wisely (chow yun fat) and dr yuen (chin siu-ho) are enjoying an evening in the company of dr yi (ni kuang) and a host of young ladies. talk soon turns to tales of adventures and dr yi is charged with recounting a tale featuring wisely and yuen...

a year after visiting thailand, and getting into a nasty scrape with the worm tribe, yuen is visited by black dragon (dick wei). black dragon tells yuen that his blood curse had been suppressed for the last year, but he'd better get himself to thailand, in the next couple of days, to save himself and betsy (chui sau-lai), a young lady he saved from the worm tribe. after going to see wisely, the pair, along with rainbow (maggie cheung), wisely's annoying, journalist, cousin, set off to thailand. now, they have to face the worm tribe, the evil sorcerer aquala (elvis tsui), whilst saving both yuen and betsy from their curses along the way...

well, i haven't seen a film, featuring the wisely character, which i haven't enjoyed. this is no exception. in fact, it may be one of the most enjoyable. now that joy sales have "remastered" the film, you get a reasonable picture, sound and subtitles that, although they aren't great, allow you to keep track of the narrative, which seemed to have been a problem with prior releases...

the film pretty much tries to fit in a bit of everything; black magic and lost tribes, martial arts and gun-play, miniature demons and creatures that look like aliens (from 'aliens'), a fighting skeleton and some nasty worms. oh, and there's a surprising amount of rather nice gore, which always goes down well.

elvis tsui does a good job of being evil, especially when he has his little ghost with him, whilst chin siu-ho and dick wei do a good job of running around and killing people with guns, knives, grenades, a bow and arrow, plus some good old-fashioned martial arts. although, chin siu-ho's sequences feature some less than discreet under-cranking that may annoy some people. maggie cheung has interesting hair and chow yun fat crops up, from time to time, to dish out advice and blow stuff up. in the end, you get a pretty fast paced, spectacle filled romp, which, if you're a fan of gore, slightly hokey effects and slightly ludicrous adventures, you'll probably enjoy. it's the film 'kingdom of the crystal skulls' wishes it was...

super fun...