In the mood (as we are 99% of the time in these dark times) for something light, we happened across this on our newly re-subscribed Criterion Channel. Actually it was part of a whole Sammo Hung collection, but we'd seen all the others. Apparently this film did more than any other to popularize that weird Hong Kong phenomenon: the hopping vampire (although they don't seem to be vampires in any recognizable way - more like zombies). It's a pretty broad comedy that also has some fairly gruesome elements (the beginning dream sequence, where two skeletal spirits in giant urns break out and attack Sammo involves one of them taking a very convincing bite out of his leg), and some questionable gender politics. The main outline of the plot is that Sammo has a shrewish wife who is wearing fancier clothes than she should be able to afford, and whom, thanks to a story told by a local sweet-tofu stand owner that Sammo (who is called "Bold Cheung" here because of his constant boasts of his bravery) frequents, he comes to suspect is being unfaithful, and indeed returns at lunch time (as the protagonist of the story, who was obviously the stand owner himself, who has an equally shrewish wife, did) to see through a peephole a male leg protruding from the bed. As he's trying to break in, the man, who is actually his boss (Master Tam) escapes out the window. His wife almost brazens it out by yelling so angrily at Cheung that he backs down, until he finds a single male shoe, too big to be his, lying around. The wife still refuses to confess, claiming that it was his, he bought it used (explaining its battered look) and she was about to return it. From there we move (I'm not quite sure how) to Cheung betting that he can stay overnight in a haunted mansion. (Oh, I forgot: before all of this there was a pretty intense scene where three of his friends try to trick him, presumably to punish him for his boasts of being brave. One of them invites him to his own house to show him something scary, and if he doesn't run out, he'll buy him breakfast. That friend dresses up as a female ghost (with one of those long dangly tongues) and appears apparently in a mirror, although it has been slid away to reveal him). Initially startled, Cheung sees the man's shoes and works it out. They sit down for tea and a real ghost sucks the friend into the mirror. This ghost tries to do the same thing to Cheung,
but in very Scooby Doo antics, keeps missing. However, the other two friends show up (hoping to mock Cheung) spot the ghost and run out. This incident seems entirely cut off from the rest of the movie, though, and it is never resolved what happened to the friend sucked into the mirror, who is never mentioned again.
Anyway, back to the haunted mansion. This is all a plot by Tam to bump off Cheung before he finds out that Tam has been boinking his wife. In truly convoluted fashion, it involves hiring a sorcerer
to bring the dead to life to kill Cheung (seems needlessly roundabout). But a member of the sorcerer's group is disgusted at him - they both had the same master who taught them only to use their powers for good and not to be greedy ("nothing wrong with money" retorts the bad sorcerer) so he takes it upon himself to be Cheung's guardian angel. He falls in with Cheung as he's going through the woods on the way to the haunted temple and asks where it is. Cheung tells him, and asks why he is also going there. He replies "I've been told that a fat idiot has made a bet to stay the night there and I've been hired to collect his body." Anyway, he gives Cheung advice on what to do, and when an enchanted corpse (suitably gruesome - the makeup reminds me of what I've seen of one of those Italian zombie movies of the late 70s) hops out of the coffin,
controlled by the sorcerer - who can apparently see through the corpse's eyes - Cheung is either in the rafters or under the coffin, and when the corpse finally finds him (he steps on his feet) it's dawn and Cheung is safe. Anyway, once this has failed, Tam's henchman gets the dazed Cheung to double his bet to spend another night there. This time the advice is to get 50 chicken eggs (they must be chicken, but of course, we see the egg vendor supplement the 40 chicken eggs he has with 10 non-chicken eggs) and (ugh) the leg and blood of a young dog. (Not only does this film appear to feature a real chicken beheading, you also see Cheung carrying a live puppy into the abbatoir, and in the next scene, is trotting along with a pot of blood.) Anyway, this time Cheung lies on the coffin, and every time the corpse tries to get out, throws in an egg. Meanwhile we see the sorcerer thrown to the ground every time this happens. Until he grabs a non-chicken egg, and the corpse is free and he and Cheung battle it out until Cheung throws the dog gore at him and the sorcerer flies so hard into the roof of the building behind him that it explodes, as we see him all wrapped in bandages.
Cheung returns into town but finds his house trashed and apparent blood everywhere. An officious cop and his clowish goons show up and arrest him, but no prison can hold Sammo for long (good thing too, because he was to be executed the next day) and he goes on the run. Once again, he has to spend the night alongside a corpse, but this one just mimics him harmlessly
until (for some reason that escapes me) it goes berzerk, and is chasing him through a wood when they run into the cop and company, and the corpse attacks them instead, allowing Sammo to escape.
His guardian angel takes him on as a disciple. They are at an inn some time later when the cop and his men show up again. But so does the sorcerer and he controls Cheung's arm so that he beats up everybody (not sure why, because this seems to be helping Cheung out). The guardian angel guy works out what's happening, finds the sorcerer and beats him up.
Amnyway, more of the same until a final showdown between the sorcerer and Cheung's guardian, where both are standing on ludicrously elevated altars, for some reason, and each is controlling on the one hand Cheung (as a monkey) and the other Tam (somebody else) so that they have a knock-down kung fu battle. At the end of it all (when everyone but Cheung appears dead) Cheung's wife, who has been safe with Tam this whole time, comes out claiming to have been a prisoner. But Cheung is having none of it, and the film ends with him punching her into a mid-air freeze frame as he shouts "Bitch!" at her.
As usual, Sammo is charming, and his usual surprisingly mobile self. Apparently the young Yeun Biao was inside one of the corpses, but the makeup was so heavy I have no idea which. Also, they must have used really good film stock on these late 70s Hong Kong films, because as with the other early Sammo and Jackie Chan films, the films look gorgeous and the colors really pop.
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