Thy Davideth What a malicious, malignant movie this was! My word, someone is on crack. To think Chow Yun-Fat needs to kill a ****load of animals to cure Maggie's berzerker spell. And to think some Worm Tribe priest must kill a bunch of children (and succeeds) to create a stupid-looking monster called Little Ghost. This is one of Nam Nai Choi's best films ever. I loved it to death. This is the definitive psycho left-field Chinese movie. For example, a Thai girl with the nicest booty in the world cuts a piece of her boob meat to feed it to Yuen Chen's character to hinder the 7th curse effect. Urgh, not only is it sultry, it's funnier than a mofo. Plus the monster called Old Ancestor towards the end of the film was hilariously great.The action is really great and at the same time hilarious. Some of the greatest action scenes were watching the Yuen Chen character getting into a no-holds-barred fight with a skeleton which evidently was a puppet on a string. Another was the epic battle with Old Ancestor and Little Ghost. Among other things there are plentiful martial arts fights and some gun fights which were surprisingly well choreographed and intense. Even some of the stunts that were pulled off in this film were a bit frightening. Other things to consider: the film was fast-paced, the story was unbelievably absurd, and the special effects were sometimes cheesy and sometimes good. The only flaw I found with "The Seventh Curse" (aside from everything else, depending on your point of view) is the Worm Tribe priest's voice.I loved "The Seventh Curse". I've seen this sucker legitimately 50 times and I can go for another 2,000,200 more times. It's extremely absurd and brilliant.

Leofwine_draca THE SEVENTH CURSE is an unusual little film from Hong Kong, set in Thailand for the most part and featuring plenty of action and very little plot. It's a dark horror/fantasy that has its basis in the queasy Hong Kong horrors like BLACK MAGIC and HEX, as the central character discovers that he's been put under a 'blood spell' which spells imminent death unless he can kill the evil wizard who put him under it.This is the most popular of the Chinese film series featuring the character of 'Wisely', a pipe-smoking professor who fights evil in his spare time. Chow Yun-Fat essays the role here, but as this was before he really hit the big time, he doesn't have a great deal of screen time, although he does make the most of when he appears and that bit at the climax is a hoot.Chin Siu-Ho is a rather stolid lead, and the storyline gets saddled with an ultra-irritating Maggie Cheung as a reporter who tags along for the ride. But the supporting cast is much better: Joyce Godenzi (EASTERN CONDORS) shows up alongside Sibelle Hu, Kara Hui, Yasuaki Kurata, and best of all one of my favourite Hong Kong stars, Dick Wei, who ISN'T cast as the bad guy for a change! Seeing Wei rip up the screen on the side of good is a real treat, and makes this a film impossible to dislike.Elsewhere, THE SEVENTH CURSE is a film fuelled by effects-enhanced mayhem, featuring all manner of bizarre creations. There's the usual army of black-clad cult members, some acrobatic Buddhist monks, a couple of living skeleton monsters, and creatures that look like the alien from ALIEN in both baby and adult form. The effects are rubbery but fun, and there's plenty of artery-spraying gore for the horror fans to enjoy. Alongside ALIEN, a big inspiration here seems to be RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, as THE SEVENTH CURSE has the same kind of madcap, action-heavy exotic adventure. It may not be high art, but it is a lot of fun.

lost-in-limbo The slick Dr Yuan who' s searching for an Aids cure stumbles across a sacrificial ceremony to an ancestral god in the jungles of Thailand. So he risks his life to rescue Bachu and because of that he receives a blood curse from the evil sorcerer. For about a year or so the curse was halted, but now it's starting to affect him again. Pockets of blood burst from his veins and the seventh time it happens will kill him, so he must venture back to rid this curse that could kill him in a couple of days.Honk Kong's take on an Indiana Jones film you could say, is rather over-the-top nonsense and incredibly comical. It fascinatingly dives into action-horror-adventure-fantasy mode, but there's no real substance behind it and cohesion. Though, saying that this mixed hybrid does equal a lot fun with it dabbling in black magic, martial arts, shootouts, sacrifices, gore, nudity and broad comedy. So basically this extravaganza is high on energy with its lively action set pieces and strong violence that overshadows the illogical and ludicrous plot that has some scenes which are totally unbelievable to comprehend. The way it starts out you may think it's just another normal action/martial arts film, but then you'll see how offbeat this adventure really is.Low-budget special effects fill the screen, which are fairly shoddy (walking skeleton, which are a bizarre sight) or there are some decent and memorable creations. Such as the little demon imp that looks pretty horrendous and that goes for the attitude too. The transformation scene of the ancestral demon, which kinda resembled that of the monster in "Alien", is pretty well arranged and it looks fairly good. The score was fairly forceful and energetic, but sometimes it got too sappy. Jumpy camera-work went hand-to-hand with the frantic pace. The performances were all over the place and some just got on my nerves. Chow Yen-Fat has only has a small role, but he makes the most of it. The dialogue is incredibly stilted tripe, but hey it goes with this camp and the humour on show was slapstick and rather juvenile. Well-staged and creative deaths are achieved to great impact. Graphic face peeling and bubbling, kids getting crushed, ripping body parts and body spilling out maggots are just some of those. The backdrop made great use of the dense jungle setting and that of the ruins and temple; especially the massive Budda set-up. We're also given a graphic climax with an abundance of guts and flesh and a big body explosion to end it. There's even room for a moral to end the story with and it's delivered in a rather cheesy way.It's nothing else more than exploitation/supernatural/action galore with tremendously high-spirited stunts (when they go flying by force they really fly across the screen) and buckets of blood.

gridoon The special effects in "The Seventh Curse" are incredible. Particularly memorable are those nasty little demons that look like deformed babies; they fly at you and eat you up in about 5 seconds, like piranhas. But the rest of the film is just frantic, mindless drivel. The filmmakers throw in everything but the kitchen sink (from an irrelevant hostage situation at the beginning to karate-chopping monks), hoping that the pieces will somehow fit together - they don't. I never cared about anyone or anything in this film, except for the adorable Maggie Cheung, and even she is too loud at times. Chow Yun-Fat fans will be disappointed with his very minor part, but at least they will be rewarded at the end, when he shows why he is the epitome of "cool": all the other characters waste their time trying to fight the huge unstoppable bloodthirsty flying "Alien"-like monster, but he enters the scene and simply.....I don't want to spoil it, see for yourself. (**)