DEVIL SORCERY (Hong Kong, 1988)

I watched DEVIL SORCERY last night. It's directed by Do Gong-Yue who also did BLOOD SORCERY two years previously. Like BLACK MAGIC 1 & 2, SEEDING OF A GHOST, CENTIPDE HORROR, DEAD CURSE, and most of the other movies in the dark and nasty horror movie genre from Hong Kong in the 1980s it deals with black magic and a wizard who does evil deeds in his own favour.

The wizard gone astray in DEVIL SORCERY was really a student of a good wizard but the good life went down the toilet for him when he decided to get it on with his master's wife, and when the good wizard came home unexpectedly he stabbed him and stole half of his magic gear. Anyway, it all takes a while to kick off but once it does it's a roller coaster ride that's for sure. Just like in CENTIPEDE HORROR there are scenes of a girl chucking up live centipedes with the rest of her dinner but in this one it's definitely in more gross detail. DEVIL SORCERY is in the same vein like those other flicks but it's easy to see it was made on a lower budget than the Shaw Brothers produced films (eg. Black Magic + Seeding) but don't let that put you off. It's pretty entertaining.

The only version available is the DVD pictured here which comes to us from down Malaysia way. The company Dragon Jester have released quite a few Hong Kong horror movies that aren't released anywhere else on DVD. It's weird to think that the only HK releases of these films are on VHS, LD, and VCD, but not on DVD, and that you have to venture to Malaysia to get DVD releases of these old (and forgotten) HK horror movies. Oh well. Fortunately we have 1) internet shopping, and 2) the cool store Sensasian! :-) Not the best in the genre but pretty entertaining!

The DVD is fullscreen, has Cantonese and Mandarin audio, and optional English subtitles. The picture quality is atrociously bad. It looks like it's lifted from a VCD or VHS. But as I said; it's the only version there is so I can certainly live with that.

[first posted in 2009]

EDIT: someone mentioned to me that the DVD is censored for nudity. I watched it quite a while back and have no recollection of this but I'm sure he's right. But, again, this is the only DVD out there so the choice is yours.