There are three Hex movies but they aren’t all that connected, other than this films’ protagonist, Ma Su (Lo Meng), being the neighbor of the main character in Hex vs. Witchcraft. He finds the same bag of gold that was behind all of the supernatural moments of that film, including the tablet of Liu Ah Cui, whose spirit possesses Yeung Suk Yi (Nancy Lau Nam-Kai) and has her seduce Ma Su.

Kuei Chi-Hung has created a movie where Yoda randomly shows up and then Darth Vader appears with a lightsaber that removes clothing. There’s also a real estate developer who hires Ma Su and plans to complete his development by June 30, 1997, which is when Hong Kong became part of China again. In fact, this evil land owner even gets branded with what was supposed to say 1997 but Shaw Brothers replaced that with their logo.

Eventually, Ma Su fades into the background and Yeung Suk Yi goes on the offensive to get back at the developer for kicking everyone out of their apartment. By the end, Ma Su has fallen for the ghost and invokes a monkey god to battle an animated statue of Thomas Jefferson because, well, why not at this point? What if it also turns into a slot machine and gets everyone rich with the gold that comes out of it? Let’s do that too.

They could have made twenty of these movies and I would watch every one.

In this movie, director Chih-Hung Kwei is remaking his frequent collaborator Chang Cheh’s The Invincible Fist and telling the tale of “Killer Constable” Leng Tian-Yin (Chen Kuan-tai). He’s been ordered by security chief of the Forbidden City Liu Jing Tian (Cho Tat-wah) — who has been commanded by Manchurian Empress Dowager Cixi — to bring back the five thieves that stole 2 million taels from the Royal Treasury dead or alive. When you’re called the Killer Constable, you never bring them back alive.

Trying to assemble his five best men, Leng learns that not even his brother, Cun Yi (Gam Sai-Yuk) wants to join him. He is tired of the brutal justice that his brother delivers. We witness this as Leng follows the thieves to a watermill and tortures one of them in front of his family. Yet you’re left to wonder if his rough style is warranted when one of his men, Peng Lai (Ai Fei), is rewarded for feeding the starving villagers by being staked and must be killed by Leng to ease his suffering. The thieves also hire Fan Jin-Peng (Jason Pai Piao), a killing master who murders elder constable Ma Zhong (Gam Biu) and injures Leng before being defeated.

Finally, after a battle with the leader of these thieves, Fang Feng-Jia (Ku Feng), and are helped by the intervention of Cun Yu. Leng is almost killed but is nursed back to health by Fang’s blind daughter Xiao Lan (Yau Chui-Ling). When Fang enters his home, instead of fighting, the Constable and he pretend to be friends in front of his daughter. In truth, it was Liu Jing Tian who stole the gold and sent Leng after him, as he knew that no one would survive. Another group of killers attack and Fang sacrifices himself to allow Leng to live, making him promise to care for his daughter. However, the Constable is driven with rage after his brother is killed, so he attacks Liu Jing Tian, killing many of his guards before wiping out the corrupt man. However, a trap also kills Leng, leaving Xiao Lan waiting for a father and protector who never arrives.

Kuei said that, “I simply wanted to depict how insignificant commoners are and how, under totalitarian rule, they turn out to be the victims.” While showing off the violence and combat that one expects from a Shaw Brothers movie, this also goes beyond to show the very real suffering that comes from that same brutality. As the only good person in the film is a blind woman — a scene repeated in The Killer as Ah Jong and Li Ying pretend to be old buddies for the benefit of the sightless Jennie — the moral is simple. The only pureness in this bloody universe can’t witness it.

Kuei was also inspired by another classic film: “I love Dr. Zhivago. In Killer Constable, I want to create a character like Zhivago. Despite his position in the high court, the protagonist is a righteous man. Yet in the corruption and poverty-stricken era at the end of the Qing dynasty, there is not much good he can do on his own. Hence he is deluded by society and lives his life foolishly.”

And yet in America, the most violent country in the world, all of this complexity struggles to be understood, as this played under the exploitation title Karate Exterminators.

Killer Constable was Chih-Hung Kwei’s only period wuxia film. He’d make his mark on many other genres, including women-in-prison (The Bamboo Dolls), modern crime (The Teahouse and its sequel Big Brother Cheng), women in trouble (The Bod Squad), comedy (Rat Catcher) and of course, his many horror films such as The Killer Snakes, Hex and Corpse Mania. In the 1990s, he moved to the United States where he opened a pizza shop. Yes, at one point in our reality, you could order a pizza made by the visionary director of The Boxer’s Omen.

His son, Ming Beaver Kwei, a producer of movies like My Lucky Star and The Meg, said of his father: “He’d bitch about his work every day, never quite satisfied how his work had turned out, or how it was being distributed. He was only ever happy when he knew for a day that a film had worked at the box office, then he’d start worrying again. He’d be so happy to know that his films were getting a second look today.”

Joseph (Adam David Thompson) and Sidney (Riley Dandy, Christmas Bloody Christmas) are brother and sister who have barely escaped a robbery. To escape arrest, they head to an abandoned farm that just so happens to be a place where multiple timelines all intersect and end up being part of an experiment. They are told that unless they follow a set of instructions, they can never leave.

Directed and written by Michael Felker, who edited Synchronic and Something In the Dirt, Joseph thinks that he has it all figured out, as they can hide in another dimension for a few weeks, unable to be found until the cops forget all about the robbery. This was produced by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who made the aforementioned Something In the Dirt, and like many of their movies, this has many twists and turns, becoming almost unpredictable.

