Eureka Video, out now

Are the dead truly dead?

This month Eureka bring us the UK’s first ever official home video release in the UK (it has been shown at least once by one of the “Four” channels as part of one of their Hong Kong movie seasons, but never released on VHS or DVD here) for The Dead And The Deadly, a pretty bizarre but frequently hilarious – and in the end quite unusually revolutionary for its final act – everything-but-the-kitchen-sink king fu fantasy horror comedy cowritten, starring, and choreographed by Sammo Hung, directed by and also starring Wu Ma, and giving early iconic roles to Cherie Chung and Lam Ching Ying.

Opening with a comedy horror sequence in which Sammo fakes a ghost before being attacked by a real one, which turns out to be a nightmare sequence, the film actually takes a while to get going before more supernatural stuff becomes involved – though when it does, it it’s full-on madness, catching the same kind of demented tone as Evil Dead 2. But that’s later.

The main plot concerns Sammo being the apprentice to an ancient Taoist priest – a heavily made up Lam Ching Ying getting a foretaste of the rest of his career – who is responsible for their town’s funerals, among other ceremonies. Wu Ma, later to gain greater fame in Once Upon A Time In China and do battle with spooks himself in A Chinese Ghost Story, is a neighbouring slightly younger master, with a ridiculous fake bulbous nose, and friend of theirs who fakes his own death at the behest of his fake wife and her husband (Chung Fat) in order to steal his family’s funeral goods.

This leads to a hilarious sequence in which Sammo infiltrates the funeral disguised as a papier-mâché doll, convinced that his friend was murdered, in order to autopsy him, and that being interrupted by the embalmer sneaking back in to rob the corpse’s gold teeth – the corpse, of course, merely faking it. Sammo is also betrothed by arranged marriage to Cherie Chung’s character, Miss Yee, who loves him but he doesn’t see it.

Most of the humour in the first half revolves around Wu Ma’s adventures in womanising (and Sammo and a parrot getting inconvenient boners) and his fake funeral and attempts to persuade Sammo to stop investigating, and the Taoist Priest’s aged decrepitude. In fact the Chinese title in both Mandarin and Cantonese translates as People Scare People, which more accurately reflects the fakery half of the plot. Eventually, however, Wu Ma’s co-conspirators figure he’s double-crossed them, and kill him for real, setting them on a course of enmity with Sammo. However, Wu Ma’s now-real ghost haunts Sammo to persuade him to seek justice, and there’s a kind of element of Randall And Hopkirk (Deceased) at play here – though not to the extent that Sammo would later properly riff on in Where’s Officer Tuba? four years later (itself remade by Stephen Chow of Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle fame four more years after that!).

The second half of the film gets progressively more, well, mental, running the gamut from Wu Ma tripping people and moving Sammo’s limbs in fights, to body-swapping, possession, duplicates of both Wu Ma and Sammo, and Cherie Chung beating the crap out of ET clones – all under the careful, er, tutelage, of Lam Ching Ying’s ancient and wise priest character.

It’s a really bizarre mix, frequently hilarious, reasonably action-packed – and by now Sammo’s choreography has solidified into the levels of imagination and confidence that we expect from him. It also does something quite inventive in turning over the last ten minutes or so to Cherie Chung to actually save the day, and be properly in charge, and she’s awesome. This is a rare thing in Hong Kong films, leaving the female lead to have such an important part to play; it’s wonderful.

The performances are all good – Sammo is always watchable, and Wu Ma is a great foil for him. Lam Ching Ying, not yet typecast as the ghostbusting Taoist Priest figure, is great at blending wisdom, aged-up comedy, and physically disguising himself. Cherie Chung gets to show an incredible range at the end, making her limited part earlier quite a misdirection.

Visually the film has some imaginative effects towards the end, which work especially well in this new 2K transfer. The ET-like demon guards are great creations, whose mouthpieces actually form the Cantonese words, while the glowing animated ghosts somehow bridge a gap between the wraiths that come out of the Ark in Raiders Of The Lost Ark, and Slimer from Ghostbusters, though they’re less detailed in design. The matching of them to Cherie Chung on set is awesome, though. Wu Ma’s direction and editing is also really well handled though the ninjas at night sequence is perhaps still a bit dark to make out what’s going on.

As well as the crisp and bright 2K transfer, this disk has three audio tracks – an English dub, the original theatrical mono Cantonese track, and a VHS Cantonese track. The theatrical audio is the best, with the music and voice nice and loud and clear, while the VHS audio has more muted music. For those wondering, the music is more originally composed for the film here, without frequent cues nicked from western films. The subtitles are also new and accurate.

Speaking of audio tracks, there are of course two commentaries. Frank Djeng and Michael Worth give us more of a nice guide to the Chinese mythology and superstition in the film, and which parts were made up, as well other background to the actors and Cantonese colloquial gags. Mike Leeder and Arne Venema then have a riotous old time sharing anecdotes about their experiences with Chinese superstition, haunted villages in the New Territories, and bumping into members of the cast.

There’s also a trailer, and an interview and an audience Q&A with Sammo, both recorded at the Udine Film Festival in 2016. These are great pieces, and fascinating to boot, though there’s some overlap between them. As always with Eureka’s releases, there’s a limited O-card slipcase of a new very cartoony collage on the first 2000 copies, along with a booklet by James Oliver, which has some great photos, as well as some (intentionally) cringe-inducing shots, one of which is turned into the booklet’s cover art. Oliver discusses the film’s place in this Hong Kong subgenre, and focusses on Wu Ma’s career beyond being the actor that most western fans think of him as. He also predicts that, as this review does, most critics generally discuss it as a lesser entry leading to later classics, and why that’s not necessarily the case.

Verdict: If you’re a fan of Sammo, Lam Ching Ying, or any of the cast, this is a must have. If you’re a less completist fan of horror comedy, or horror martial arts, or kung fu comedies, then it’s pretty well a probably-should-get. It does take a little while to properly get into the zone, but once it does, it’s funny, it has good scares, it has good action, and it’s a pretty inventive fantasy in the final act. It’s not Spooky Encounters or A Chinese Ghost Story or Mr Vampire, but it’s just about there with them, damn near getting onto the podium with them. 8/10

David A McIntee