0:03

Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production

0:05

of iHeartRadio.

0:13

Hey you welcome to Weird House Cinema.

0:15

This is Rob Lamb and this is

0:17

Joe McCormick, and today we are

0:19

going to be talking about the nineteen

0:21

eighty two Taiwanese fantasy

0:24

wusha film Wolf Devil

0:26

Woman aka Wolf and Queen

0:29

aka Wolf and Ninja,

0:31

which was distributed by

0:34

IFD, a company that apparently

0:36

really enjoyed giving movies an

0:39

English title with the word ninja

0:41

in them. Whether or not the movie had anything

0:43

to do with a ninja usually, I think

0:45

it didn't. A bit of just slot

0:47

ninja in there. So Wolf and Ninja,

0:50

I guess that'll kind of work. But I'm gonna

0:52

call it Wolf Devil Woman because I think that

0:54

is it combines all

0:56

of the themes of the movie. You definitely have a woman,

0:59

she is kind of a woman, and there are

1:01

major themes of devils, even though the Wolf

1:04

Woman is not really a devil.

1:05

I agree, I think this is the title to go with, So.

1:08

Rob, I don't know if you have another contender in mind

1:10

here, but I would say of all the films

1:12

we have ever covered on Weird House, I

1:15

think Wolf Devil Woman is one of

1:17

the most shrouded in mystery,

1:20

and by that I just mean that we

1:22

were able to turn up very

1:24

little objective information in English

1:27

about the production history and

1:29

the people who made this movie, at least compared

1:31

to most of the movies that we watch on the show.

1:34

But one thing that is for certain is

1:37

we know it is. Of course,

1:39

you know, movies are all the work of many people. There's

1:41

never just one creator. But this movie,

1:44

I think is well known as

1:46

a product of a singular genius

1:49

by the writer, director, producer,

1:51

and star Zang Ling, known

1:54

in international releases as Pearl

1:57

Chang.

1:59

Yeah, Pearl Chang is the moniker that I

2:01

believe IFD gave her just to like, you

2:03

know, to spice it up in the same way

2:05

that suddenly it's a ninja movie. Call

2:08

her Pearl Chang. It's just marketing.

2:09

So Zangling or Pearl Chang wrote

2:12

and directed four movies

2:15

around the early eighties, and

2:17

now I have only seen one of them. I feel like I've

2:19

got to see the other three because she has

2:23

such a weird, bizarre,

2:26

pleasing and distinct style. This

2:29

is a movie that Wolf

2:31

Devil Woman, I mean specifically, is

2:33

a movie that has had a reputation

2:36

for many years as sort of one

2:38

of as like a low budget bad

2:40

movie. People thought of it as bad, and

2:42

it was sort of circulated on low

2:45

quality VHS tapes and the kind of movie

2:47

people would put on for a laugh. And it

2:49

certainly does have elements that are very

2:51

funny. But I also think this movie really

2:53

does have a genius and a style of its

2:55

own that should be appreciated. Like

2:58

it's not just ironically good. This

3:01

is an exercise in imagination,

3:04

and I really love it for what it is.

3:06

Oh yeah, it's rigally entertaining. It

3:08

is intentionally comedic throughout.

3:12

So it's not just a situation of like, oh look

3:14

look what they attempted to do, isn't it funny? Now, Like

3:16

they're attempting and succeeding multiple

3:19

times with comedy. We have a

3:21

great central performance by Pearl

3:23

Chang, who is at once funny,

3:27

like broadly so, and

3:30

yet never really

3:32

never in a way that feels mean. Also,

3:35

she gets she does get to be like the complete

3:37

like stone cold action woman

3:40

who gets to kill multiple batties.

3:42

She gets to do that a lot, so

3:44

she gets to pull those levers as well.

3:47

But it's just such a captivating

3:50

performance, like if nothing, you know, if

3:52

nothing else in the film caught your eye, like

3:55

she is like the shining star at

3:57

the center of it.

3:58

So like by the end of the movie, the

4:00

Wolf Woman that the main character played by

4:03

Pearl Chang is she's

4:05

hardcore, Like she she's

4:09

a stone cold warrior who is

4:11

coming in to like be the coolest and

4:14

defeat the enemy. But early on in

4:16

the film there's all not just early on in

4:18

fact, just different scenes in the film. It's

4:20

also like she gets to do

4:22

pratfalls and does like slapstick

4:25

sort of self deprecating klutz

4:27

humor. There's a scene where she accidentally

4:30

eats too much chicken and gets drunk and

4:32

then beats up a bunch of people in a restaurant.

4:35

It's great. Yeah, you

4:37

know, it's based on my observations

4:39

of the film and also going off some of the extras that

4:42

we were looking at from Justin to Clue

4:44

from over at Golden Ninja Video.

4:47

You know, it's like you have you

4:49

have a filmmaker and performer here who

4:51

is who seems to be to varying

4:54

degrees, like like bucking the trends and the expectations

4:57

of a female performer of a female

4:59

role of a female filmmaker

5:02

in a you know, mostly male dominated world.

5:05

So it's it's really it's really inspiring

5:07

to watch.

5:08

She really embraces the wolfinness

5:10

of the wolf character. But just

5:12

in general, this movie is so it's

5:14

not just the main character. The movie

5:17

is a wild beast howling from the

5:19

eighth dimension. It just has a

5:21

lot going on, and so much of it happens

5:23

so fast and with a little

5:26

preparation for it. One thing that's been

5:28

singled out about the style

5:30

of this movie is like the fast editing

5:33

and the action scenes, but also

5:35

just often quite sudden

5:37

and rapid plot developments. It's

5:40

it's all really great stuff. It's absolutely nuts

5:43

and it's awesome. One I do want

5:45

to issue one word of warning if you're

5:47

gonna go watch this movie, because there's a kind

5:49

of unusual thing in it. There were some

5:52

rabbit hunting scenes that occur on

5:54

screen, and it is quite

5:56

clear that they are unsimulated, so

6:00

large warning. If that's going to bother you,

6:02

you might want to, I don't know, have the fast forward

6:04

button ready or

6:06

just skip this one because there is

6:08

unsimulated rabbit bow hunting

6:11

on screen here.

6:12

Yeah. Yeah, an unfortunate reality

6:14

of some of these older pictures,

6:17

and sometimes it's something like

6:19

this that you can tell looking at it. Other times

6:22

was often the case with a lot of horsemanship

6:25

on camera. There is some you

6:27

know, ultimately some animal cruelty going on there

6:30

that may be lost to the average viewer because

6:32

we just don't necessarily recognize what goes

6:34

in to performing stunts

6:36

with horses, right, But anyway,

6:38

not to forgive it. It's there and if you want to avoid

6:41

it by all means, avoid it now it's

6:43

worth pointing out. This is our third

6:45

Taiwanese film. I believe we

6:48

previously discussed Thrilling Bloody Sword

6:51

and Child of Peach. Both of

6:53

those are very weird movies. I would say Thrilling

6:55

Bloody Sword is more unrelenting

6:58

psychedelic wusha and

7:00

Child of Peach is more intentionally

7:04

goofy.

7:05

Yeah, And it's.

7:06

Interesting to try and sort of place where Wolf Devil

7:09

Woman is between those two, because it's not nearly

7:11

as psychedelics is Throwing Bloody

7:13

Sword, but it has its moments, and

7:17

on the other hand, it does have plenty of broad comedic

7:19

moments as well, but certainly not to maybe the fantastic

7:22

extremes of Child of Peach.

7:24

The commentary track on the release

7:28

of this movie that we watched the Golden Ninja release

7:30

has some sort

7:32

of general thoughts on it about differences

7:35

you often see between Taiwanese

7:38

woosh of films and those produced in the Hong

7:40

Kong film industry, and

7:43

some of the things that this is by justin

7:45

the clue of Golden Ninja video, and he

7:48

says several things are like, first

7:50

of all, Taiwanese movies of this sort

7:52

tended to be lower budgets, they would be made

7:55

faster and cheaper than Hong Kong

7:57

films, but also they tended

7:59

to kind of make up for that by being

8:01

wackier and more imaginative

8:03

and having more unusual fantasy

8:06

elements, often more gore. You

8:08

definitely see that here in addition to what we

8:10

already mentioned. There are some unrealistic

8:13

looking but quite interesting gore effects

8:15

and just more of a kind of

8:18

wide ranging, fast moving,

8:21

kind of fast and loose feel to them.

