CompleteMartialArts.com - Spooky Encounters
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List Price: $9.98
Our Price: $9.98
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Starring: Billy Chan, Lung Chan, Ti-Hong Cheung, Fat Chung, Sammo Hung Kam-Bo
Directed By: Sammo Hung Kam-Bo
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0024543164531
Format: Closed-captioned
Label: 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: 20th Century Fox
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2005-04-05
Running Time: 102
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Theatrical Release Date: 1981
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Editorial Reviews:
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The Mr. Vampire films of the 1980s may be the most familiar examples of a unique Hong Kong subgenre, the knockabout horror comedy. But here, as elsewhere, the true pioneer turns out to be the Fat Dragon, Sammo Hung. He worked out all the basic moves (sticky rice as a ghost repellent; the frantic use of spells scribbled on slips of paper) in this 1980 ghost farce. It's a fancy-dress period film in which a gang of clowns, pretending to be spooks in order to terrorize each other, inadvertently invoke the real thing. Pretty soon everyone in sight (including Sammo's foxy but unfaithful wife) is conjuring up a hopping corpse or a nasty poltergeist, and a supernatural traffic jam ensues. (The same basic idea was recycled, much less effectively, in 1982's The Dead and the Deadly.) Hung's world-class kung fu skills prove to be as well adapted to slapstick horseplay as to knockdown action, and in the best scenes they work both ways at once. In the finale, Hung fights off several attackers as his body is possessed by one ectoplasmic intruder after another, each with a distinct personality. Sammo is never more graceful than when he's pretending to be a clumsy oaf. --David Chute
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: One of Sammo's best
Comment: This one is a classic, old school kung fu meets horror/comedy. Taoist magic, demons, hopping vampires, and Sammo gets to do his monkey style kung fu, plus most of the comedy is actually funny. Sometimes the kung fu comedies are a little to broad but the comedy in this one is based mostly on funny situations. Highly reccomended, also check out Mr Vampire.
Customer Rating:
Summary: "When matched in strength, the one with the higher alter wins."
Comment: "Spooky Encounters" (aka Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind; 1981) is a seminal work in the hybrid genre of Hong Kong comedy/kung fu/horror films. While this had been done before by the Shaw Brother's "The Spiritual Boxer" (1975), "The Spiritual Boxer Part II" (1979) and Lo Wei's unsuccessful "Spiritual Kung Fu" (1978), "Spooky Encounters" is the film most causal in the formative kyonsi (hopping vampires) craze of the 1980s with "Mr. Vampire" (1985) as the best example of that subgenre with its plethora of sequels. It was directed by and stars Sammo Hung Kam-Bo ("Warrior's Two" and "The Prodigal Son" who would also produce "Mr. Vampire") during the golden age of Golden Harvest and was the first film under Sammo's Bo Ho Films Company.
Sammo stars as Bold Cheung an affable courageous not-so-bright cuckold who works for Mr. Tam (I am not quite sure what Cheung does though). However, Tam is cheating with Cheung's wife and Cheung came awfully close to finding the two together; however, he did find a shoe that was left behind. Since Tam, who is going to run for mayor, does not want any scandal he decides to employ the services of a black-magic Taoist named Chin Hoi to murder Bold Cheung. Luckily his brother-in-witchcraft Tsui (Chung Faat who is also in Sammo's "Prodigal Son" and "Magnificent Butcher") is astonished he will breaks the rules of the sect (the four rules are: must not be greedy, must not kill, must not insult our god and must not behave badly) and goes off to help Cheung.
Tsui's first good deed is to help Cheung survive a bet with an employee of Tam (played by the ubiquitous Wu Ma) to spend a night in a haunted place that looks like a giant storage shed. It houses a kyonsi - an undead vampire/zombie that is stiff, has to hop to get around, can suck blood through its long fingernails (does not happen here) and has good kung fu skills for some reason. Cheung being a bit of a dullard gets talked into staying two nights. Obviously this does not work so Mr. Tam ends up framing Cheung for the murder of his wife though no body is found. Now Sammo has the law after him led by the Inspector (Lam Ching-Ying) as well as the supernatural sorcerer.
