Shawn McKenna I have been putting this off for a few years (I have had the DVD since 2009) mainly because I thought it was going to be shockfest that outdid The Boxer's Omen in gonzo-style horror. Well it was not even close to The Boxer's Omen which still holds a place deep in the suppressed subconscious of my cranium (actually it is more weird and gross than actually scary). In fact this has to be one of the most overstated and over-hyped horror films of Hong Kong though this is not a horrible film.Chow (Phillip Ko: The Boxer's Omen, Shaolin Intruders) interrupts black magic by inadvertently saving the life of a black magic priest who is being chased down by an angry mob. Because of this the priest says at best he will get very sick and at worst his whole family will die. Since this is a horror film we know which scenario is going to take place. A film with him just being sick would not be as fun. But it is especially hilarious that it seems that the angry mob gets off clean and that he picked up the priest far from where the incantation went awry. I am probably over-thinking this.Chow's wife Irene has been cheating on him because of his lowly taxi driver job, taxi drivers are a deranged lot (ask Anthony Wong), and his hair (seriously one of the worst wigs I have seen, worse than a Sammo Hung haircut). She is enticed by playboy Anthony Fong Ming (Norman Chu Siu-Keung: Bastard Swordsman) who visits her job of dealing cards and showers her with money, gifts, better hair (to be fair to Phillip check out Norman's perm in Hong Kong Godfather) and affection. One night those two adulterers have a fight and she gets out of the car and goes off by herself. Never good to be alone late at night when ruffians are about. She is confronted by two young hooligans who chase her down, one rapes her and ultimately she gets killed (why she runs into an abandoned house I do not know, why there would be an abandoned house in an abandoned area Hong Kong I also do not know).When Chow finds out she is dead, he is ultimately a suspect for about 15 seconds. Fong is another suspect and despondent Chow finds out about the affair. He gets bad ideas in his head and wants revenge at all costs for those involved and goes to the black magic priest (still dressed like a shirtless jungle native; I wonder if he goes to the store like that) to seek revenge. This requires that they dig out his wife's corpse and he is warned that his monomaniacal revenge will likely result in his demise as well. The corpse is used quite effectively and it is creepy, the most scary aspect of the film. You can see it on the cover of the DVD and poster.Fans of horror could do worse by seeking this out. I do not think it is as unique/interesting/gratuitous as Black Magic or The Boxer's Omen out of the Shaw Brothers horror oeuvre and I would suggest seeking those out first. This film overdoes the sleazy exploitation aspect of it, elongates the nudity and the film comes off more as a voyeuristic exercise especially in the beginning which starts to drag on. The slow motion topless running scene becomes almost absurd in its length and its use of the zoom lens. But you do get the benefit of a few fight scenes decently done involving Phillip Ko (still mad about the outcome with Norman Chu) who proves once again that you should not mess with taxi drivers or Phillip Ko. You also get a variety of gross out moments, Taoist priests, scares all done better in a variety of Hong Kong films. However, when the ghost is seeded there are plenty of horror elements, while keeping the exploitation element alive, especially towards the finale that will be of interest to viewers. There you get to witness a creature that seems inspired by John Carpenter's The Thing while a segment from the soundtrack from Alien is played.I have the R1 Image release and it has English and Spanish subtitles. It comes with the Mandarin mono dub only. The R3 IVL release comes with both the Cantonese and Mandarin dub. At the time of the Hong Kong audience would have heard the Cantonese soundtrack, but most of the transnational audience would have heard it in Mandarin. Since at the time post dubbing was the norm and multiple dialects were often used on set it does not matter as much to me. However, this is a controversial topic where some have to have the "preferred" dub. I personally would like a release from this time period to have both the Cantonese and Mandarin language, but I will take what I can get. There are plenty of the Image released Shaw Brothers trailers (not the original trailers) on this release, but no trailer for the movie.

ElijahCSkuggs This weirdo tale revolves around lies and deception, lots of revenge, and even more black magic.When our leading star's wife is killed he seeks revenge by acquiring the local Voodoo dude. Who for some weird reason, was played by two dudes, which they tried hiding up that fact by loading the second player with tons of make-up....pretty weird/funny. Anyways, when Mr. Voodoo comes into play all the people who were bad to the wife prior to her death "will never know peace again", or something like that. And ain't that the truth.When you Seed a Ghost, you better know the results, because they're f@cked up. Just like this movie. And that's a good thing! With a high amount of nudity, some sex and even a fight scene for good measure, the movie delivers loads of entertaining qualities. It's like an action/horror/fantasy/comedy flick rolled into one. And when the end comes you're only treated to a sorcery fight with one of the most fun and silliest ending I've seen in a long time. There's a lotta blood flying.I've gotta mention the direction and cinematography, for a flick like this (and I say that with love), it had some pretty inventive shots. Definitely surprising.The flick unfortunately kinda dragged at parts though. You once in a while will realize that something entertaining hasn't happened in a little bit. But don't dismay, since the movie does entertain pretty consistently. And also, maybe fault to the writing, you just never really care for any character. But with a movie like this, I only came into it looking for the "goods" and that's what I got.Seeding of a Ghost is a truly weirdo hybrid of a flick that should be watched if you like to watch different movies. It's really a recommendable flick just because it seems to be one of the best this whacky genre of action/horror/fantasty/comedy combo flick has to offer. Definitely one of the most bizarre times I've had in a while watching a movie.