8:23

Yeah, I remember one thing that he mentioned

8:26

in some of the exers for Thrilling Bloody Sword is that he's

8:28

kind of like the underdog status of Taiwanese

8:30

cinema of the time period where yeah, they really

8:32

felt like they had to do all these things. You

8:35

know, Hong Kong cinema had the advantage, but we

8:38

Taiwanese cinema could be even more daring,

8:41

daring and stunts, daring and plot

8:44

elements, the magic, the wackiness, what have you.

8:47

I do really love a lot of the stunts

8:49

in this movie, and it is stuff

8:51

that you will have you will have seen

8:53

in other movies of this type, Like there

8:56

is the Wusha Star often has a kind

8:59

of flying typeability or a

9:01

weightlessness that they were able to manifest,

9:03

so they can leap up thirty feet in

9:05

the air or sort of zoom across the zoom

9:08

across the room without their feet touching the floor.

9:11

So there's similar kinds of stunts to you

9:13

would what you would find in other movies of this type.

9:16

But I like the way they appear on screen here.

9:18

Often, like when the wolf Devil woman leaps

9:21

up in the air, like you know, up into the

9:23

treetops, it will be filmed in a kind

9:25

of slow motion that gives

9:27

her this this magical weight.

9:29

Yeah. Absolutely, it has some of these

9:31

these great woucha moments with the floating,

9:33

the flying, the like

9:35

strange physical interactions occurring

9:38

by two flying characters nit

9:40

air that sort of thing, Yeah yeah,

9:42

and then some just straight up moratal kombat fatalities.

9:45

Yeah yeah. There's there's a lot of sorcery

9:48

too. So, like the bad guys in the

9:50

movie have a habit of walking

9:52

up to people and just blasting these

9:54

huge, billowing gusts

9:56

of fog out of their sleeves

9:59

that somehow like either burn people

10:01

or freeze them.

10:03

There's the Lady Demon Minion who covers

10:05

people with spiders and web yes, the

10:07

Witch. Yeah, so there's plenty of magic

10:10

to go around. It's what we're saying.

10:11

Okay, should we do the elevator pitch?

10:13

Let's have it.

10:14

A young woman is raised by wolves

10:17

after her parents are murdered by the minions

10:19

of a sparkly devil. The wolves

10:22

happen to feed this young girl a plant

10:24

root that is a sort of one of a kind

10:26

plant root, a once in a thousand years root

10:29

that gives her amazing powers

10:31

of weightless leaping and martial arts.

10:33

And then when a pair of heroic adventurers

10:36

meet the wolf woman, they teach her to

10:38

speak human language and live like

10:40

a human at least sort of and they inadvertently

10:43

open her mind to a bloody path of

10:45

revenge against the demon.

10:48

All right, Joe, what's your what's your tagline for

10:51

this one?

10:51

Who are you gonna call white gensing?

10:54

Okay, gen sing root?

10:56

Yeah, white gensing has a major

10:58

role in this picture, despite the fact

11:00

that, as far as I can understand,

11:03

like white gensing is just a variety

11:05

of gensying that

11:07

you encounter and you can buy it.

11:10

So I don't know if this was ultimately

11:12

something where the actual term used

11:15

in the Mandarin it's referring to some

11:17

sort of mythical substance, because

11:19

there are plenty of things like that, you know that we've

11:21

discussed in the Unstuffed to Blow of your Mind before. You

11:24

know, some sort of mythical substance that grows on a sacred

11:26

mountain and has to be harvested. So maybe

11:28

it was something like that somehow,

11:31

you know, linked to the source material, and

11:34

it's just been replaced in dubs

11:36

and subtitles as white genzing.

11:38

Hmm. Yeah, I didn't know what to make of that.

11:40

All right. Normally we would we would hit

11:43

you with some trailer audio right now, but

11:45

as far as I know, there is not a theatrical

11:48

trailer available for this film, either

11:51

for its original market or uh,

11:53

you know, for international markets. So instead,

11:55

I thought we just might have just a quick audio

11:58

sample of some of the audio

12:01

nuttiness of this film, because there

12:04

are multiple times while I was watching it

12:06

where I was just like man, even if you weren't watching this

12:08

film, if you're just listening to it, it's

12:10

just absolutely bonkers.

12:12

Maybe we can get some of the English dub of the demon

12:14

talking.

12:15

Oh, yes, yes he is, he is fabulous.

12:17

All right, let's have.

12:18

It

12:28

such a great here, it's become my Yeah, I

12:30

understand you came here to kill me, but

12:32

it looks and things have change.

12:37

All right now, if you want to watch

12:40

Wolf Devil Woman. Before we proceed,

12:43

first of all, bear in mind it has all these different

12:45

titles. If you're searching for it, you

12:48

might need a search for Wolf and

12:50

Ninja. You'll find

12:53

Queen Wolf and Queen and so

12:56

forth. You of course, also you can always you

12:58

know, get the original like man title

13:01

and you know, in the Mandarin

13:03

characters and throw that into search and you might be able to

13:05

find it as well.

13:06

But I think we should make clear that if you're

13:08

like looking for versions of this on

13:10

disc or on the internet, and you can't

13:13

find one where the picture is good. Yeah,

13:15

that's just sort of what you're stuck with apparently

13:17

there as far as I'm aware, there

13:19

is really no good looking

13:21

version of this movie out there. Yeah.

13:24

I mean, hopefully that'll change, because I believe

13:26

that changed with Thrilling Bloody Sword. We

13:29

had the version that came out that

13:31

gold Ninja Video put out, and

13:33

if memory serves correctly, some

13:36

better source material for it, something

13:39

that can maybe be remastered, has surfaced

13:42

and we can look forward to another

13:45

even more magical release of Thrilling Bloody Swords.

13:47

So, you know, as films like this become popular, you never

13:49

know what they're going to turn up. We have We've discussed

13:51

cases of this before, such as Santo

13:54

in the Treasure of Dracula, where they thought

13:57

that, you know, any any

13:59

color print of the movie was just lost, and

14:01

then they found it in a vault.

14:02

I would really love to discover that in this case

14:05

because so, yeah, we both watched it

14:07

on the disc release by

14:09

Golden Ninja Video, and

14:12

that disc has two different

14:14

versions of the film, both of

14:16

which have problems. One is

14:19

one in the original aspect ratio, which is

14:21

like a widescreen version of the movie that

14:24

the picture is really pretty poor,

14:26

like the colors are kind of

14:28

messed up, and it's not very

14:30

sharp, and it has hard baked

14:33

in Greek subtitles, which I

14:35

don't know, maybe that's your thing, but I

14:37

guess they kind of pile up if you're also watching

14:39

it with English subtitles or whatever subtitles

14:42

on top of that. But maybe that's

14:44

a good one to watch with a dub. Though

14:47

in general, I can recommend the English dub

14:49

on this movie, which is quite fun, yes.

14:52

And I think that's key. Like one of the things about dubs

14:54

is you want a dub that is at

14:57

least mostly accurate, and you want

14:59

the dub to more or less match the intended

15:01

tone of the film, Like if it's a serious

15:03

film or it has kind of a serious tone, you don't

15:05

want you don't want the dub

15:08

to be making fun of the picture. You

15:11

don't want the dub to be

15:13

completely off kilter. And I feel

15:15

like the dub is wacky and

15:18

fun in a way that the movie is wacky and

15:20

fun, and at least to my ear,

15:22

it never came off as disrespectful.

15:24

But anyway, that is the wide screen

15:27

version on the disc. There was also a

15:29

full screen version, where from what I

15:31

can tell, the picture is sharper,

15:34

so it's a little bit better looking, but it's

15:36

badly cropped, so you're missing a lot of

15:38

the original film.

