‘Seeding Of a Ghost’ or — Taxi To The Dark Side?
Taxi driver Chau accidentally hits and runs-down a black-magic wizard with his car one night. The wizard is pissed off, not because he was knocked-down as he is perfectly fine (he is a wizard after all), but because Chau has interrupted the goings-on of dark and evil magic. Because of this transgression ill-fortune will befall Chau and/or his family, possibly even death. Chau protests but the wizard shrugs as there is nothing he can do. Them’s the rules, mate.
Meanwhile Chau’s wife, Irene, has started an affair with a sexy married man called Tony Fang who frequents the local casino where Irene works and it seems, for a while, as though ‘Seeing of a Ghost’ (1983) is going to play out as a love-triangle tale with a twist of the paranormal. However, things take a turn for the horrifying when Irene is assaulted by two youths in an abandoned mansion and falls to her death. It seems the wizard’s warning has taken its toll.
Distraught by the police’s inability to bring anyone to justice, and after having his leg broken whilst attempting to take his vengeance out on Tony, Chau seeks out the wizard and asks his help to bring justice for those responsible for his wife’s death. The wizard agrees although warns Chau that it will exact a terrible price. First, they have to exhume Irene’s rotting corpse. Secondly, they have to… they have to… well, it’s best to just see for yourself. Either way, it is not long before Irene gets to exact her vengeance from beyond the grave.
What’s remarkable (amongst many other aspects) about ‘Seeding of a Ghost’ is that it doesn’t show it cards straight away with a relative grounding in the everyday and with nothing too crazy going on for the first 30 minutes or so. There are a couple of decent fights as Chau lashes out at the wrongdoers although these are still kept fairly realistic whilst the focus at the start seems to be on sleazy tryst between the lovers.
It’s when ‘Seeding of a Ghost’ passes the halfway mark that events start to escalate, eventually culminating in a third act that’s off-the-charts insane that can only be described as early Raimi/Jackson splatter horror meets John Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’ with a heavy dose of Jorg Buttgereit’s ‘Nekromantik’s (‘Nekromantik 2’ in particular) necrophilia and topped-off with a moment that’s as jaw-dropping as the chest-burster scene from ‘Alien’ except it’s possibly even more gross and shocking. It’s an incredible closing act.
And it’s all built up to pretty skilfully too as director Chuan Yang slowly ramps up the craziness, and black humour, gradually so the tonal shifts are never jarring and nicely organic. You don’t quite notice how crazy the film’s getting until it’s already in bonkers-ville. Some of the highlights include a visit to a white-witch’s shack with hilarious consequences and an absolutely fantastic remote battle between the black-magic sorcerer and some Buddhist priests that contains the best use of flying fire-balls I’ve seen in… in… ever?
Yet what’s also impressive about ‘Seeding of a Ghost’ is how well made it is: the story is intelligently thought out and logical, the directing strong and assured and the production design, along with some seriously atmospheric lighting, helps the film look much bigger and expensive than it is. The effects are spot-on too with every ounce of ingenuity squeezed from limited resources. The sequence when Irene’s corpse is ravished by a floating spirit is not just a piece of effective horror but perversely beautiful and poetic too. At least, I thought so.
‘Seeding of a Ghost’ starts as a bit of a slow-burn but by the end my friend and I were sitting there with our jaws on the floor. It’s awesome. If you’re a fan of Hong Kong Category III horror movies then this one is most certainly worth digging up and spending the night with.