Clickety-Clack High expectations can be a bad thing when it comes to viewing obscure exploitation films. The problem is, once you've finally seen the film in question, it's like all of the past descriptions and reviews of it that made you want to see it in the first place were for a different film completely. SEEDING OF A GHOST suffers from this very syndrome. While certainly odd and unique, I have to admit that I was disappointed by this. Don't be fooled by all the hype surrounding this in cult movie circles; it's not half as outrageous as you've probably been led to believe.The plot is suitably contrived. A cab driver accidentally runs into a mysterious vagrant, who promptly scuttles off into the woods. Meanwhile, his wife Irene has begun an affair with a handsome married man; she asks him to marry her, he refuses, and later that night she ends up getting raped and murdered by a couple of hoodlums. The cabbie is inexplicably led to her body through supernatural means, and decides to take revenge. He goes to the aforementioned vagrant, who promptly digs up Irene's body and begins a series of black magic rituals that lead to all sorts of weird happening amongst the perps: one guy throws up worms over his dinner plate, another is tricked into eating brains, and the married man's wife is possessed. Without giving anything away, all of this eventually leads to a blood-soaked finale in which Irene sets out for a final revenge...From all the reviews I had read about SEEDING OF A GHOST, I had been led to believe that it was an incredibly disgusting, disturbing and downright nasty little film. Well, only a portion of that is correct. This film is not bad at all, but it's hardly notable. It reminded me of an EC comic book like TALES FROM THE CRYPT: it's incredibly over-the-top and weird, but too silly to be taken seriously. And although not as comical as, say, MR. VAMPIRE or A Chinese GHOST STORY, this still has a sense of humor, albeit a very strange one.One thing this film is is SLEAZY; there's an undercurrent of misogyny here that will not fly with a lot of Western viewers. All of the women are essentially dumb, slutty punching bags, and the film is packed with a number of leering, gratuitous nude scenes that are so blatant in their execution they're not even erotic. The truth is, by the one hour mark I was kind of fed up; I had been given nudity galore, sex, creepy atmosphere, explosions and multiple kung fu fights (!), but what I really wanted was some horror. This film's structure is totally disjointed; it's like the filmmakers were making it up as they went along.Thankfully, there's the final ten minutes. As many other viewers have noted, the climax is worth viewing in itself. Think a more outrageous, blood-splattered Asian version of John Carpenter's THE THING, and you have the right idea. I wanted more of that! Overall, SEEDING OF A GHOST was hardly as off-the-wall, gross, and skin-crawling as I was hoping for. It's more in line with the rest of the Hong Kong films I've seen, in the sense that all it wants to do is please the viewer, not necessarily scare him or disturb him. Hong Kong fans should seek out the incredible (and very similar in tone) SEVENTH CURSE with Chow Yun-Fat over this one.

EVOL666 SEEDING OF A GHOST is a pretty bizarre HK horror film about infidelity and revenge. Although the film is pretty decent as a whole, I didn't find it quite as gory or intense as many other reviewers.A cab driver is out doing his thing one night and accidentally runs down a sorcerer (talk about bad luck...). The sorcerer talks about a curse on the cab drivers family and the driver ain't really buyin' it...until his wife is raped and murdered, that is. The cab driver goes back to the sorcerer to try and enlist his help in exacting a little black-magic revenge on the thugs responsible for his wife's death, and things start to go downhill from there. The sorcerer and the cabbie dig up the cabbie's dead wife to use in a ritual to bring vengeance down on those involved with her death. The resulting payback sure is a bitch...SEEDING has some pretty decent scenes and a few gross-out moments, but not quite as many as I was expecting. The pace is pretty slow at first and the "cool parts" don't really happen until pretty close to the end. The creature that bursts from the pregnant woman towards the very end is pretty cool looking and is rightly compared to some of the creature FX used in Carpenter's THE THING. Not a bad film overall, could have used a little more gore and a little more action towards the first half of the film. Recommended for those into strange Asian horror. 6.5/10