|
Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
|
|
|
|
|
China in the late 19th century: Fatboy (Sammo Hung) is the somewhat
dim-witted but good-natured orphan brought up by his uncle Lam
Ching-Ying, a taoist priest, heavily involved in the funeral-business.
When one day, they get Lucho's (Wu Ma) corpse into their funeral parlor,
to be grieved over by his pregnant wife, Fatboy grows suspicious, since
he found out Lucho is impotent when they one day visited a brothel. He
is convinced that Lucho was poisoned & wants to open up his body -
which is a bad idea since Lucho is not really dead, only fakes being a
corpse to get some inheritance. He tries to scare away Fatboy by
appearing as his own ghost, but Fatboy is just to loyal, & in the
end he can just be kept from cutting his not dead friend apart by
Lucho's accomplices. But then they find out Lucho tried to trick them
& kill him for real. Now Lucho's real ghost appears before
Fatboy & asks him to help him get revenge. But now Fatboy is
reluctant, feeling cheated by his dead friend. Only after some childish
spooks & teasing does Fatboy agree to lend Lucho his body. Lucho -
in Fatboy's body - teaches his ex-accoplices a lesson, but fails to
return Fatboy's body on time making Fatboy die for real too. It is only
thanks to Fatboys fiancee (who is married to him after his
death), who fights his 3 guardians from hell that he is revived in the
end.
A blend of kung fu, comedy & horror, with great martial arts, greatly
entertaining, even though some of the slapstick is not all that funny.
Sammo Hung, Wu Ma & Lam Ching-Ying did actually all star in the
earlier horror-comedy Encounters of the Spooky Kind (which was
incidently directed by Sammo & which started the whole
horror-comedy-trend) from 1980. Lam Ching-Ying would go on to
perfect his role as Taoist priest in the Mr.Vampire-series -
incidently produced by Sammo Hung -, while
Wu Ma, by then a legendary martial arts actor, would later do maybe the
most popular kung fu horror comedy of them all, A Chinese Ghost Story.
|