Ngai Choi Lam is a great semi-unsung hero of trashy Hong Kong cinema. Most famous for directing the mighty Story of Ricky (1991), Lam has plenty more wild movies filling his resume. Her Vengeance (1988), Erotic Ghost Story (1987) and Peacock King (1988) are just a few of his films that Hong Kong fans will know and (probably) love. My personal favourites (outside of Ricky of course) are Seventh Curse (1986) – Lam’s amazing Indiana Jones tribute – and The Cat (1992) – the film that marked the end of his career (I’m not sure why). This week I watched a Lam film I’d been hanging to see for some time, his Ghostbusters cash in, Ghost Snatchers!
GHOST SNATCHERS
original title: Bi gui zhuo
Hong Kong, 1986, Ngai Choi Lam
Source: Kung Fu Movie Posters
Wong Jing is better known for his prolific dumbfuckery as a writer and director. The Wong Jing directorial stamp sends shivers down my spine. Of his hundred plus films, most are horrible and filled with torturous bad comedy. While he has directed a handful of (uneven) classics (God of Gamblers and High Risk to name a couple), word has it that he doesn’t even direct his own action scenes and has assistant directors, or second unit directors, do it, and the action scenes are the only worthwhile moments in his best films.
To call Wong Jing a terrible actor is an insult to the profession. Wong Jing is not an actor, and I’m shocked that he was arrogant enough to cast himself in the lead (I’m going to assume he produced this too). There are accomplished silly fat guy actors in Hong Kong who would have been far better suited to the role; someone like Kent Cheng, for example. That said, Jing’s disgraceful non-performance added a whole new layer of painful entertainment to the proceedings.
Jing plays Bong (or not; for some reason, characters refer to him using at least five different names). Bong is a bespectacled, fat loser who, for comedic purposes (and to serve Jing’s ego), has a really hot girlfriend: Hsueh (Joey Wang). Bong has just recently been hired as a security guard at a huge skyscraper thanks to his sleazy Uncle Fan (Shui-Fan Fung), the head of security. Unfortunately the skyscraper is haunted by the rowdy ghosts of Japanese soldiers.
Bong and Uncle Fan enlist the help of the super sexy Ling (Joyce Godenzi), a talented psychic. (Her psychic business is clearly lucrative as she operates out of an enormous office.) Ling gives Bong, Hsueh and Uncle Fan the awesome power to shoot animated glowing stuff out of their hands. She also helps Bong and Uncle Fan cheat in a mahjong match; their opponent being Charlie Cho and his glorious overacting. Cho is a definite highlight.
I should also point out that Ling helps Bong and Uncle Fan with the assistance of a Mahjong Ghost. I have no clue how this seemingly mentally impaired puppet is supposed to help, but he wears sunglasses and smokes a cigarette. So that’s cool.
I apologise if this synopsis is making no sense. The film has an incredibly erratic plot. (It was, after all, written by Wong Jing). Like a hyperactive toddler who can’t concentrate on one topic for more than a few seconds, it cuts from scene to scene with no logic, rhyme, nor reason. The only consistent element is the haunted skyscraper, which we see a few people die in including a cross-eyed security guard.
A television, haunted by the ghost of a man who somehow died from watching too much television, grows legs at one point and tries to kill Bong. The man on the television is also cross-eyed.
A bunch more stuff happens until Bong and Uncle Han face their inevitable showdown with a skeleton. The film’s finale is a highlight. There’s lots of rubbery bats dangling on strings, plenty of smoke machine action, a Japanese ghost with a Hitler ‘stache, and the sets… oh wow, wow, wow, the sets. A gentle gust of wind could knock these sets down. In hand with the insane effects work, magic happens.
This all climaxes with someone’s head exploding, which automatically qualifies Ghost Snatchers for a five star rating.
There’s even some genuinely funny comedy. In one of the million tangents Wong Jing’s script takes, Uncle Fan tries to fuck a ghost. This of course does not go well. He winds up losing three of his ten souls (yeah), and Bong must find where his stupid souls have got to before his body is dissected by an indignant, young doctor who believes Fan to be dead. (In having the situation explained to him, the doctor rather appropriately responds: “Don’t insult my professional standards.”) Bong goes to all of Uncle Fan’s typical hangouts: brothels and porno theatres. It’s pretty hilarious. And a bit sad too.
Ghost Snatchers is not Lam’s finest hour. The comedy is hilarious in its own horrible way, but it really grinds down your soul after a while. Lam works better when he’s attempting to play it straight, allowing his earnest madness to seep through. Even something like The Cat, for all its absurd moments (the cat and dog fight scene, for example), still mostly takes itself seriously. Ghost Snatchers shows glimmers of Lam’s love of practical effects and gore, but I get the feeling Wong Jing is the true mastermind behind this. Wong Jing, lunatic that he is, would go on to make another Ghostbusters rip off with the brilliantly titled Ghost Busting (1989).
That last paragraph reads as if I hated Ghost Snatchers. I didn’t. I enjoyed the shit out of it. I belly-laughed through the whole thing, and there were a few amazing scenes scattered here and there. Any film that features a skeleton being kicked in the balls in alright in my books. This is no Story of Ricky, but, despite Wong Jing, it’s the most fun I’ve had in some time.
Availability:
Ghost Snatchers used to be available in Hong Kong from Fortune Star, but it looks to be out of print. You could probably find it on Amazon or eBay. The disc itself, like all Fortune Star releases, is bare-bones. The video quality is quite good.
