Below, Hendrix picks his favourite five Hong Kong horrors and rates them on his personal scary meter. Reader be warned!
I’ve screened this a few times to audiences, and people have just walked out, absolutely silent and white-faced.
1. The Boxer’s Omen (1983, directed by Kuei Chih-hung)
Scariness rating: 11 out of 10
“This was the last of the great Hong Kong black magic movies. In the 1970s, when the Shaw Brothers were trying to get young people into cinemas, they latched on to the idea of doing movies about black magic.
“These films were based around stories of Hong Kong people going on holiday to Southeast Asia and getting a blood curse slapped on them. Horrible things would then happen.
“The Boxer’s Omen is part of that tradition, although it’s a bit different, as it takes the idea and pushes it to a psychedelic level. The story doesn’t really matter, as it’s just one black magic duel after another. All the duels are visually mind-blowing – and mentally scarring.
“It’s not so much scary as upsetting – for instance, there are people being sewn inside dead crocodiles, and a bunch of wizards gobbling up guts, then vomiting them out. It’s similar to a ‘video nasty’ like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
“I have screened this movie for hardcore horror fans, and it has really upset them!”
2. Red to Kill (1994, dir. Billy Tang Hin-shing)
Scariness rating: 10/10
“It’s loosely based on a real story, and is essentially a slasher movie about a necrophiliac who stalks mentally disabled adults.
“Tang had honed his technical skills to the point that, by the time he made this movie, he was able to shoot something that looked like a cross between a Brian DePalma film and a Dario Argento movie. It’s so meticulously filmed that the subject matter almost becomes secondary to its cold and brutal cinematographic style.
“This is no one’s idea of a good time – it is tasteless, it is gory and it is vile, although it does say something about the battle of the sexes.
“I’ve screened this a few times to audiences, and people have just walked out, absolutely silent and white-faced. Some people even got into fights with other audience members while it was playing.
“But compared to what is shown in The Boxer’s Omen, you could argue that it’s still within the boundaries of good taste!”
3. Dumplings (2004, dir. Fruit Chan Gor)
Scariness rating: 9/10
“The long version of Dumplings – a shorter version is part of [anthology film] Three Extremes – is one of the great horror movies of all time.
“But it’s also a deeply upsetting film – so much so that its US distributors decided not to release it in cinemas, as they felt that audiences would find it too disturbing.
I have never screened this film for anyone
“We tried to show it at the New York Asian Film Festival for years, but they would not let us, as they thought it would be too upsetting for viewers.
“It’s a movie about a fading Hong Kong television actress who’s getting older, and wants to hold on to her youth. She learns there is a secret formula for staying alive forever which involves eating dumplings made from dead babies.
“I have never screened this film for anyone, as people decide they don’t want to watch it when they find out what it’s about.”
4. Bio Zombie (1998, dir. Wilson Yip Wai-shun)
Scariness rating: 7/10
“Yip had made some good low-budget movies before this one, but Bio Zombie was the film that saw him break out.
“It moves fast, it is stylish and it is funny, but the budget looks to have been about 10 Hong Kong dollars.
“Even so, it’s still innovative and fun.
“By the end, the relationships have become really touching, although it’s all very bleak.
“The make-up is really bad, and the special effects are terrible because they were making it with no money. But it still punches way above its weight. I think of it as a kind of party movie!”
5. Mr Vampire (1985, dir. Ricky Lau Koon-wai)
Scariness rating: 6/10
“Although there ended up being 37 or 38 ‘hopping vampire’ movies, this one is still the best. It really established the genre, and when you go back and watch it, it still plays as well as it used to. Everyone is at the top of their game.
“The film is so tied in with Chinese folklore, it would be impossible to remake it in the West.”
In this regular feature series on the best of Hong Kong cinema, we examine the legacy of classic films, re-evaluate the careers of its greatest stars, and revisit some of the lesser-known aspects of the beloved industry.
