Heaven and Hell (1980)
Reviewed by: mpongpun on 2003-10-19
Interesting flick that plays like a musical with the cheap sets. You may find the flick weird or disjointed. Maybe you might even think Chang Cheh was puffing on some of those little mushrooms. I don’t know. I believe if you have an understanding of the Chinese thinking of the afterlife, heaven, and hell, everything will come together quite easily. The flick starts off with the “heaven” story. The Chinese believe that the universe was divided up into three worlds: heaven, earth, and hell. Heaven is a fun place to be where there are Immortals and Fairies live (like Na Cha). In this flick, a couple of fairies named Zi Xiao (Maggie Lee) and Zhou Bao (David Chiang)—both who are married to each other off the set!!-- want to elope to Earth and live as regular mortals but are caught by the Heaven’s guards. One of the fairies assigned to catch Zi Xiao and Zhou Bao, Xin Ling (Li Yi Min), allows the two to escape and later pays the price by being banished to Earth to live as a mortal too. This is when the “Earth” part of the story begins. Xin Ling has been reincarnated as a cabbie. Again Xin Ling interferes in the struggles of another couple, Chen Ding (Fu Sheng) and Shiqi (Jenny)—another couple married to each other off set!!—by taking a bullet meant for Chen Ding in a dispute with a Triad boss. Again, Xin Ling dies and is sent to “Hell”. For the most part, the flick takes part in “Hell”. Chinese “Hell” is nothing like you ever heard of if you are not Chinese. Hell is a place for criminals, gamblers, sinners, and other bad people. Basically everybody goes to Hell. Good or bad. The good people who have led an honest life can cross the silver and gold bridges to escape torture while the bad souls are sent to a Judge to be dealt with. After so many years of re-fining yourself, you get to be re-incarnated, but not after you’ve been tortured pertaining to the bad deed you did. Like in the flick, if you are an alcoholic, you may be teased with alcohol. Gamblers get their fingers chopped off. If you gossip, you get your tongue pulled on. If you are a miser, you get your skinned pulled off. There are 10 levels of Hell and it takes 7 days to walk to each level to see the Judge of that level. By the time you get to the 9th Hell, you are given a potion to forget what happened to you like the torture and past experiences. Will life ever be good in Hell? If you have nice parents, buddies, or relatives, the soul can visit the living to plead for help at different festivals like the “Hungry Ghost Festival”. Also, people can burn you things like money, cars, women, cell phones, etc. to lesson your suffering. If you are not Chinese, you may be shocked at the depictions of Chinese Hell. The guys who rules and judges the souls in hell isn’t a devil or an enemy of Heaven. He looks like a regular old guy. The judge can be lenient and he can even let some suffering souls leave Hell on special occasions. The judicial system is very similar to the one on Earth if you want to put it that way. Just think of a bureaucratic Hell. Well, in this flick, the God of Mercy (Yu Yung) visits Hell and listens to the case of Xin Ling being unjustly punished in Hell so he offers Xin Ling a chance to leave Hell if he finds some “lost souls” to help him. Xin Ling finds four lost souls and together, with a little help from some Heavenly fairies, they are able to fight off Hell’s minions to make it to the stairway to heaven where the lost souls can re-incarnate and Xin Ling can get regain his status as an Immortal.