15:40

That's the version I watched. I

15:42

looked at the other one, the wide screen, and I just

15:44

felt like the picture quality was overall

15:47

two degraded for me to get into it as much,

15:50

so I decided to go with the other though I

15:52

will say it did probably make some of the action sequences,

15:55

especially those in the last

15:57

quarter of the picture, a little more confusing.

16:00

Sure, I think those are somewhat confusing

16:02

no matter what crop you're looking at.

16:04

That's the thing, right, So

16:07

yeah, that Golden Ninja video

16:09

release was titled Wolf Devil

16:12

Director the Films of Pearl Chang. It was

16:14

a two disc thing. It's currently

16:17

out of print, but hey, you

16:19

can go to gold Ninja Video dot

16:21

com. You sign up for their newsletter,

16:24

maybe hassle them a little bit. Who knows, they might

16:26

put it out again. I know they've re released things in the past.

16:28

I would get a copy if they put it

16:30

out again. Yeah, and by the

16:32

way, we should say that that release not

16:35

only has Wolf Devil Woman that one is

16:37

sort of the main main event, but it

16:39

also has some of Zangling

16:42

or Pearl Chang's other films in

16:44

uh. I think it In fact, I wonder does

16:47

it have all three of the ones that she wrote

16:49

and directed. I believe it does have matching escort,

16:52

and I think it does have the one

16:54

about the Flower.

16:56

I think you're right. I don't have It's in the other room, so

16:58

I can't pick it up and look at it right now, Okay,

17:00

but it's definitely worth

17:02

picking up if you're interested in these films.

17:05

Again, we rented it from Video Drum here

17:07

in Atlanta, as we often do. So

17:10

if you are local to Atlanta or visiting Atlanta

17:12

with your Blu Ray Player, you can go

17:14

over to Video Drome and rent it for yourself

17:17

and just a quick shout out

17:19

here. Video Drome, in cooperation

17:22

with a couple of other parties, are trying to put

17:24

together wings Fest, a film

17:27

festival devoted

17:29

to the magical work of Wingshauser.

17:32

We've talked about wings Hauser on the show before because he was

17:34

the villain in Beast Master two. Well,

17:37

they're trying to they're trying to bring

17:40

him in for as a special guest

17:42

for wings Fest. So if that, if you're

17:44

interested in that at all, if you're in town or

17:46

going to be in town for it, go to

17:49

Video Drum's Instagram account. They are video

17:51

Drome underscore at l and

17:53

you can find out more. It's currently in the kickstarter

17:55

phase, so yeah, jump in and

17:58

help fund it if that interest you.

18:08

All right, would you like to talk about the connections

18:10

in this movie.

18:12

Yeah, we're gonna get into it as much as we can.

18:14

This one is definitely a film with

18:16

the least amount of information on the

18:19

available databases, so we're talking you

18:21

know, the movie database IMDb,

18:24

also the Hong Kong Movie Database, which often

18:27

provides additional insight into

18:30

films from Hong Kong, Taiwanese and

18:32

mainland Chinese cinema. But in

18:34

this case, really not so much.

18:37

Like we said, this is one of the more mysterious

18:40

films that we've looked at. But we're gonna

18:42

walk you through what we know. So starting

18:44

at the top, Yeah, it's Pearl Chang Ling

18:47

or Pearl Chang and so

18:49

forth, the director, the the writer,

18:52

the producer, the star and also

18:54

she did the theme song vocals.

18:56

Oh okay, Yeah, she sang

18:58

the theme song to some other pros that she

19:00

was involved in before she was directing her own films

19:03

as well.

19:03

Yeah, she I mean, she is just a tour de force

19:06

here. So she was

19:08

born in nineteen fifty five. According

19:10

to the Hong Kong Movie Database, she was active from

19:13

seventy two through eighty three, acting

19:15

in twenty four films, writing for directing

19:18

three. And I want to just

19:20

add an asterisk there because I know that there are some films

19:22

that it's thought that she did

19:24

direct, but another director

19:27

that may be just a pseudonym is

19:29

attributed. And again we don't have a lot of

19:32

information to go on in the databases here.

19:34

From what I was reading and what was in the documentary

19:36

on the disc, it seems that it

19:39

is acknowledged that she directed four films

19:41

and one of them has a director's credit

19:43

that is a pseudonym for her.

19:45

Okay, well, the three that are

19:48

definitely her there's

19:50

A Romantic Night in eighty one, matching

19:52

Escort in eighty two and Wolf Devil

19:54

Woman in eighty two as well. So

19:58

this picture would seem to appe pretty late

20:01

in her film career, followed only by a trio

20:03

of nineteen eighty three films in which

20:05

she acted the three famous constables,

20:08

General Invincible, which she also wrote,

20:10

and is that the one that she also may

20:12

have.

20:12

Directed, possibly, I'm not

20:14

sure.

20:15

And then Fantasy Mission Force.

20:17

She didn't direct that one. That is a movie

20:19

that she started in along with

20:22

Jackie Chan.

20:23

That's right, yes, Now. IMDb

20:25

also lists her as an uncredited actor

20:28

in nineteen ninety one's Thunder Ninja Kids

20:30

The Hunt for the Devil Boxer, but this is

20:32

not reflected on Hong Kong Movie Database,

20:35

and I don't think it was mentioned on

20:37

the extras for the gold Ninja release, so

20:40

I'm tempted to dismiss this one.

20:42

Yeah, but once again, in the case

20:44

of Wolf Devil Woman, we know that she

20:47

wrote it, produced it, directed

20:49

it, and starred in it in multiple

20:51

roles.

20:52

Yes, yeah, I believe she plays

20:54

her own mother, as we'll discuss.

20:56

Yeah, Rob, I don't

20:58

know if you've got a chance to watch it, but is a

21:00

short documentary I think it's about ten minutes long

21:02

on the Golden Ninja release that

21:05

focuses on the life and work

21:08

of Zang Ling or Pearl Chang what

21:11

we were able to know about her. I

21:13

did watch this, Oh, okay's quite good. So,

21:15

yeah, this is good. So some

21:18

of the things that they talk about in there is that

21:20

she starred in over twenty movies. According

21:23

to their research, she wrote and directed

21:25

four feature films, not three. That

21:28

there really is. I think it's not just

21:31

a lack of available materials in

21:33

English. This made it sound more

21:35

like that there really just is not a whole lot

21:37

that is publicly known about her.

21:40

Yeah, it sounds like she was She's thought to have

21:42

ultimately been kind of a private person anyway,

21:45

And yeah, that certainly factors

21:48

into the lack of information here.

21:50

Once again, the name Pearl Chang is the

21:52

name is like her work name that appeared

21:55

on international releases distributed

21:57

by IFD. IFD once again

22:00

they like specialize in releasing

22:02

movies with the word ninja in the English

22:04

title. So ye, there's a lot of mingo.

22:06

Look them up. Ninja Terminator, the Ninja

22:08

Squad, Ninja Silent Assassin, Diamond

22:11

Ninja Force.

22:12

Not to be confused with Lady Terminator. But

22:14

it's interesting here that you would release it

22:17

as Ninja Terminator. Just go ahead and dip it into

22:19

both buckets, you know.

22:20

Yeah, I wonder how much it has to do with Ninja's

22:22

or Terminators. I don't think I've seen that one,

22:26

but yeah. Anyway, So we learn

22:28

in this documentary that Pearl Chang was trained

22:31

as a singer but also

22:34

in ballet, taekwon do and

22:36

in journalism. So

22:39

she acted in some films

22:41

that seem now to be lost, but

22:43

her big break was around nineteen seventy

22:46

four or seventy five when

22:48

she starred in a TV show

22:50

called The Protectors, which

22:52

was apparently hugely popular in

22:55

Taiwan. So this was a show about,

22:57

you know, sort of fantasy heroes,

23:00

Marshall heroes, people doing martial

23:02

arts and sword play. It was kind of

23:04

a swashbuckler, and Pearl

23:07

Chang sang the theme song to the show.

