Director: Man Kei Chin
Also known as: Nan Yang Shi Da Xie Shu
Choice IMDB keywords: Self cannibalism; sex magic; finger bitten off; noodles
Plot: “In the 21 [sic] century…” a narrator intones at the beginning of the Hong Kong horror-comedy The Eternal Evil Of Asia:
…many people still believe in hex and enchantment. There are so many stories about it. Including the hex from China and the enchantments from Asia. Enchantments of Asia is said to be an evil branch of Hinduism. It’s mixed with the hex of China and thus becomes something which is amazing and can’t be explained by science and spiritual studies.
From there, the narration goes on to explain, with appropriate visual accompaniment, how wizards steal the souls of dead children and use blood to control them. And how the ghosts of children are cruel, but remain childlike and enjoy watching movies, “So when you watch a movie, if you see a kid with a pale face sitting next to you, don’t offend him, or take him to the toilet.” Got it? Doesn’t matter. What follows doesn’t make much sense either.
From ghost kids, The Eternal Evil Of Asia jumps to real kids, specifically a little boy demanding some instant noodles. His father hates instant noodles, and yells at him, but quickly realizes he has bigger problems when a wizard carrying a voodoo-like doll begins tormenting him with visits from his dead parents. Driven mad by their ghosts, who force-feed him instant noodles, he fights back, then quickly discovers he’s been tricked into killing his wife and child. A few more killings and ghost-tormentings later, he throws himself out a window, falling to his death.
But it’s no ordinary death. As the man’s friend Bon (Kwok-Pong Chan) reports the next day, he landed poorly and “his body was stabbed to death by seven flourescent lamps.” Then the backstory kicks in. Turns out the two men and their friends all recently visited Thailand, where they made the mistake of angering a wizard. How only becomes apparent later, in an extended flashback, but even without it, the film quickly establishes that angering a wizard is a bad idea. Bon’s girlfriend May (Ellen Chan), a hairdresser, learns this independently when Mei (Lily Chung), a customer and self-declared witch, asks to keep her clippings, because “if a wizard gets your stuff, he can easily enchant you.” (“I won’t dump used napkins anywhere, either,” she adds)
So what did Bon and his friends do to piss off the Thai wizard? Initially, nothing. In fact, they first befriend Laimi (Ben Ng), a cheery, magical young man, and help him defeat his enemies, a wicked enchantress and her partner. Sure, Laimi literally turns Kong into a dickhead early in their acquaintance, but it’s all in good fun.
The guys even help Laimi defeat an evil enchantress. But things take a turn when Laimi’s sister falls for Bon and sends him an enchanted cake made in part from her own lustful sweat. When Bon’s three friends open it instead, they fall for her spell, track her down, and enjoy a long, explicit group-sex scene. (The Eternal Evil Of Asia is a Category III film—Hong Kong’s “no-one-under-18” rating—so it’s pretty much obligated to have copious amounts of sex and nudity.) Under the spell herself, the sister doesn’t notice her mistake until the next day. Then she’s accidentally killed in the ensuing post-coital scuffle. Hence the pissed-off, grief-stricken wizard.
Key scenes: Essentially a string of loopy scenes of sex and violence (and the occasional icky bit of sexual violence) tied together by the supernatural-revenge plot, The Eternal Evil Of Asia first kills off all the non-Bon vacationers, most creatively by having one turn into a cannibal in the middle of dinner.
The film climaxes with a long scene in which Bon and May attempt to defeat Laimi as May has sex with his disembodied spirit and engages in some of the least-sexy simulated fellatio since Bad Lieutenant. But it’s all worth it. In the end, Laimi is defeated as he has an orgasm. Or is he? In an epilogue, May discovers she’s pregnant, leaving open the possibility of a sequel exploring creepy, noodle-fixated ghost-fetuses.
Also, this happens:
Can easily be distinguished by: If you’re watching a movie in which a character literally becomes a dickhead, it’s most likely this one.
Sign that it was made in 1995: At the hair salon, the female characters talk about sexual techniques beneath a poster for the Keanu Reeves romance A Walk In The Clouds.
Timeless message: Do not ever piss off a wizard.
Memorable quotes: Small talk in Thailand: “I can’t imagine a wizard’s sister enjoys classical music so much!”