Encounter of the Spooky Kind

A defining film in Hong Kong genre cinema that blends kung fu, slapstick comedy, horror and Chinese folklore to invent a whole new subgenre of Asian cinema.

Hong Kong comedy and action superstar Sammo Hung stars as 'Big Guts' Cheung, a local villager famous for his lack of fear. Cheung is dared into spending the night in an abandoned house believed to be haunted. Set up as a prank by his friends, Cheung is tricked into believing there are real ghosts inside but quickly exposes the con. Later, Cheung arrives home to his wife and suspects she is cheating on him. Her lover, in order to get Cheung out of the picture, hires a local witch to get rid of him. This sets the scene for real encounters of the spooky kind, involving hopping vampires, zombies and malevolent spirits.

Curator's note
Director, co-writer and star Sammo Hung's film was one of the earliest examples of the genre mashup of horror, action and comedy. The film was also famous for bringing into prominence the jiangshi, the hopping vampires that would later spawn the iconic Mr Vampire series, with Hung drawing inspiration from The Spiritual Boxer Part 2 (1979). It's hard not to see the cross-pollination of influences at work here: from Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2 (via a pesky possessed severed hand) to the gravity-defying dance movements of Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal and even Ridley Scott's Alien, which Hung saw as a successful example of blending genres to create something entirely new.