Harefooted Halloween: The Seventh Curse

My usual format won’t work for this one because it’s too rat shit crazy and strange to dissect neatly.  The Seventh Curse is about a Hong Kong doctor/adventurer named Yuan Chen-Hsieh (Siu-Ho Chin (Fist of Legend)) who travels to the jungles of Thailand looking for an herbal treatment for AIDS only to stumble upon a human sacrifice ceremony by a local tribe.  Their leader/God is a rotting skeleton creature that eats the people thrown to it.  The doc decides to save the pretty woman on the chopping block but as a consequence starts a massive battle between his group of explorers and the tribe.  Yuan is captured, made to swallow his own bullets and the things start to fire from inside of him.  Fortunately he’s saved by the woman he rescued from the ceremony through some magic boob shenanigans (you read that right).  He recovers but a year later the bullets start to pop from his insides once again.  So he must travel back to Thailand to find a cure for his curse.

As you can see the story involves a lot of supernatural shit so you kind of just have to go with the flow.  And that goes for all aspects of this thing.  Shit will take a sudden left turn and either you’re on board or you’re not.  For example, Chow Yun-Fat (Once a Thief) makes an appearance as Yuan’s professorial pipe smoking friend/mentor.  You think he’s there simply for support and some guidance but then he abruptly shows up towards the end with a bazooka ready to blow away some demons.  Or the villain transforms from a skeleton into a bizzarro KISS costume version of a xenomorph.  There’s another nod to Alien with a small-ish chest-burster-like monster that munches its way into your throat and then erupts out of your chest.  Shit gets weird.

I’ve seen folks refer to this as an Indiana Jones-esque picture and in a sense I can see that, especially if we’re talking about Temple of Doom.  You have a doctor (MD in this case, not PHD) venturing to an exotic location for one purpose but unexpectedly gets caught up in a local human sacrifice ceremony and becomes cursed.  Yuan is smugger and more serious than Jones though.  He’s also even more casual about murdering people.  This obnoxious reporter (Maggie Cheung (Hero)) tags along and ultimately gets captured who would be a stand in for damsel-in-distress Willie Scott, except, well, she shows up with a huge arsenal of weapons and isn’t afraid to use them.  You have dark creepy caves, ancient ruins, a horde of followers willing to kill for their master, booby traps, exaggerated lighting, etc.  But really this is its own demented mashup of ideas from different sources which I’m sure include Chinese myths and legends.

Truth be told this is more of an action film than horror.  There are certainly horror elements and scenes but most of the time it’s martial arts fighting.  Don’t get me wrong though, it’s great.  And of course, there’s crossover like when our heroes go hand to hand with the xenomorph creature at the finale.

This is also an effects heavy movie that leans to the gorier side.  For example, a scout is walking through the jungle when he sets off a booby trap.  A rope wraps around each one of his legs throwing him into the air and tearing him right in half.  Ouch.  Plus there’s gross out stuff like one explorer gets some mysterious goo poured on him and his face starts to bubble.  He tears off his flesh to reveal hundreds of worms pouring out of him.  Nasty.  The effects are kinda cheap but goddamn charming as hell.  I mean the evil skeleton lord is obviously a large marionette puppet with multiple people pulling on strings to animate him but man do they sell the shit out of it.

When I found out afterward that this is from Ngai Choi Lam, the same director as Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky and The Cat, everything quickly made sense.  He has a dark sense of humor and insane way of crafting a story.  I love how much energy he brings to the production and this film is no exception.  The fights, effects, cinematography, it’s so excitingly executed that it sucks you into a world you didn’t even know you wanted to be sucked into.

Now, admittedly I was sorta lost half the time because they throw so much at you without much explanation.  The general plot I get but the details I have no idea.  This includes the title.  I think it relates to the number of bullets inside of Yuan and the seventh and final one is the deathblow that will eventually kill him?  Not sure but hey, the thing is it’s ok.  I had a blast anyway.  Let it take you for a ride.  If you’re looking for something different then you’ve found it.  This…film…is…fucking…wild.