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²r°­­¹¤H­L (1998)
The Demon's Baby


Reviewed by: megatone
Date: 09/11/2006
Summary: Scent from the past

THE DEMON'S BABY is sort of HK vision of "classicks" such as THE DEADLY SPAWN or RABID GRANNIES, with gapin' bellies and cannibalistic fetuses, extending tentacles, flying demon babies and some jiangshi to spice this bloody, but no so much, pizza a-la foam rubber with a taste that takes back to the old glorious 80's when HK was churning out offensive and obscure horror movies before the more polite and cold dead post RING fashion.
Unfortunately the camera work is quite bad and so is the editing, Anthony Wong potential is exploited at only 10% and lead character by Emotion Cheung Kam-Ching forgetable for his thin personality. SPFX are very cheap but considering the general feel of the movie they're totally in the mood and preferable thousand of times over the CG-crap we're forced to see recently.
Along THE ETERNAL EVIL OF ASIA and HORROR HOTLINE one of the last examples of the old school of HK horror cinema. And I miss it a lot.

Reviewer Score: 6

Reviewed by: mrblue
Date: 10/19/2004

When you have Elvis Tsui and Anthony Wong together in a movie about battling demons, it's a pretty sure sign that you're about to have a good time. The Demon's Baby is just one of those uniquely "Hong Kong" pictures -- a lot of it doesn't make a lick of sense and it's outright cheesy-looking at times. But, on the other hand, it is just so viscerally exciting, that even the most jaded HK film fan will have themselves a bloody good time.

In the movie, Elvis Tsui plays a corrupt general whose troops find a grand treasure. Part of the treasure is a set of five "eggs" and a golden buddha. After one of the general's servants pawns off the buddha, strange things start to happen, including all four of the general's wives becoming pregnant in the same night. It turns out the buddha was keeping demonic spirits trapped in the eggs at bay, and now that they have escaped, the general's wives become demons themselves. A rogue priest (Anthony Wong) and the general's cook (Cheung Gam Ching) must try and kill the demons before they can infest the entire world.

Truthfully, for about the first half of The Demon's Baby, I was almost bored enough to stop watching the movie. However, once the demons actually start coming out, the movie turns into a gore-fest that would make Sam Raimi (Evil Dead) and Peter Jackson (Dead/Alive) proud. The last forty-five minutes or so is basically just demons eating people or people killing demons -- there's really no plot devleopment or drama, but The Demon's Baby isn't really the kind of movie where you need those kinds of things.

If you're in the market for a "feel-good" picture or something starring the latest crop of cute pop stars, then you had better stay away from The Demon's Baby. However, if you're in the mood for something a bit different (even in the schizophrenic world of Hong Kong movies) and have a high tolerance for blood and guts, then I would recommend this film. It might take a while to get going, but once it does, The Demon's Baby is some of the most fun I've had watching a movie for quite a while.

[review from www.hkfilm.net]


Reviewed by: Inner Strength
Date: 04/15/2002
Summary: Wong Jing mess

Another WOng Jing mess, pointlessly made film. Totally boring, and by the looks of the other reviews, I can see I'm not the only one.

Rating: 1/5


Reviewed by: Sydneyguy
Date: 03/07/2002
Summary: BIG TIME Chessy movie

Talking about low budget, and green lights and funny puppet demons, this is about as low budget you can get. There is not much to recommend here, except the way Anthony Wong gets killed. But i found it a bit too stupid for my liking.
IF you like cheesy low budget stuff, come this way!!

