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九子天魔 (1984)
The Nine Demons


Reviewed by: lockdown12
Date: 02/17/2003
Summary: bizarre

The "What the fuck?" factor is extremely high in this, easily one of Chang Cheh's strangest films. Gary and Joey are childhood pals who fall victim to greedy rivals looking to root out their clans. Gary gets captured and Joey eventually makes a pact with Satan to become "The Demon Joey." Joey looks pretty spiffy in his satanic priest wear and commands lots of child demons to bite necks. The wild finale features kung fu in a marsh...on surfboards! This film was given to me because the original owner found it too silly for his tastes. You snooze you lose, buddy! Although this isn't my favorite Chang Cheh film, I enjoyed it a lot. The horrible dubbing only adds to the entertainment for me, although I could do without the English names. My favorite altercation being: "Joey? Joey the demon?" "Joey is my good friend since childhood. I don't know anyone named demon."


Reviewed by: STSH
Date: 01/19/2001
Summary: Mesmerising but so-so

Plenty of action here, but very little soul or character empathy. And the acting is almost totally without feeling.

But what really grabbed me was the English-dubbed dialogue. The spoken lines, especially in the second half, are breathtakingly stupid. And the way they are performed by the English voice actors only makes things worse. These guys must have done even less preparation than the porn actors from Jesus Of Montreal. They take long pauses in the middle of sentences, join other together, put the wrong emotion in very often. In writing, you might think this is simply pedantic nitpicking. But wait till you have to listen to to ! Mind numbingly awful ! Makes you wish for subtitles, even of awful quality.

Okay, but back to the good point. yes, there is just one - the action. Being a Venoms production, you'd expect lots of acrobatics and skillful fighting, and you get it. Also, they mix in a lot of weird black magic. This serves to put the film into the category of "offbeat", but I'm not sure it made it any better.

Reviewer Score: 4