Joseph and Sidney are told that to escape, they have to kill someone who is also in this time. They have no idea who it is, when they are coming and what they have to do. Sidney has a daughter that she never wants to abandon and Joseph has already cost her two weeks.

This is not a simple movie to understand at points but it all comes together. It feels like the leads could have been in several films as these characters, as they are so well lived.

I watched Things Will Be Different at Pigeon Share FrightFest. It’s the UK’s best, brightest, and largest independent international thriller, fantasy, and horror film festival and has three major events each year in London and Glasgow. Learn more at the official site.

The Lonely Man With the Ghost Machine is directed and written by Graham Skipper (Sequence Break), who also stars as Wozzek, who may be the last man on Earth. At one point, before he slipped into depression and started drinking the days away, he lived with his wife Nellie (Christina Bennett Lind) in a cabin. They were safe and should have been happy, but they grew apart and one day, she died.

Skipper spends most of the film on his own, in a cabin, having flashbacks, getting wasted and speaking to the voice of The Deleterian (Paul Guyet), who knows more than he tells Wozzek, who is trying to build a machine to bring his wife back to life when he isn’t giving himself therapy through questions he’s recorded earlier.

It’s also a Christmas movie and a puppet film, as when The Deleterian is revealed, it’s learned that he is also the last of his species, having eaten everything else on Earth that is alive other than Wozzek and that he needs someone to talk to. He tries to make this film’s protagonist more introspective, but that’s impossible by this point. And when he finally does succeed in saving his wife, she reminds him that it’s for him and not for her. That’s probably the nicest thing she says or does to him,

This is an auteur film in the best of ways, a one-man showcase for ideas, acting and story. It held my attention throughout and I can’t wait for more people to see it.

I watched The Lonely Man With the Ghost Machine at Pigeon Share FrightFest. It’s the UK’s best, brightest, and largest independent international thriller, fantasy, and horror film festival and has three major events each year in London and Glasgow. Learn more at the official site.

Hoping to find a cure to the disease that is destroying him from within, The Professor follows Agatha on a strange and risky journey into a forgotten but not entirely deserted urban wasteland. Sure, that’s the logline, but this film makes getting there so different, so trippy and so intense.

Kelly Bigelow and Roland Becera did just about everything in this movie from directing, writing, editing, costumes, casting, effects and animation. It’s a truly singular work that presents an ever-evolving series of images that creates a dark mood while presenting what it calls “the disintegration of nature, institutions and people.”

It’s more a series of imagery and tone than an actual narrative film, so if that’s what you’re expecting, well…then this just isn’t going to work for you. If you’re feeling adventurous, however, this movie has a rewarding look and feel. It’s like exploring a series of dark paintings and nearly falling through them, unsure if what you’re seeing is either live action or animation or something in the middle.

You can learn more at the official site.

I watched Agatha at Pigeon Share FrightFest. It’s the UK’s best, brightest, and largest independent international thriller, fantasy, and horror film festival and has three major events each year in London and Glasgow. Learn more at the official site.

As a baby, Shue Sang (Derek Yee) was found in a cave by an elderly childless woodcutter. And like Kal-El, he grew into a man with powers above and beyond normal men. Also, like Superman, he is powered by our sun and sent here before the destruction of his homeworld. Well, it was an explosion that destroyed Krypton, but his world was smashed by the Demon Spawn, who is coming to Earth in the form of an eclipse, which means that Shue Sang has to figure out his powers quickly.

So as you listen to the John Williams score from Superman, you will realize that if Shue Sang is Superman, then Mo Ying the Demon Spawn is General Zod and the evil Regent is, I guess, Lex Luthor. Except that Zod never blew people up real good when he blasted them with laser beams. Also, Shue Sang’s move set might copy the Man of Steel, including powers like flight, super strength and energy beams (well, from the hands if not the eyes), but he also has Mort Weisinger-era Superman family powers too, like being able to have conversations with animals. He can also create laser shapes to fight with, kind of like Lou Ferrigno Hercules. Oh yeah — he can also pluck chickens with his mind. What other hero can do that?

This ends with a crucified princess (Cherie Chung), hopping vampires, an eclipse and a dramatic comeback before a flying laser fight. What other film has a bad guy with an extreme eugenics agenda using his blood to awaken a murderous demon baby? Pure movie drugs, Shaw Brothers strain.

Another film with Death Duel‘s Third Master (Yueh Hua), Full Moon Scimitar starts with Ding Peng (Derek Yee) sparring in sword battles that don’t go to the death. However, he wants to get ahead of his rival Liu Ruo Song (Wang Yong), who sends his wife to seduce him and steal his sword manual before they fight. Our hero is humiliated, leading him to ask his father’s spirit for guidance. He soon meets Qing Qing (Liza Wang) and learns of a weapon called the Full Moon Scimitar. Yet even when he obtains it, he wants glory and honor instead of peace.

Directed by Yuen Chor, this is another tale of the difference between the martial world and the world of normalcy, a place that Ding Peng wants to escape and that Qing Qing wants him to remain in. The martial world is one of shadows and fog, a place lit like a Mario Bava movie, a violent universe where you must be ready to defend yourself at any moment. There is no rest.

This is a movie brave enough to answer the question “When you get to the top of the mountain, what comes next?” It’s a long way to the top if you want to rock and roll, as Bon Scott sang. And when you get there, like an Italian West gunfighter, you have to be ready to defend your title with your life at a moment’s notice. It seems exhausting and unsustainable, as this film’s moral reminds us.