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屍蠱艷譚 (1993)
Black Magic


Reviewed by: STSH
Date: 10/17/2000
Summary: Made up as they went along

This film has a great start. The theme is a delightful piece of Er Hu music. It was so good, I played the titles twice just to listen again. Even the first couple of minutes look fairly promising. A group of grave robbers alternate between picking valuables off corpses and pawing at a couple of naked young babes. There is a sequence here which lasts less than thirty seconds which earns this film the Cat III rating. One of the women is scanned from toe to face, in a closeup which could almost be described as gynaecological.

But that's it. The only other nudity occurs over an hour later, and it's only a brief topless shot. Even being the lovely Lai Yin San's face and breasts doesn't improve things much.
And whatever story the filmmakers had in mind collapses almost immediately. There's absolutely no sense of a narrative here. If ever there's an example of a script written or made up along the way, this is a definitive example. Of course, this syndrome is not uncommon in cheap porn films, and it wouldn't be a problem if the film had anything else going for it. Comedy, tons of nudity, wit or nice pics. Anything.

But Black Magic has nothing else going for it. Likeable and busy porn actress Tsui Man Wa takes nothing off. The normally watchable-even-in-complete-crap Guk Fung doesn't seem into it. The luscious Lai Yin San is barely onscreen for ten minutes, despite getting top billing.

Curiously, Charlie Cho gives possibly his most convincing performance in a lead role. Pity he wasted it on waffle like this.

Clearly, I do not recommend this film. Now, if I can just find a recording of the soundtrack........

Reviewer Score: 3