4/10


Reviewed by: MrBooth
Date: 02/20/2002
Summary: Not good

After enjoying THE ETERNAL EVIL OF ASIA so much last night, I was hoping for similar joys from THE DEMON'S BABY. Here we have Elvis Tsui again, as a general rich from looting a tomb, where he also happened to unearth 5 demon spirits that were sealed there. These demons are a nasty bunch, taking root in a pregnant woman and corrupting both her and the fetus. If all 5 demons get as far as birth, it's the end of the world. Soon enough, Elvis' 4 wives are pregnant and it's all down hill from there. Amongst all this we get the love story between a maid (Annie Wu) and the chef (Emotion Cheung), and Anthony Wong playing a small part as a Taoist ghostbuster in the Lam Ching Ying mould.

Sadly, THE DEMON'S BABY never even comes close to the heights of invention & exploitation that ETERNAL EVIL manages. The story itself is pretty good, but it's left flaccid due to completely uncharasmatic leads (Emotion & Annie, who get the most screen time), poor post-dubbing of the voices, absolutely dreadful special effects and a general shodiness to the production. I presume the budget here was low, but the fact that it doesn't even come close to the quality of A CHINESE GHOST STORY or even SEVENTH CURSE is sad when it was made a decade later... certainly no signs of progress shown here.

There was probably a time that I would still have enjoyed the movie, I guess I'm jaded about these things now. The thing that always drew me to HK cinema despite the low budgets & intelligibility was the invention displayed by the film-makers, and I can't help but feel that DEMON'S BABY has a lack of ambition in that department. It's pretty much all been done before, better, so why bother doing it again? They even forgot to get anybody naked here...

Maybe it suffered from following such an exemplary example as ETERNAL EVIL OF ASIA on my viewing list, but overall I can't say that I would recommend DEMON'S BABY to all but the most desperate of Elvis Tsui/Anthony Wong fans...

Reviewer Score: 2

Reviewed by: Mark
Date: 12/30/1999
Summary: Cheerful cheesy cheapo schlocko

"Are you ready to give birth to the evil baby?" If you are, you're probably also ready for this cheerful cheesy cheapo schlocko low-rent horror flick. This one's a romp, kids. It's the kind of film where you can tell a character has turned evil because all of a sudden she has garish make-up on, where a cute little puppy dog is only introduced if it is about to meet a grisly death several seconds later, where wronged corpses hop for vengeance and where nothing stops a demon in its tracks like a mouth full of beancurd.

The General (Elvis Tsui) has four wives and has his eye on a fifth, his servant Little-Fish (Annie Wu), but she has her eye on the cook, Day-Six (Emotion Cheung). True love might run its rocky course were it not for the fact that the General has inadvisably installed five potted demons in the living room (all the best houses have them). Quicker than you can say "It's messy - I think something has gone wrong", the head servant Lee is hawking the special gold buddha that keeps the demons pot-bound, thus letting them loose to possess the General and impregnate his wives. Here's a step-by-step guide to filming a demonic possession: (1) shine a green light on the actor's face, (2) make the soundtrack go wibble and (3) get the actor to bug his eyes a bit. Presto, you're off to the races, or to the bedchamber(s) as the case may be. What threatens to be a gross demonic possession rape scene (complete with green light and wibble) is actually shot as a goofy overhead courtyard cam of the General rushing in one red lanterned door after another. Soon enough the gals are bringing up a brood of evil infants, all of whom hunger for the flesh of the living. It starts with livestock ("Master, the dog you love most has just been eaten by Madam"), but soon enough they're pushing servants head-first into their toothsome bellies. It all looks like a job for the ghostbuster Ching Hoi (Anthony Wong), who hauls out his hand-held demon-detector and gets cracking.

What I'm saying is, this movie is a hoot, and refreshingly without trace of sadism or malice - the effects are just too much of the latex-and-ketchup school to be taken seriously at any stage. It's kooky, funny and witty - the whole parody of Raise the Red Lantern is a scream (once the women have all turned to evil, they get on fine!). If you liked the flying killer rubber fetus in The Seventh Curse, you'll howl as The Demon's Baby goes one step further - flying killer rubber fetus football. Director Kant Leung shoots and scores with this wacky horror comedy. Two malformed thumbs up.