First the good news: Cheung, Chow
and a lot of gore combine in the
HK horror pic about a guy who returns to the Thai jungle to break a curse
placed on him by an evil sorceror. Now, the bad news: Maggie is in the
"Dr.Who assistant" role (run around, scream, get captured, get rescued, run
around, scream...), while Chow's role is minor and he smokes a pipe, which
looks silly. However, the worst thing is that the special effects here are
mainly ludicrously bad puppets, totally laughable rather than scary. It
takes a LOT of disbelief to get over these, but I did just about manage it,
helped by berserk pacing and a total disregard for continuity when any plot
threatened to interfere. Late on a Friday night, after the pub, this might
just be the best movie you've ever seen; under less friendly circumstances,
it won't stand up anywhere near as well.
C+