23:09

She also played a wandering swordswoman

23:12

who apparently became a breakout

23:14

character. And then after being

23:16

in this show, she would

23:18

appear in a movie where

23:21

the title translates to Armed Escort

23:23

or China Armed Escort, which

23:26

was it seems an unofficial movie

23:28

adaptation of this TV show

23:30

The Protectors, which had been her

23:33

big hit. And then after this

23:35

she would go on to write and direct her own

23:37

features, which are generally Woosha

23:39

revenge stories. One

23:42

of them is called Miraculous Flower, released

23:44

in nineteen eighty one. I think basically all

23:46

of these had multiple different English titles,

23:48

so there can be some confusion there, but

23:51

one is referred to in the documentary as Miraculous

23:53

Flower. This is sort of considered notable

23:55

because a lot of the

23:58

films of this type produced around

24:00

this time would be shot mostly on

24:04

indoor stage sets. But apparently

24:06

Miraculous Flower had a lot of outdoor

24:08

filming locations and it was quite

24:10

lovely looking.

24:11

Yeah. This extra included one clip from

24:13

some sort of a waterfall that looked a lot

24:15

like the waterfall from Child Peach. I'm

24:18

not certain, but I mean, obviously there's

24:20

more than one waterfall in Taiwan. But at

24:23

any rate, very very interesting

24:26

use of outdoor filming locations for

24:28

sure, as opposed to these indoor sets,

24:30

which I don't know. I love

24:32

a great over the top Taiwanese

24:35

Wu shaw set, and we can get

24:37

those in this picture.

24:39

Yeah, we get a great temple set for they

24:41

kick off the movie with a rollicking

24:44

crucifixion at an indoor temple set,

24:48

let's see. According to this documentary,

24:51

this seems less well founded, but just

24:53

sort of general rumors about Zengling's

24:57

reputation. She was considered

24:59

something of a loaner and

25:02

was characterized by some as maybe difficult

25:04

to work with, or as a perfectionist

25:07

and difficult to work with, but Declu

25:10

argues in this documentary that

25:12

it's quite possible that having a reputation

25:15

for being difficult to work with was just

25:17

like men in a male dominated

25:19

industry reacting with

25:21

alarm to a woman who is insisting

25:24

on doing things her way. Yeah.

25:26

We've touched on the whole difficult

25:28

to work with a label

25:30

before on the show, which can mean a lot of things.

25:32

You can see it applied to people like say Kloskinski,

25:35

who I think was legitimately difficult,

25:38

if not impossible to work with.

25:40

That was a hymn thing, not an other people

25:42

thing.

25:42

Yeah, but other times who can say,

25:44

you know, it could be just the slightest thing possible

25:47

that just goes to the echo chamber and then it becomes

25:49

difficult to work with, you know.

25:50

Yeah. I can certainly imagine in

25:52

any national context, really that a

25:56

woman making films might well

25:58

just like be have a creative

26:00

vision of her own and she's like, this is the way

26:03

we need to do it, and maybe some guys around

26:05

her are just freaked out by that. But

26:07

anyway, in nineteen eighty three, I think

26:09

this is one of her final credits. She

26:12

acted alongside Jackie Chan but also

26:14

Jimmy Wang Yu and Brigent Lynn in

26:17

Fantasy Mission Force, which was a Hong

26:19

Kong a sort of martial arts fantasy

26:21

horror movie. And

26:24

then she also released her final

26:26

film, General Invincible in nineteen eighty

26:28

three, after which she

26:31

apparently just disappeared from public view.

26:33

So there is not really, as far as I could

26:35

tell, anything known about what she did after that.

26:38

Yeah, I mean, there's been no death

26:40

date for her, so one presumes

26:42

that she's still alive, but doesn't

26:45

seem to have been a public persona

26:48

in any way after this last film,

26:50

which is fine. We've talked about this before, like

26:53

Warhawk Tanzania made

26:56

basically just a very small handful of pictures

26:58

and then disappeared. I'mbly still alive,

27:00

but maybe just didn't want to be part of the limelight

27:03

after that, And if so, more power

27:05

to him and more power to Pearl Chang if

27:07

that is the case here.

27:08

Yes, retiring from a public facing profession

27:11

and just living your life. I give

27:13

that my full blessing. It's a choice I support.

27:16

Now. I don't know about you, Joe, but you

27:18

know it's you can't help but compare

27:21

a performer, especially you know, a real larger

27:23

than a live performer, to try and find some comparison

27:26

to them, either like in current or recent

27:29

or like a different nationality of cinema.

27:32

And the main person that I kept thinking

27:35

of watching

27:37

Pearl Chang on screen is Amy Sedaris.

27:40

I'm a big Amy Sedaris fan. And there's

27:42

just something, especially in the comedic scenes, the

27:44

way that Amy Sedaris really commits

27:47

to these you know, weird and wacky moments.

27:51

I felt like she had a similar energy

27:53

here Pearl Chang did.

27:55

Okay, yeah, maybe like hopping around and falling

27:57

on your face with the rabbit blood all over

27:59

your chin. Yeah yeah,

28:01

yeah.

28:01

There are multiple parts in the film where I was like this, Amy

28:04

Sedaris would have totally done this.

28:06

Yeah, okay, the restaurant

28:08

chicken disaster scene.

28:10

Yeah, exactly, So stuff

28:12

like that, And I don't know, Also, maybe I'm you

28:14

know, I can't help but compare, and you know, think about Amy

28:16

Sedaris as someone who also has like a very seems

28:19

to have a very singular vision and you know,

28:21

a big personality, but also is you

28:24

know, I don't think Amy Sides is a loner by any means,

28:26

but she also I've seen things where she talks about, like, you

28:28

know, enjoying crafting by herself

28:30

and her apartment and that sort of thing, So you

28:32

know, I can kind of line them up

28:34

in my own imagination on that level

28:37

as well.

28:38

Yeah, I no offense to Amy

28:40

Sidaris at all. I can see her less in

28:42

some of the other aspects of this role that

28:45

Pearl Chang does so wonderfully, like the when

28:47

she actually becomes the like the

28:50

cold, the cold steel warrior at the

28:52

end.

28:53

Yes, I agree, when she gets into the like the stone

28:55

cold killer mode. Yeah, it's a

28:57

different act altogether, all right. Now,

29:00

one of the challenges that and a challenge we're not really

29:02

going to be able to overcome here, is that on

29:04

all of the databases we had access to, none

29:07

of the actors are matched up with

29:09

a character name. And on top

29:11

of that, the character name's very

29:14

depending if you're doing

29:16

the dub or you're doing the

29:18

subtitles, so it gets very

29:21

confusing and difficult to chart exactly

29:23

who everyone is supposed to be. Luckily,

29:26

Pearl Chang's character in this snowflower

29:29

or wolf woman or wolf

29:32

and queen, the various monikers

29:34

that are attributed to her. She's the main character.

29:36

She's see really the only one. You have to be super

29:39

invested in and know what her name is. Yeah,

29:41

but as far as we can tell, I

29:44

believe Sifing is

29:46

the actor who plays Master Lee. Master

29:49

Lee being the sort of he's

29:52

sort of in the mold of the traditional male hero

29:55

in the picture.

29:56

He's the wandering prince with

29:58

the powerful sword. Yeah.

30:01

So not a lot about this

30:04

particular actor either. He was born in nineteen

30:06

forty two. This may be his most well known

30:08

film internationally, but he was

30:10

also in nineteen seventy six's Adventure of Shaolin,

30:13

seventy eight's The Zodiac Fighters, in nineteen

30:15

eighty two's The Hell and

30:19

just basically a character. I don't

30:21

know who played these characters. But he has

30:23

a sidekick named Wong but

30:26

also possibly Rudy I think, but

30:29

will probably refer to him as Wong. And then he

30:31

has a master, like a Shaolin master

30:34

that he studied under, by the name

30:36

of Master Chew.

30:38

Yeah, that's right, all right.

