Like sleeve of wizard

"Nan yang shi da xie shu"
(aka "The Eternal Evil of Asia," 1995)

Today we return to the wacky Far East for another round of supernatural shenanigans. Thanks must go out to my buddy over at diaryofatemp, who kindly toted this gem to me all the way from Seattle. Neither of us had heard of it before, but as soon as I saw the Category III mark on the cover and looked at the date, I knew what was up. Back in the 1990s, filmmakers in Hong Kong knew they weren't going to have much freedom after China took over sovereignty from the Brits. Thus, they cranked out the most insane movies they could before 1997 came around, most ending up boring, stupid or misogynistic. There are dozens of artifacts from this era, each pushing boundaries of sex and violence, often combining both - as is the case with "The Eternal Evil of Asia." This is actually one of the more pleasant examples of the trend, as it contains a lot of intentional humor, and its more lurid sequences are tempered by its "Evil Dead"-inspired cartoonish pacing. For instance, the entire intro (a narrator explains that if you encounter a pale-faced child at the movies in Asia, you should not take him to the restroom, lest he reveal himself as a killer ghost) has nothing to do with the rest of the movie except for a vague warning that the occult sciences are still thriving outside of modern Hong Kong. I imagine a flick that includes a guy getting his head turned into the tip of a penis isn't going to go down smoothly with everyone, but it's a mighty entertaining alternative to your typical American brand of silicon-submerged sexploitation.

At the top, we see a guy named Nam flip out and hack up his family and neighbors, believing them to be the ghosts of his recently deceased parents, and Nam falls to his death. Then we meet Nam's friends Bon, Kong and Kent, as well as Kong's sister, May, who is going out with Bon. A lengthy flashback informs us that while the guys were in Thailand last year, they took up with a wizard whose sister was hot for Bon, but a "love hex" mishap caused the other three guys to have a gross four-way with the wizard's sis and then accidentally kill her. The wizard is now bent on revenge, which includes killing all the guys with elaborate voodoo doll tortures. Kent is hexed with ravenous hunger, which causes him to eat his own arm, and Kong's head is impaled Pinhead-style by long needles. This leaves the incapacitated Bon and May, who for some reason the wizard decides he should rape as part of his grand scheme. May gets some advice from a witch whose hair she cuts: she should let the bad guy into her business because he'll be weakened after he blows his load. (His phantom fornication is surely unpleasant, but is it really rape if she agrees to it?) The witch's plan works, the wizard is vanquished and all is well until May gets the inevitable news that she's pregnant. I didn't even mention the amazing scene where the wizard battles a husband-and-wife team who draw magic power from their mid-air sex positions, or the fact that whenever Nam's ghost appears, he's got a bunch of glowing fluorescent bulbs sticking out of him. "The Eternal Evil of Asia" is fast, silly and far less mean-spirited than a lot of Category III titles. It's nice to see a sleazy Asian picture that doesn't make you feel like taking a shower afterward.