BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

AshUnow This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

dafrosts Master Lung Shu Ai (Lau Wing) and Master Tan Fu (Chen Kuan Tai) are well to do men who have nothing better to do than annoy each other with one-up-manships and aggravate the local constable, Sgt. Poon (Sun Chien), who's a bit of a Barney Fife type character. The upcoming Lantern Festival is another chance for the affluent rivals to go at each other. Shu Ai looks up an old Swordsman rival, Chao Chun Fang (Lieh Lo), who is now a lantern designer. Fang agrees to create lanterns on the condition Shu Ai stays away until their completion.Shu Ai's paramour at the local brothel disappears. She has been abducted by someone wearing a costume reminiscent of the Voodoo Doctor on Scooby Doo. The Voodoo creature even does a dance similar to the one on the cartoon. It's hard to take this creature seriously as a "scary" entity. The disappearance prompts Shu Ai and Tan Fu to point fingers at each other. Sgt. Poon's investigation is incredibly poor and he simply shrugs and calls it a mystery. He doesn't give up on the investigation, but it seems to done with the intensity of a child cleaning their bedroom.Tan Fu's sister disappears the following day by the Voodoo creature. Tan Fu blames Shu Ai, prompting a juvenile contest at the local inn that put upon Sgt. Poon tries to halt with disastrous results. Shu Ai and Tan Fu are instructed to go home and wait for the police to finish their investigation. Neither is about to do as instructed.A botched attempt on Shu Ai's life by hired assassin Kwai Sze Yin (Lo Meng), is a convenient distraction for the Voodoo creature to kidnap Shu Ai's wife. Shu Ai is enraged he was assaulted and his wife taken while Sgt Poon's men were mere feet from the front door of his home. Sgt Poon admits no one was guarding the back of the house.Kwai Sze Yin's failure to kill Shu Ai, results in his own death at the hands of his employer, Tan Fu. Tan Fu doesn't want witnesses who can connect him to the hit on Shu Ai. Tan fu instructs his staff to take Kwai Sze Yin's body far from the estate to bury it. The staff are set upon by the Voodoo creature while carrying out Tan Fu's orders. They and Kwai Sze Yin are decapitated and their heads are hung in the Lantern District in town.The Voodoo creature reveals himself to Su AI's wife to be Chao Chun Fang. he is out to avenge his disgrace in the swordsman's world at the hands of Shu Ai years earlier. He is abducting those close to Shu Ai and using their skin for the lanterns. There is an old tale that human skin makes the best material due to its elasticity. Shu Ai suspects Chao Chun Fang is behind the abductions but says nothing to either Tan Fu or Sgt. Poon. He instead goes after Tan Fu in other of their ego driven challenges. Cha Chun Fang makes an appearance during the challenge and severely wounds Tan Fu. Shu Ai follows Chao Chun Fang back to his workshop where fight and talk about Chao Chun Fang's need for revenge. A severely depleted Tan Fu arrives in a wheelbarrow to aid in the fight. He dies shortly after the arrival of Sgt. Poon and other constables.The finale fight is reminiscent of The House of Wax. The building collapses. A fire is started, which traps Shu Ai and Chao Chun Fang in the basement with no possible exit. Chao Chun Fang become engulfed in flames and grabs Shu Ai, igniting him into a fireball as well. Sgt. Poon and other constables are struggling to dig out an escape for Shu Ai.The final scene is implausible given the events at the workshop. It seemed a "Happy Ending" was required to counter all the death and "horror". Shu Ai is sitting in his now nearly empty home. He has burns only on his left hand and left side of his face. Incredible considering how long his body was on fire. He instructs Sgt Poon to sell the house and contents to provide for the local poor. Shu Ai will spend the rest of his life roaming the countryside helping those in need. I gave it a 7 more due to the cast than plot and fight scenes. Based on other reviews, I have seen the censured version of the story. Someday, I hope to see the full version.

BA_Harrison Wealthy rivals Master Lung (Tony Liu Yong) and Master Tan (Chen Kuan Tai) are always trying to outdo each other. When Tan makes his adversary lose face, by parading Lung's whore of choice Yen Chu (Linda Chu) in front of his wife (Ni Tien), Lung vows to even the score by beating his opponent at the village's forthcoming lantern festival, enlisting ex-love rival turned craftsman Chao Chun-Fang (Lo Lieh) to design and build a very special lantern.What Lung doesn't realise is that Chun-Fang is still harbouring a serious grudge against him for winning the affection of Chin (Ni Tien), and has devised a gruesome plan to get revenge: dressing himself up in skull mask, Tina Turner wig, hairy clawed gloves and Ugg boots, he kidnaps the loved ones of both Lung and Tan. While the two men are locked in battle, convinced that each other is responsible for the missing women, Chun-Fang prepares his masterpiece, a set of lanterns using the skin of his helpless victims.A heady mix of wuxia martial arts and grisly Grand Guignol horror, Shaw Bothers' Human Lanterns is well deserving of its cult status, the film delivering a delightfully macabre premise, a memorably manic villain in cackling loon Chun-Fang, lots of nasty violence (mostly against defenceless, pretty women), plenty of kung fu (with some great weapon work), and impressive visuals, director Chung Sun (The Avenging Eagle) making excellent use of atmospheric lighting and lavish sets (Chun-Fang's lair—an subterranean charnel house—is a marvel to behold).While some of the wire-work is a little OTT for my taste, the majority of the fighting is of the high standard one would expect of Shaw Brothers, highlights being Lung (armed with a sword) versus Tan (equipped with a halberd), and the final fight at Chun-Fang's hideout, which includes a terrific moment where a whole building collapses beneath the feet of several stuntmen.7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for having the cojones to kill off the most sympathetic character, Lung's wife.

shaolinstylin Hammer horror meets wuxia. It makes about as much sense tonally as it sounds. Storywise, it's a barely coherent morality play about pride and greed that comes across like an excuse to string together some swordplay, some reasonably nasty flaying scenes, and very pretty setpieces. It is a great looking movie, I have to admit--the use of lighting is otherworldly. Sun Chung was easily one of the best directors Shaw Bros ever had, but when he wasn't doing cookie cutter martial arts stuff, he was seriously wasted on misguided crap (let's face it) like this.There's something really "off" about how simultaneously Asian and European this movie feels. My instincts tell me it's not supposed to exist. Dramatically it never really takes off, but it's interesting enough in the context of "what were they thinking?" curio.

fertilecelluloid Chung Sun, who directed, amongst many other films, the superb "The Sexy Killer" (see review), is unable to make the elements gel in "Human Lanterns" aka "Human Skin Lanterns". Personally, I have always loved the idea of using human skin to make lanterns, so this film was an eagerly awaited one by me. Unfortunately, there's too little skinning and too much martial arts in this. In fact, the skinning scenes (there are two), while well done, feel like they belong in a different movie altogether. This is a strange effort to make a martial arts fantasy and cross it with a Hammer-style horror plot. It doesn't work. That said, "Human Lanterns" is still a sumptuously photographed and designed period piece. The Shaw's certainly spent big on its sets, cast and special effects. It's a shame they didn't focus more on the horror promised in the title. Disappointing horror. Satisfactory period-fu epic.