30:39

And then Master Lee's father

30:43

I'm not sure if we know his name, but he has a father

30:45

that he meets

30:48

with and is sent on missions by This

30:51

character is played by Se

30:54

Wang, who lived nineteen thirty

30:56

through twenty sixteen, an actor who

30:58

appeared in two films we've talked about

31:00

on the show before. Nineteen seventy

31:02

five is The Super Inframan, in which he plays

31:05

a professor at one point, and

31:07

also nineteen seventy six is The Oily

31:09

Maniac. This was a Shaw

31:12

Brothers melt monster movie. He

31:14

has a I think it's a small part that he plays

31:16

a lawyer in that man.

31:18

Those are like the two ends of the spectrum, like

31:20

the like

31:22

with Inframan, you've got the most beautiful,

31:25

holy, pure imagination

31:28

ever and then with The Oily Maniac, just

31:30

the seediest thing we've ever watched.

31:33

Yeah, Yeah, And to be clear, we do avoid

31:36

most CED films, but this one has some

31:39

CD elements that kind of like slipped in early

31:41

on in weird house cinema that we have we

31:44

generally avoid later on. But still very

31:46

cool monster and I'm guessing a great

31:48

performance by Weighing

31:50

here as a lawyer. His

31:53

other film credits include nineteen eighty six Is

31:55

a Better Tomorrow directed by John Wu and

31:57

starring Chawion Fat and the Leslie

31:59

Chung. He has one hundred and ninety

32:01

credits on Hong Kong Movie Database, so it

32:04

seems like he was kind of like a workhorse

32:06

performer that they brought in for this one. That's

32:08

my interpretation anyway. And

32:11

then as far as the music goes, the credited

32:13

composer is Huang Mao Sean

32:16

born nineteen forty, Taiwanese film composer

32:18

whose credits include eighty two's The Green

32:20

Green Grass of Home and also

32:22

nineteen eighty one's The Devil. I

32:25

will say the music and overall soundscape

32:27

in this movie tends to rapidly

32:30

move in and out of just electronic

32:32

madness with demon growls, demon

32:34

laughter, and howling wolves to

32:36

like sort of traditional East Asian themes.

32:39

There was one review I read where I couldn't

32:41

confirm whether this was true or not, but it alleged

32:44

that this movie also used some

32:47

music from Dawn of the Dead.

32:50

That would be believable. Yeah, there

32:52

are a lot of these pictures that seem

32:54

to play a little fast and loose with their

32:57

soundtrack. I mean you find that in others as well. I was watching

33:00

Ramsey Brothers Indian

33:02

horror movie, just like last

33:05

week, and there at one point where they just go straight

33:07

into Friday the thirteenth music purchase,

33:10

even with the sound

33:12

effect, all

33:14

of it just blatant legend

33:16

ground here. Yeah,

33:19

just blatantly ripped

33:21

from Friday the thirteenth. So you know that sort of thing

33:23

occurs.

33:24

Okay, that's good, but I'd be really impressed

33:26

if it just started featuring the

33:28

Darkest Side of Night from Jason Takes

33:30

Manhattan.

33:34

Oh yeah, yeah, that was the

33:36

rock number.

33:37

Yeah, Fallen Angels into the

33:39

Street.

33:41

Yeah, nothing is obvious as all that here though.

33:52

All right, you ready to talk about the plot.

33:54

Oh yeah, let's talk about this plot.

33:56

Okay, Rob, I've pulled in some screenshots

33:58

from the first couple of minutes of the movie

34:01

that you can peruse while I'm trying to describe

34:03

what happens here, because it's a lot to take in

34:05

really fast.

34:06

Yeah, the first three minutes of this movie

34:09

are incredibly weird and captivating.

34:11

So if you're just on the fence, go check out the first

34:13

three minutes on tuby or wherever you find a rip

34:15

of it. I think you'll be convinced.

34:17

Yeah. So the film begins with lightning

34:20

ripping across the sky that is covered

34:22

in smoke. We see a dead tree

34:24

with barren limbs burning in the night.

34:27

Then we see a golden idol in

34:29

the crude shape of a man photographed

34:32

in a room with violet walls.

34:35

Then some kind of throne room

34:37

or temple with like an elevated area

34:40

above, you know, in the center of the room, big

34:43

old platform in the center. Hooded

34:45

figures in black and white carry candles

34:47

across the floor and gather in advance

34:50

of an ominous ceremony. Then we

34:52

get our title screen. In this version it

34:54

says wolf and ninja.

34:56

So the hooded figures begin to approach

34:59

the altar, the head of the temple, and

35:01

they are carrying with them

35:03

a man. The man is prone

35:06

and tied to a beam. But

35:08

wait, it's not just a beam. It is

35:10

a cross. It is a man

35:13

tied to a blocky red

35:15

crucifix, and the man

35:18

on the cross is hoisted up above the

35:20

gathered congregation of evil. He's

35:22

tied to the cross, and then a horrible

35:24

figure takes center stage. It

35:27

is someone in dark clothing wearing a

35:29

red and gold cape and a

35:31

glittering silver conical

35:34

hat with a veil that falls over

35:36

the face and hangs down in front and

35:38

back, and on the front of the

35:40

conical part of the hat there

35:42

is a hot pink skull

35:44

and crossbones. So it is

35:46

essentially a pirate glam rock

35:49

capirote or like a penitent's

35:51

hood.

35:52

Yeah, this is the Red Devil, which we'll find

35:54

out later. And he's just fabulous,

35:57

just dressed to the nines here

35:59

and seem conceived in a way

36:01

to where it does seem like multiple

36:03

influences are coming together, Like this is not

36:06

sort of your stereotypical

36:08

like Hong Kong action picture

36:11

Wu Shaw villain. Like there

36:13

are elements like you said of like you know, Spanish

36:17

Spanish inquisition perhaps and penitents

36:21

and also I guess pirates

36:24

and also like disco warriors.

36:27

Yeah, the pink skull and crossbones.

36:29

Yeah, but the sparkles, it's like

36:31

glittering.

36:32

Yeah. So already just like three minutes

36:35

into the picture, we have this character. We have

36:37

a black magic crucifixion. There's a lot

36:39

going on.

36:40

So we got several observers looking

36:42

on in fear, others

36:44

looking on with excitement. Some

36:46

of the people in the room here are like vampires

36:49

and Orcs. There's one

36:51

guy that's just I don't know is

36:53

the like, is the green orc mask supposed

36:56

to be a vampire. I don't know exactly what

36:58

this guy's deal is.

36:59

Yeah, they're kind of spirit Halloween

37:01

mask masks going

37:03

on that are not convincing as

37:06

actual fleshy faces. They look

37:08

like Halloween masks. But I wouldn't change

37:10

them for anything. No, No, they they

37:13

ultimately work within the context of this film,

37:16

but they are, I guess, if you want to get critical,

37:19

some of the weakest choices in the picture.

37:22

Yeah. So the glam rock demon

37:24

priest who he also has I

37:26

didn't even get to this part yet. He's got knives

37:29

for fingers, but they're not like Freddy

37:31

Krueger knives, which are oriented what

37:34

you might say, perpendicular to like the

37:36

knuckles on the on

37:38

the fingers. These are like sort of

37:41

knife shovels that extend

37:43

about a foot out from the

37:45

tips of the fingers, like fingernails,

37:48

essentially along the contours of what a fingernail

37:50

would be, but more curved inward

37:53

and sharper.

37:54

Yes, and the dub

37:56

for this character's voice is terrific. It's

37:58

just just the right level of cheesy

38:01

over the top villain. That

38:03

works perfectly with such a cheesy over the top

38:05

villain, so again that the dub

38:09

matches the context of a picture

38:11

perfectly.

38:11

Here. Yes, so the demon priest

38:13

picks up a doll or an idol and

38:16

then pierces its heart with a stick. And

38:18

then this, by the principle commonly associated

38:21

in movies with a voodoo doll, causes

38:23

an equivalent wound to explode

38:26

on the chest of the man tied to the cross.

