I just re-watched Edmond Pang's fine film Beyond Our Ken. The movie features a brief scene where the two girlfriends watch an old woman who is beating with a shoe on a green paper outline of a man that has been affixed to a brick. She seems to have set up some sort of Daoist or Buddhist shrine on the sidewalk, before which she is performing her "service." While she beats the paper figure, she calls down curses on someone (in this particular movie, presumably "bad guy" Daniel Wu), along the lines of "You will get sick," "you will lose your job," "your children will die young," etc.

I saw a similar scene at the beginning of Herman Yau's film Walk In, and at the time I didn't understand what was happening on screen or how it related to the rest of the movie. Can anyone enlighten this ignorant Westerner?

Thanks. Vicki

I took it as a kind of Chinese voodoo. The old woman whacked the paper Daniel Wu and later the actual Daniel Wu developed pains that prevented him from doing well on his test for promotion, thus hurting him physically as well as messing with his career.

I don't know whether this is based on real practice or just made up for the movies; I haven't come across it elsewhere. Maybe someone else knows.

for what it's worth, i've never seen something exactly like it in taoist rituals from streets of taiwan. but it is consistent with the tone of violence that allows one to reach some emotional catharsis (e.g. guys acting spirit medium lashing at their own bodies.)

it helps to consider taoism (as popular ritual and religion) doesn't have the rigid form and rhetoric of a sunday service. there is great element of a free-for-all theater. participants often perform in a volatile, spectacular way as the moment seizes them. maybe it's similar to speaking in tongues?

also the old lady in BEYOND OUR KEN was engaging in her own free time. she could be doing a mix of the taoist practice around her, and her own personal take on exerting influence. let's face it, a hot bo-hunk like daniel wu is IN, old mama are OUT in the fringe, w/ nothing to do but worry helplessly.

what a mouthful

It's called "Da Yan Jai" (Beating the little man). It's the cantonese equivalence of putting pins in voodoo dolls. Sometimes they would write out curses on little strips of papers, pin them to the figure, and then slap the figure w/ one's sandals.

Folk superstitions.