There is not much to complain about in this film. The few annoyances with the movie is the episodic structure the film takes on in the beginning and the underutilization of Lam Ching-Ying ("Mr. Vampire") fighting especially since he is credited as an action director. Also, the very ending is quite unsuspecting (not necessarily for Hong Kong aficionados) and seemed a bit excessive and hard to watch (for those who have not seen it I will not spoil it, it even startled me the second time I watched the movie). You also might not appreciate the film if you like chickens (unless you like exploding ones). There is also some mention of animal killing though nothing is shown (except for the chickens).
The strengths of the film are many. Sammo is in the best shape of his life during the early 80s. He does look slightly corpulent but his kung fu and movement appears effortlessly and adroit (a big difference to how he would appear in the late 80s and beyond). I did notice he was doubled in a few scenes like when he was transformed into the Monkey King, he does not do some of the swinging movements, but for most he was not doubled. There are a couple of classic fight scenes with the tea house bit where Cheung loses control of his arm to the evil Taoist and takes on the tavern (I do not think it influenced Evil Dead II though you never know) and the excellent showdown at the Longevity Inn where Cheung is transformed into the Monkey King and has to fight the Dragon Slayer. In those fights Sammo does some great fighting with a bench in the first and a spear in the second. The whole finale I found quite entertaining with the dueling Taoists. Sammo's direction was also strongest in the 80s where he uses hand-held cameras to great use and has nice composition within frames. He does overuse undercranking in this movie though he tends to do that a lot in his films (as well as most Hong Kong films during that period). His best asset as a director is that he makes everyone else look better and never puts himself in the forefront if he does not have to.
The mixture of humor/action/spookiness works well too. The horror aspect is definitely influenced by the Shaw Brother's films like "Black Magic" (1975) but never goes into the grossness (or nudity) of that film. The humor lightens the macabre aspect while kung fu and comedy meld well for some reason. "Spooky Encounters" is not scary or gore-filled by today's standards, but it is still a good spooky film that is a must for those into 1980s Hong Kong martial arts cinema or fans of Sammo Hung.
Best advice learned from this film -- when you need more chi stamp the ground and if two opponents are evenly matched the one with the higher alter will win.
I have the Fortune Star/Fox release which has a good transfer but no extras except trailers. The biggest plus is that there are no dubtitles. It does include the original mono release which I prefer over the surround sound because of the strange overemphasis it has on contact-hits and other noises. I did notice the score takes some cues from another film but I cannot think of what it could be nor could I find any information while researching for this film. The surround sound version of the movie seems to deemphasize aspects of that lifted score. Here is another example too of an R1 release Hong Kong release that does not match the Hong Kong Legends R2 release for extras. The HKL version has a Bey Logan commentary and other extras (I cannot comment on them since I do not own it).
Customer Rating:
Summary: Far from Spooky... maybe sub-par Encounters?
Comment: It's hard blending multiple genre elements and making them work (work well at least). For proof take a look at Spooky Encounters, a Sammo Hung starring and directed picture from 1980 that attempts the unenviable task of blending comedy, horror, and Kung Fu into a single cohesive work. Regretably for the viewer he doesn't quite get it right and the film is all over the place while still finding it possible to be boring at the same time. Sammo does manage to get all the elements that he wanted in here, it's just that without the ability to focus on any of them they all end up being spread a little thinly so none of it is able to impress (or sometimes keep your attention). Now when watching a low budget Sammo Hung movie you expect the dialogue and effects to be dodgey at best... but normally he more than makes up for it with his choreography and martial arts skill. Unfortunately here he keeps the fighting to a minimum until the finale (noticibly undercranked too), but even then it's nothing that you'll remeber long after the credits roll. Unlike the rest of the film though, the closing scene is memorable and so unpolitically correct that I can't even get into describing it here (I shot right up from my seat in awe even), it just has to be seen. All that being said, the movie is still watchable (do to Sammo Hung alone) and even some fun, however; this same formula was done much better in later films like Mr. Vampire and Big Trouble In Little China (a personal fave). The actual DVD release from Fox/Fortune Star is clean, crisp, and most importantly, incredibly inexpensive to buy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: silliness abounds
Comment: Fortunately for the viewer, Sammo Hung is able to just barely rescue this film from oblivion. His always interesting martial arts is the highlight of this piecs of fluff.
Customer Rating:
Summary: bad
Comment: On your website it was actually stated that it was acted by Alfred Cheung (Gui Meng Jiao) but after i have received the movie it was not.
So, i don't know how to rate.
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