38:29

So the wound is the wound here is actually

38:31

rendered with cell animation, which

38:33

I love. And so

38:35

like a hole that looks almost like a gap

38:38

blasted in rock with cracks all around,

38:40

it opens up over the man's heart and

38:42

red blood pours out. And again this

38:45

is on a on a film

38:48

like film like still film of the

38:50

guy, and it's animated on top

38:52

of that.

38:53

Yeah, it's it's I love it.

38:55

It's just it's like they could have done

38:58

more of just like a traditional blood

39:00

effect, and that would have been that would have

39:02

been great. Years later, this

39:04

would have probably been cgi blood, but instead

39:06

we have this. We're between those

39:09

two and it ultimately

39:11

looks really cool.

39:12

Yeah, there's some really great cell animation that

39:14

comes in later too, Like in the very last

39:16

scene there's some cell animated fire that is

39:18

beautiful. Also, I should

39:20

say, throughout the scene, the demon

39:23

or the demon priest, he keeps making

39:25

a grunting sound which then

39:27

echoes back a lot. So imagine

39:30

it's this voice that goes like yo,

39:33

but then it echoes thirty times.

39:36

Yes, there is a lot of that. Like I said, the soundscape

39:38

for this picture is pretty Bonker's just on its

39:40

own.

39:41

Then the demon priest takes the doll

39:44

and turns it upside down and

39:46

dunks it headfirst into this big

39:48

old vat of frothy red

39:50

goo, and this causes some kind

39:53

of pain and suffering for the man on the cross.

39:55

And then in the background of the room there is

39:57

a couple holding a baby wrapped

40:00

in yellow swaddling, and I'm just like, this is not

40:02

the kind of event you bring a baby to.

40:04

And I think they're having the same realization.

40:07

They're like, honey, I think it's time we fled

40:09

the cult. I think the

40:11

devil Colt has gotten a little too heavy for

40:13

us, and we need to think about raising this child somewhere

40:15

else.

40:16

Exactly, they're observing this ritual

40:18

torture in horror, and

40:21

yeah, I'm not sure what they're doing here, but they obviously

40:23

don't like it. And then

40:25

we see the man on the cross. He spits

40:28

blood and dies. The doll

40:30

falls to the floor and shatters, and

40:33

then suddenly we just smash cut

40:35

to the mother and the father we saw in the

40:37

room. They're now outside on

40:39

a snow covered mountain side, surrounded

40:42

by evergreen trees, fleeing for their

40:44

lives with their baby in their arms. The

40:47

man and the woman are frightened and exhausted,

40:50

and we see them both carrying swords, so

40:52

I guess this is like a married pair of warriors.

40:55

And while running through the snow, the man

40:57

and woman are attacked by fighters

41:00

rest in red, wielding swords and pole

41:02

arms. And then the leader of the demon

41:04

fighters appears, and he is

41:06

one of the guys we saw at the ceremony,

41:08

the guy in the goofiest of all the

41:10

masks. It's like the vampire orc mask.

41:13

Yeah, the other mask looked cooler, So I do

41:15

wonder why they take this one

41:18

to do these things with.

41:20

It's good, so he said, the demon

41:22

leader. He goes to the

41:25

he's talking to the parents and he says, traitor, you

41:27

will be punished for your treachery, and

41:30

the mother says to him, we'd rather die

41:32

than go back to your hell and serve under

41:34

you. So did they come from Hell? Possibly?

41:37

Well maybe al And

41:39

then the parents they the parents are

41:42

brave fighters, so they finned off the

41:44

demon hnchmen. Initially they sort

41:46

of duel with them while they try to escape up

41:48

the mountain. I think we do learn that the

41:50

mother's name is Jade. And

41:52

then when the parents are eventually

41:55

cornered by the fighters from Hell, they

41:57

decide to.

42:00

Things.

42:00

I was about to say things start getting weird, but they've been

42:02

weird. Here's another weird thing. They decide

42:04

to sacrifice themselves to protect

42:07

their baby. And the way they decide

42:09

to do this is they stab

42:11

each other with swords and then

42:14

rapidly slam their heads

42:16

into the ground until the headbutting

42:18

of the mountain causes

42:20

an avalanche, and the avalanche

42:23

comes down and covers everything with snow. And

42:25

then they bleed on their child

42:27

and they say the blood will keep the baby warm

42:29

and protect her from the snow.

42:31

Wow. So many, so many issues

42:33

of this plan. Uh yeah, and I

42:35

have to say too, in that crazy moment

42:37

when this first happens, it's not entirely

42:40

clear that they are stabbing themselves. It

42:42

look I thought they were stabbing the baby and

42:45

running the baby. Yeah, Like I was like, oh my god,

42:47

this movie got so strange and

42:49

weird and dark all of a sudden I had It

42:51

wasn't until the second time I was going through it

42:54

with the dub and the subtitle of them like, Okay, they're

42:56

clearly stabbing themselves, And then I understood

42:59

this ridiculous plots

43:01

of theirs to bleed all over

43:03

their baby so that their warm blood will keep the baby

43:06

warm, as if blood is has

43:08

self sustaining warmth for us. Yeah,

43:11

but you know, within a mythic context, fine.

43:14

I criticize this plan as not realistic.

43:18

I probably supposed to be

43:20

more symbolic than realistic, I recognize.

43:23

Yeah, So the avalanche comes

43:25

down and buries them, but the Devil

43:27

warriors are not satisfied. They go digging

43:29

in the snow to find the three of them, and

43:31

they eventually do find the two parents, but

43:34

before they can collect the child from

43:36

underneath the avalanche, they are driven away

43:38

by wolves. Wolves come out howling and chase

43:40

away the demon fighters,

43:43

but actually are these wolves?

43:44

Know?

43:45

They're they're sweet doggies. They're

43:48

they look like good boys.

43:49

They're just straight up German shepherds without

43:52

anything ad like they're not wearing anything weird,

43:54

like they didn't put extra fur or anything.

43:56

Yeah, uh, but so I love

43:58

these dogs. The dogs run up and they

44:00

start eating the parents' bodies.

44:02

Oh yeah, they distress the bodies to pieces

44:04

and big bloody splashes in the white snow.

44:07

So yeah, they're like ripping arms off and stuff.

44:09

But then when a quote wolf finds

44:12

the baby, the wolf does not

44:14

harm the baby and instead brings her back to

44:16

the wolf den, which is like a cave of ice,

44:19

a frosty cave where the wolves make

44:21

their home, and we see the wolf carrying

44:23

the baby along the way, which is, by

44:25

the way, clearly just like a weightless yellow bundle

44:27

of cloth. But then back at the cave, the

44:30

wolf mother takes care of the baby

44:32

and crouches over her to protect

44:34

her, and then we see time

44:36

is passing.

44:38

This includes multiple shots though, of the

44:40

baby crying quite audibly

44:42

while the wolf like growls at

44:45

the baby and the baby's covered with blood, and

44:48

this feels like it goes on for about five minutes.

44:51

Yes, but the wolf is it

44:53

is weird, but the wolf is protecting the baby.

44:55

Yes. So years into

44:58

the future we see that the child is growing up

45:00

now that I don't know how old she's supposed

45:02

to be in the scene, but she's older now. She can

45:04

walk around and stuff. She's living with the

45:06

wolves, and she is dressed in furs

45:09

and pelts and just like tearing into

45:11

a big, old, bloody hunk of raw meat, just

45:13

like eating the raw meat,

45:16

getting blood everywhere. And

45:18

we see her practicing hunting. She

45:20

tries to hunt a rabbit like her

45:23

wolf family here does, but

45:25

she fails and she ends up tumbling

45:28

down a hill and getting injured and

45:30

then lying back in the cave covered

45:33

in blood from her injuries while trying to

45:35

hunt. The wolf girl is nursed back

45:38

to health by her wolf mother, and in fact,

45:40

the wolf mother brings her some kind

45:42

of medicine. The wolf I guess has

45:44

medical knowledge and brings her strange

45:47

plant matter found from outside.

45:49

What could this be? I believe

45:51

this is going to be the special ginseng

45:54

root that we learn about later.

