a bull. I think, is that right? Yes, yes, slams it. Yeah,
slams a bull down. And then also Peach Kid is
joined by the three animal guardians from the Peach Shrine
on the mountaintop. So they're allied with peach Kid. Now,
I think maybe we're they recruited by the fairy. I
think so yeah, yeah, because they were a part of

(57:58):
the original guardian crew for the Peach Baby. So yeah, yeah,
they're loyal. And they also eventually tell Peach Kid what'sop like,
tells Peach Kid about Peach Kid's birth parents and so forth. Right,
so they pee in the food and all that. But
eventually Peach Kid is accepted into Night Melon's retinue here
and they're going to go attack the Devil Island together,

(58:20):
but unfortunately, Night Melon's forces are decimated by a vicious
witch attack on the army encampment that involves an attempted
seduction of Night Melon the destruction of his forces. Rob,
you wouldn't have described this in some more detail. What
all goes down here? Oh? I mean it's a frenzied
action sequence. Well with also that seductive sequence of where

(58:43):
the witch shows up pretends to be the princess Knight
Melon's like, oh, I will kiss you, and then she
transforms into the witch before he can kiss her, and
hilarity ensues. But then yeah, the Demon force attacks and yeah,
it's a great action sequence. Stuff flaming in the night.
We get to see the wind Demon and yeah, I
think one of my favorite mini battles in the whole

(59:06):
picture is Peach Kid versus Wind Demon, And we see
this first tussle between these two in this sequence, and
Wind Demon kind of gets the better of Peach Kid
by blowing the wind out of the bag through a pipe,
right yeah, and we realize like this isn't over. These
two have a score to settle later on. So Night
Melon survives this tag I think, does Priest Bowie just

(59:27):
run away? I think he's like, I better pretend to
be dead so I can survive, and then he does
that and then he kind of crawls away. Yeah. So
the forces that are going to pose the Devil King
are decimated, but our key hero survive. And at this
point it becomes clear that this this effort is not
going to succeed as a as a pure military venture

(59:48):
with siege equipment like it originally was was headed. Now
this is going to be have to be a hero
squad oriented action. We're gonna have to send our heroes
in to the inner sanctum of the Devil King and
stop him. That's right. So for the final for the
Final showdown, Peach Kid, Night Melon and the three Animal
Guardians mountain assault on Devil Island. And I don't know

(01:00:12):
we can talk about the various elements of this, but
I will just say the final battle is a religious experience.
It will open eyes you did not know you had,
oh Man so much. There's so much to talk about
it just for starters. Since I mentioned the first part
of it already, we get the second half of the
Battle of Peach Kid versus the wind Demon. And in

(01:00:32):
this one, like Peach Kid has learned the tricks and
like the language, like the physical language of the fight
sequence is so great. And eventually peach Kid gets the
upper hand and they do this bit where they both
have this tube and they're blowing into the tube and
Peach Kid can blow harder and stronger at this point
than Wind Demon, and she makes the Wind Demon's head

(01:00:55):
explode scanner style and we get a freeze frame of
head chunks and gore exploding from this creature's head. Peach
Kid as Michael Ironside as Darrell revoc Yes, Yes, absolutely wonderful.
Like if the movie had ended at that point, I
would have been like, fine, that's great, I can go
home happy. Oh. Also, before the fight starts, to get

(01:01:17):
a return of the mutant sharks, yep, there's a brutal
fight with them in which one of the sharks has
the Shark mutants, has their fin sliced off by Peach Kid.
And then after the battle they're like, hey, where where'd
Melan go? And then Melan comes swimming up with like
a bunch of shark fins from the Shark demons, and
he's like these are nutritious. I'm going to eat them.

(01:01:39):
So we get a shark fin soup joke in there,
which you know, I wasn't crazy about that. I guess
we have to keep in mind this was the eighties,
and I think the messaging against the you know, the
ecologically harmful and ethically problematic practice of shark finning, it
didn't really come into like two thousand and five or so,

(01:02:02):
and so yeah, and then also, I guess it's better
in that at least it's played up. Is kind of
a dufus move on Melon's part, because they're like, don't
eat that melon, You're gonna poison yourself. And he's like, oh, okay,
oh yes, because they're demon shark fins, not regular shark fins.
So yeah, oh I didn't think of that. So anyway,
they get him to leave the shark fins and then
they keep going into the inter sanctum for this big battle. Yeah,

(01:02:24):
and then the battle ensues. The action is just sizzling.
We get that that final encounter between Peach Kid and
the wind Demon. Meanwhile, we have Melan going to rescue
the princess, and we mentioned earlier how that the Faery
uses love to power him up and and it's also
in this sequence where he has to battle Hercules. Hercules,

(01:02:45):
remember is the is the demon from hell who's got
big muscles and like a spiked club. Yeah, very much,
this kind of ony ogre, kind of a figure brute strength,
and it's it's ultimately a really fun fight because Melan
holds his own his own pretty well against Hercules, but
he's he's just not getting it done. But after the

(01:03:06):
love sinks in and takes effect, he's able to just
kind of like casually kill Hercules like he's walking away
with his princess, and then he kind of like flicks
a spear with his foot back behind him and impales
Hercules through the heart. Is beautiful. That's the power of love. Yeah,

(01:03:26):
they could have played it and it would have fit perfectly.
But but but we haven't gotten yet to the most
amazing thing that happens in this film, which is the
emergence of Mecca Peach. Oh. Yeah, because everybody's at this
point trying to tell I think the Witch gets dispatched.
She gets blown up with a rocket shot by one
of the three Animal Guardian kids, and then it's so

(01:03:47):
it's just them against the demon. King. But the Demon
King has this magical sword, and it's quickly becoming obvious
that the crew cannot take him out. Like he's busting
busting out against Melan. Melan hits the dirt. The three
kids take on hybrid forms, which are hilarious because one
has long monkey arms, one has like a dog claws,
and the other one has a single of pheasant wing.

