In the 1970s and 1980s, thriller films with the theme of Nanyang witchcraft were all the rage in the Hong Kong film industry, and director Ho Menghua was the first to start the first, at that time, Shaw was quite optimistic about his "descending to the tou" series, and strongly supported him to shoot three similar works in a row within this framework. In the 1980s, wuzhi films were carried forward in the hands of Gui Zhihong, and the "Clam" series directed by him can be said to have really influenced the creative direction of subsequent similar works, and also inspired all kinds of directors to exhaust their tricks to attract audiences through more gimmicky and more visually impactful genre films, one of which cannot be ignored, just in 1982, "Centipede Curse" directed by Li Bailing, also known as "Centipede King".
The story tells that the rich man's son Bai Weilun (Miao Qiaowei) gave her a string of amulet necklaces before his sister was about to travel to Nanyang, but during the trip, the sister did not obey her brother's instructions to remove the necklace, and as a result, she was bitten by a centipede in the wild, and died soon after being sent to the hospital, and her mother told Wei Lun that the Bai family seemed to have suffered a lingering "retribution", but did not say what its source was.
The Wei Lun family has not had time to grieve, inexplicable strange things followed, first there were also traces of centipedes in Wei Lun's family, and then his sister's columbarium was strangely exploded, in order to find out the truth and reasons, Wei Lun decided to return to Nanyang, accompanied by his old classmate Ruo zhi (Li Dianlang), found Master Lavan, and learned from his mouth that his grandfather had done disgraceful things in Nanyang, which caused the tragedy of the whole village being burned, and after that, The surviving mage (Hu Xian Hasin) left behind by the tragedy is bent on revenge on the Bai family, and Bai Weilun's father and sister have become his revenge targets, and then it is soon Wei Lun's turn.
Due to the strength and vengeance of the surviving mages, not only did Weren accidentally get caught, but even Ruozhi was cursed by the other party, and the colleagues who helped them were also killed, he manipulated Ruozhi with mysterious power, and even released a large number of centipedes to besiege Wei Lun when Wei Lun relaxed his defenses, fortunately, Master Lavan intervened in time to save him and defeat him, and finally helped Wei Lun survive the disaster temporarily.
Although this "Centipede Curse" is full of a strong "cult" temperament, the three views to be conveyed are still quite correct, and what runs through the whole film is still the argument that "good has good rewards, and evil has evil rewards", and teaches people to be single-minded towards good. Just like the Bai family in the film encountered misfortune, it was caused by the evil deeds committed by the ancestors of the Bai family, and the villain mage ran to harm people in order to take revenge, and as a result, he planted evil causes, and finally naturally ended up taking the blame.
Overall, this film and Gui Zhihong's "蛊" is still based on the "witch" element that makes people feel curious, and the authenticity is not discussed here, but the last two factions of the fighting method are indeed very exciting, after the villain releases the centipede, Lavan chooses to deal with the chicken, and its magic is just like the "Iron Rooster Fighting Centipede" in which Huang Feihong finally realized that the concept of being able to restrain the centipede through the "iron chicken" is almost the same, and there is a kind of meaning that Chinese said "one thing drops one thing".
Nowadays, most European and American thrillers are interested in leaving an open-ended ending, it turns out that As early as this "Centipede Curse", Li Bailing has made such a treatment, and the last shot of the film, although it seems that the curse on Ruozhi's body has been solved, but its face has flashed a centipede-like red spot, which also leaves the audience with the question of "whether she has returned to normal". However, in the 1980s, Hong Kong did not yet lay such a mature business concept as a sequel with an open-ended ending, and the purpose of this was only to strengthen the meaning of the ending and leave a shocking aftertaste.
Since "Centipede Curse" is to "qi" to attract people's attention, then the film's promotional slogan must also highlight a strange word, for example, its poster was printed with the words "hundreds of thousands of centipedes rushed to the screen", which is quite attractive, in fact, combined with the film, the number of hundreds of thousands of centipedes is certainly not reached, but thousands of absolutely no moisture, the use of so many centipedes as props and as "protagonists", it can be said that it is extremely rare in Hong Kong-style similar films, so another sentence on the poster "unprecedented innovation in the history of film" The slogan should be more veritable, and director Li Bailing's move is enough to prove that he has been an assistant director for Chu Yuan, Zhang Xinyan and others before, in order to kill a bloody road in the film world, it is really a painstaking effort.
However, the most jaw-dropping thing about the film is not the appearance of a large number of centipedes, but the thriller scene where the centipede finally crawls onto Li Dianlang and spits out the centipede in his mouth. As the daughter of the great director Li Hanxiang, Li Dianlang could have taken advantage of his father's connections to pick up some more relaxed plays, there was no need to work so hard, but she could still dare to open up herself to do a dedicated performance in the end, this spirit and attitude can not help but be admired, before, the author has always thought that Li Dianlang's play path is very limited, and there are not many actor representative works, but through this movie, it is enough to make me deeply remember her.
Another place worth mentioning in this film is that Hu Xian Hassin, who has starred in "The Clam", has been invited to play the villain mage again, his identity in the play is actually his own business, and another actor who plays the "Centipede King" is named Chen Fucai, who not only provides creative inspiration for this film, but also the "centipede directing" of the whole movie, because the centipede in the play is raised by him, and the crew invites two people to join, perhaps in pursuit of a so-called sense of reality.
Although the status and popularity of this film in the history of film is not as good as that of "蛊", but personally I think it is enough to be comparable to "蛊", looking at the witch films in the history of Hong Kong film, many of them borrow the framework of genre films to play some off-the-beaten-track things, relatively speaking, this "Centipede Curse" has been relatively restrained and restrained, and it is more orthodox and authentic in terms of the taste of "cult", which makes people can't help but marvel at the boldness, madness and avant-garde of the Hong Kong film style and processing methods at that time.