45:56

Yeah. Yeah, they're all a part of the wolf

45:58

devil woman diet. If you may

46:00

be adherence to the Wolf Devil Woman diet.

46:03

It's just raw meat and white genzy.

46:05

But you can eat as much white gen sing as

46:07

you want.

46:09

Oh but when you follow the Wolf Devil

46:11

Woman diet, your your hair turns white

46:14

and then turns black again. But then

46:16

at intermittent periods for the rest of your life,

46:18

we'll just turn white at certain times.

46:20

There are side effects.

46:22

Yeah, time okay, So time

46:24

passes once again, and when we once

46:26

again meet the Wolf Girl, she has become the

46:29

Wolf Devil Woman. So

46:31

now we see Pearl Chang Zengling

46:34

is out hunting. She's like better

46:36

at hunting now, except so

46:38

we see her hunting rabbits and she's she's

46:40

dressed in the garb of the wilderness, so it's

46:42

all furs, but also a wolf's

46:45

head cap. And I

46:47

was just thinking, so is this it looks

46:49

it's almost like it's supposed to be a

46:52

camouflage for her hunting rabbits,

46:54

so she's like camouflaged as the rabbit's

46:56

natural predator.

46:58

This is the reveal of this CopM

47:00

and of the adult Wolf Devil Woman

47:02

is just this is one of those moments where you watch

47:05

in the film and it's like you feel like you're going crazy

47:07

for a moment because it's like a snowbank.

47:10

And then here is this what looks like a

47:12

like a stuffed wolf or

47:15

a stuffed fox or a stuffed German shepherd

47:17

head peeking over like muppeting

47:19

up at you, and you're thinking like what

47:21

is this? Is this a puppet effect? And then you're

47:23

like, no, this head is on top of

47:26

Pearl Chang's head. This is

47:28

a hat or a costume. She is wearing

47:31

some sort of a head dress. And then she

47:33

commences to hunt rabbits.

47:35

Yeah, it's a lot. And so now

47:38

grown up and having learned the ways of the wolves

47:41

and also benefited from the

47:44

potency of the white Gensen

47:46

root, we see that the Wolf Woman has

47:48

extraordinary powers, so she can make herself

47:51

weightless in classic Wusha Wireworks

47:54

style, so she dump jumps dozens

47:56

of feet into the air glides like a spirit

47:58

on the wind. But I

48:02

think it's funny that it's cool that while she is

48:04

shown to have this power, she is

48:06

also shown to be clumsy in a sense,

48:08

like failing to capture rabbits and reacting

48:11

with anger and frustration. So

48:13

she'll like leap up thirty feet in the air,

48:15

and try to like come down and catch a rabbit and

48:17

miss. But eventually she succeeds

48:19

in catching a rabbit, not with her mighty

48:22

leaps, but instead by using

48:24

another strange power, digging tunnels

48:26

under the snow, So she like digs down

48:29

and then comes up and snatches the rabbit from

48:31

below.

48:32

Yeah, like a wolf? Is

48:34

that? Maybe wolves

48:36

hunt and then the wild they dig under and

48:38

they come up like like a sandwhorm go

48:40

for powers.

48:41

Yeah. Oh, somewhere around here, we

48:43

get an interlude on the demon,

48:46

which is what people are yelling, so

48:48

we're cutting back to some other actions

48:50

somewhere else where. The editing

48:53

is so rapid it's really hard to tell

48:55

what you're looking at, but we get

48:57

like rapid shots of things happening

49:00

and then people yelling the demon. So

49:02

there's like something on fire and somebody yells

49:04

the demon. One we see

49:06

one of the vampire orcs beating somebody

49:09

up. We see the guy in the conical hat and

49:11

the silver glam veil blasting

49:14

a guy with white smoke out of his hands,

49:16

saying you have betrayed me, and the guy

49:18

is blasted and shown

49:21

frozen against the bark of a tree.

49:25

Yeah. I think that The only thing we're just supposed to take from

49:27

the scene, I assume, is just that the demon

49:29

and his forces are still out in the world doing

49:32

harm and perhaps

49:35

and perhaps they're looking for something. That's all we

49:37

know.

49:37

Yeah, they're causing problems. Yeah,

49:40

but okay, we're about to meet a couple of other major

49:42

characters, master Lee and Wong,

49:45

and this is a kind of duo you might have seen

49:47

in adventure films before. Master

49:50

Lee is a very typical martial

49:52

hero. He's a dashing and honorable,

49:55

wandering swordsman, you know,

49:57

he's this kind of character is usually a prince

49:59

or some of their kind of high born and

50:01

then he's got his comedy

50:03

sidekick, often a cowardly comedy

50:06

sidekick. Though with Wong,

50:09

I don't know if you've got a similar kind of thing.

50:11

Rob. When we first meet Wong, I

50:14

interpreted him as being sort

50:17

of hapless and cowardly and not very

50:19

able to take care of himself. But then

50:21

by the end of the movie, he's like he's kicking

50:23

butt.

50:24

Yeah. I feel like we've seen this before in

50:27

Taiwanese action films. I think there was a character

50:29

in Child of Peach like this who was very much there

50:31

for comedic effect, but also really

50:33

good. Did get to tear it up in some of the

50:35

action scenes.

50:36

I guess it's just that you don't get a sense early

50:39

on that this character will would

50:41

be like that. Yeah, but

50:43

anyway, when we first meet them, they've been traveling

50:45

for days on an important mission, and

50:47

Wong is tired and is complaining.

50:51

He has started complaining by this point,

50:53

but I don't know how early he started, so he may

50:55

have been complaining for a long time. He keeps

50:57

falling into holes in the ground and has

50:59

to be rescued over and over. Yeah,

51:02

Wong and Master Lee catch a rabbit

51:04

for dinner, and warning this is this is

51:06

one scene where you can quite clearly

51:09

see what looks like an unsimulated killing

51:11

of a rabbit with an arrow. There are other

51:13

scenes with rabbits where something

51:16

might be going on, but it's harder to tell.

51:18

Yeah, Like sometimes wolf Woman may tear

51:21

a rabbit's body in half or and

51:25

then eat it's bloody pieces. I'm

51:27

assuming she's not eating actual raw

51:29

rabbit. But then there are also scenes

51:32

where she tears humans in half, and I'm

51:35

I'm one hundred percent positive those are

51:37

not real humans being torn in half by wolf

51:39

woman.

51:39

But if you're if you're looking for the

51:41

place where you would really want to fast forward,

51:44

it's going to be right around in here. When when Wong

51:46

starts trying to get after a rabbit.

51:48

Right even though there's there's a fun gag

51:50

there where he's trying to throw a knife

51:53

at the rabbit, and then he gets over to the rabbit,

51:55

he's like, there's an arrow in this rabbit. I thought, I hit the

51:57

rabbit with my knife, And.

51:58

Yeah, I don't know.

51:59

It's not worth watching the animal cruelty if you

52:01

don't see it.

52:03

But so anyway, they cook it up for dinner,

52:05

and then Master Lee plays his flute

52:08

and unfortunately, here they have an

52:10

ill fated encounter with the

52:12

wolf woman. She sneaks up

52:15

on them in their camp and attacks Wong,

52:17

and in reaction, oh no, they shoot

52:20

her with an arrow. That's not what we wanted.

52:23

But once they realize she is a human woman

52:25

and not a wolf, they tried

52:27

to treat her with medicine, but then

52:29

the rest of the wolves attack their camp.

52:32

They like jump over the fire repeatedly.

52:35

There is whiplash editing, until

52:37

finally Master Lee manages to kill one

52:40

of the wolves in the fighting, and

52:42

oh no, it seems that the wolf he killed

52:44

may have been the woman's wolf mother.