(01:04:10):
And so they jump into battle. And these these sort
of wild form path of the Beast of weapons seem
to work well against the demon underlings, but they are
no match for the king. The he's punching him with
the wing. Yeah, and so in even wings are good
for I don't know, but they can't they can't do it.

(01:04:32):
They can't pull it off. And even Peach kid it
seems unable to get the upper hand against demon King.
So they've got they've got a power up. We get
we get a power up here. Yes, it's the return
of the Holy Peach. Peach comes flying back in um
Demon King. What slices the Peach up with the sword
and the slices become other peaches. I forget exactly how

(01:04:55):
we get the transformation into Mecca Peach? What what is
the sequence here. Yeah, I think Peach shows up, Peach
gets sliced by the sword, but then the Peach pieces
a symbol vultron style into this large kind of like
a peach golem, like a big Peach marionette. Every time

(01:05:16):
Mecca peaches on screen and on the screen in this movie,
it manages to be the weirdest scene ever committed to screen.
It's just such a god Balker's presentation. I couldn't believe it.
It's and it looks so weird but also so familiar.
This is something we were talking about before we started.
I was like, Mecca Peach feels like something I've seen before,

(01:05:37):
even though I know I haven't. I think it's just
that Mecca Peach in its puppet form has like some
visual similarities to other objects. Yeah, Like I was getting
notes of mister Bill, notes of a cupie doll, and
notes of Panic Peach, that squeeze toy with the bulging eyeballs.
That's really good. But then very much is its own

(01:05:59):
thing as well off. And it's it's got a weird
energy too, because it laughs with a Donald Duck laugh
or something very much like a Donald Duck laugh, going
like so like the King Devil tries to rush it,
but Mecca Peach blows a bunch of I don't know,
the fog in his face and knocks him back. And
then Mecca Peach peas on him. Yeah, but peas right,

(01:06:22):
and the Devil King's face and he makes he makes
a weird face about it, and the subtitles say piss
off and that. But the Devil King's not gonna, not
gonna stop. He comes in again with the sword. This
time there's some like back and forth with the sword,
and then the Mecca Peach like bites the sword out
of his hand and seems to swallow the sword, and

(01:06:46):
then we get this awesome moment so that there's like,
I think the first thing that happens is Mecca Peach
just like knocks the Devil King away and like slams
him through a pillar, which is a pretty spectacular looking
stunt on its own right. And then he gets up.
He's standing in front of his devil throne and Mecca
Peach opens its mouth. Out of his mouth comes flying

(01:07:08):
Peach Kid with the Sword of the Sun in hand,
and Peach Kid violently skewers the Devil King like through
his torso and steers him to the throne in just
an absolutely quality kill. Magnificent. I don't know what else
we could say, just great, Like the only really way

(01:07:28):
to close things out at that point is to have
a jumping freeze frame ending, which they do. They do, Yeah,
and the credits are all we get the song again, yes,
oh my god, and it's just so yeah, so delightful
to end on that note where here are heroes, here's
the peach monstrosity still standing behind them. Which again, is

(01:07:50):
this this perfect balance of like awkward weird. I guess
it was a marionette, like a large marionette that they
used like cranes or scaffolding to to create Like this
was not a it's not stop motion, it's not you know,
certainly not CGI. So it has a it looks kind

(01:08:11):
of bad as you might expect, but also wonderful, and
it definitely has a physical reality that you can get behind.
Naughty Angels dance on the roof once again. Yes, okay,
do you have anything else? Or should we wrap it
up there? Oh? We should probably wrap it up there.
But there's I mean, there's so many little details in
this movie. It's like, I say, you can watch the
two minute cut, but you won't. You certainly won't get everything.

(01:08:33):
And then once you watch it you may have to
go back through it and watch it again to appreciate
all of the stuff that they just pack into this
this picture. Child of Peach truly a monumental achievement. I've
never seen anything quite like it. Yeah, yeah, a lot
of fun. So you know, maybe it's not the most
um Saint Patty's Day of movies we could have picked,

(01:08:54):
but a lot of fun. And you know, also like
today is also this is my fifteen year working aniversary
since I started with house stuff work, so you know,
this movie is a party, so it's my party. Congratulations.
Oh thank you. All right, well, we're gonna go ahead
and close this one out, but we'd love to hear
from everyone out there. Are you familiar with Child of Peach?
Were you familiar with it? Or are you familiar with

(01:09:15):
it now? What are your thoughts on it? We'd love
to hear from you. Also love to hear from anyone
who's just more more expertise in like Taiwanese cinema in general.
If you want to see a complete list of the
movies that we've covered on Weird House Cinema. Well, you
can go to a couple of places, like I said,
a blog about visa samudamusic dot com. It's a personal
blog of mine. And then also the show Weird House

(01:09:36):
Cinema has a profile at letterbox dot com. That's l
tt R bosd dot com. Great, you know movie reviewing
cataloging website that I recommend. We're a Weird House on there,
and if you follow us you'll find a list has
all the movies we've covered and sometimes a snapshot ahead
of what we're covering in the week to follow. Huge

(01:09:56):
thanks to our audio producer jj Pauseway. If you would
like to get in touch with us with feedback on
this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for
the future, or just to say hello, you can email
us at contact at stuff to blow your Mind dot com.

(01:10:17):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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