52:47

But the wolf woman is unconscious with

52:49

her wound. She doesn't know that this

52:51

happens initially, so

52:53

they track the

52:55

They fall unconscious also for a bit,

52:57

I think and I forget exactly the samequence

53:00

here, but they eventually track the wolf

53:02

and the wolf woman back to their

53:04

cave. The woman attacks them

53:07

again at first, revealing that

53:09

she has great powers, like she's flying around on wires

53:11

and stuff, and Wong wants to

53:13

fight back with lethal force, but Master Lee

53:15

restrains him. Clearly, Master

53:18

Lee takes pity on the wolf woman, and

53:21

when she passes out from her injuries, they

53:23

treat her with medicine that they have among

53:25

their supplies, and Master Lee

53:27

is like, I know what's going on here. She

53:30

is a creature of the wilderness. She is a human

53:32

raised by wolves, and thus she

53:35

does not know any human language and

53:37

does not understand what death is. So

53:39

she goes on trying to feed to the mother wolf

53:42

even though it has died. And

53:44

then there is some time that passes, so

53:47

we see wolf Lady, Lee and

53:49

Wong hanging out in the cave. There's some

53:51

scene I don't remember how this starts, but where the wolf

53:53

lady is biting him, is biting

53:56

Lee on the hand, and

53:58

we see Wong lying to her and telling her

54:00

that the wolf mother is still alive

54:03

somewhere like he sort of has to act

54:05

this out in charades, but says she's off

54:08

getting food somewhere. And

54:10

then meanwhile we get another cut back to civilization.

54:13

We see in a palace somewhere there is a king

54:16

being attended by servants and subjects.

54:18

This king is named Master You, and

54:21

they say, Master, the Blue Devil

54:23

commanded us to give him the Amulet

54:25

or he'll kill us all. We have to

54:28

hurry up and find a way to stop him. Another

54:30

says Master, terror is everywhere. Too

54:32

many people have died already.

54:35

And then the subjects all say in unison, Master

54:37

You, we implore you to help us in this time

54:39

of horror and death. And

54:42

Master You is he's an older man

54:44

with a stern face, angry eyebrows,

54:46

and very solid beard, and

54:48

he says that he understands the devil

54:50

must be stopped, but he cannot

54:53

do it without the aid of terrible magic.

54:56

And there is only one thing on Earth

54:58

that possesses enough power to feet this

55:00

plague of demons, and that is the

55:02

White Gensing Route. And

55:04

then like smash cut before he even

55:07

finishes saying the last word of his speech

55:09

back to the cave.

55:10

Now, is Master you Lee's

55:13

dad?

55:14

Yes? Okay, Yes, he

55:17

has sent Lee on a journey

55:20

to retrieve the great White

55:22

Gensing Route because it is the only

55:24

thing that can that they think can stop the

55:26

demon from attacking

55:28

them. Now here's something I wasn't

55:31

sure about, is like Witch Devil

55:33

is the blue Devil, because there's another devil they

55:35

call the Red Devil. I think the one in the conical

55:38

hat is the red Devil. So

55:40

is the blue Devil a different one? I don't

55:43

quite know.

55:44

I was wondering if they it was just a mistake

55:46

that like blue Devil and Red Devil are the same

55:49

devil, because otherwise, who would

55:51

blue devil be one of the spirit

55:53

Halloween guys?

55:54

Possibly the Witch, but they're saying he,

55:56

so I think not her, So it could

55:58

be one of the two Orc guys. I

56:02

don't know either way.

56:04

Team Devil, team Demon. Yeah, is

56:06

what they're up against, and the only way to do it,

56:08

the only way to defeat them is white gen

56:11

Sying route, not red gen saying it's

56:13

got to be white gen sing. Right.

56:23

So back at the Cave of Wolves. How

56:25

long have Lee and Wong been here now unclear,

56:28

but they're kind of settled in and Lee

56:30

wakes Wong up, telling him, Okay, it's time

56:32

to move on. So, you

56:34

know, we learned that Lee's father sent them

56:36

on the quest for the great the gens En route.

56:38

They've been looking for it, they can't find it.

56:41

We find out it's also a thousand

56:43

year gen sing route maybe it

56:45

only appears once every thousand years, and they've

56:48

been digging holes for it everywhere. So I

56:50

think these are the holes that Wong was

56:52

falling into earlier, with the holes

56:54

that were digging looking for the root.

56:56

That makes more sense than I had thought originally

56:58

he was falling into a holes

57:00

that she was digging out to catch

57:03

rabbits.

57:03

That could be the case also, Actually I don't

57:05

know for sure. But so they

57:08

go out digging again. They get attacked by

57:10

wolves again. But if they

57:12

are just cute little doggies like sniffing

57:14

around at their feet, and

57:17

they are saved by the wolf woman who calls

57:19

off the pack. So the wolves obey

57:21

her. And around here it

57:24

starts to be quite obvious that Master Lee

57:26

and the wolf Lady are interested in each

57:28

other. They stare at each other. They got

57:30

like laser beams of love coming out

57:32

of their eyes.

57:34

Yeah, I mean, how could they not fall in love?

57:36

Yeah? And then there's this

57:38

weird scene where I don't

57:40

know what's going on here. It's Master

57:43

Lee starts adjusting the wolf

57:45

woman's bones, like he sees

57:47

that she's walking around with

57:50

a hunched posture and a strange gait,

57:53

like like there's something wrong with her spine. So

57:56

he grabs her suddenly, and

57:58

we see an animation of her bones,

58:01

like her vertebrae realigning, and

58:03

then she starts biting him, and Wong

58:05

says, oh, no, she's biting him again.

58:10

But after her bones are fixed, and

58:12

she seems grateful. She's kind of sheepish

58:15

about the biting, like her mouth is covered in

58:17

blood, but she I think realizes

58:19

that her bones have been fixed.

58:22

I don't know, yeah,

58:24

I mean I just took the the bye. It's like I

58:26

thought of my cat a lot. It's like, oh, she's biting me

58:28

again, Like it's like my relationship

58:31

with the cat, a wild animal that lives in my house.

58:33

But they, yeah, they mend, they

58:35

mend this, like she the wolf Woman puts

58:38

moss on Lee's hand and wraps

58:40

it in a leather strap, and it's it's just

58:42

clearly true love, uh

58:44

Lee. Lee and Wong start trying to teach her

58:46

how to talk and how to have manners.

58:49

So they they say, you have a heart

58:51

of gold, a spirit like spring mist,

58:53

a face like a flower. Snowflower.

58:56

Yes, Snowflower will be your name.

58:58

And this name only half sticks for the rest

59:00

of the movie.

59:01

Yeah, yeah, but it is used again. I

59:04

think I can't remember as the dub or the subtitles

59:07

also call her winter High

59:09

Biscus or snow High Biscus or something, but

59:11

Snowflower is what sticks.

59:13

Right after they call her Snowflower.

59:15

They're trying to teach her. They're

59:17

trying to teach her grammar basically, and

59:19

so she learns to say her own name and

59:21

everybody else's. And there's this scene

59:24

where she's arguing with Wong where she's

59:26

like talking to Wong saying you're wolf

59:28

woman, and he's saying, no, you're a wolf

59:30

woman.

59:32

I have forgotten any elemental

59:34

Mandarin that I attempted to learn. But

59:37

I have a feeling there might be a little bit more to this

59:39

exchange in the original language,

59:41

you know, like maybe it's a little more clever, and

59:43

I mean it's still hokey, it's still played for laughs, but

59:46

it might be it might

59:49

play out a little bit differently in the native language.

59:51

That seems quite likely. Yeah,

59:53

we also get an education montage here,

59:56

so you know, wolf woman is learning how

59:58

to be a human. And one

1:00:00

day Wolf Woman in Masterlea get to talking.

1:00:03

She asks him if he's sad, and

1:00:05

he says yeah. In the place he comes from,

1:00:07

things are very dire. There is a wicked

1:00:09

devil who rules over everything with extraordinary

1:00:12

magic, killing many people, terrifying

1:00:14

others. And Lee explains

1:00:16

that he came to the mountain because he needs

1:00:18

to find the great White gen sing route, the

1:00:21

only thing in the world powerful enough to defeat

1:00:23

the demon. But of course the

1:00:25

gensing is too strong for a mortal

1:00:27

human to consume. It would

1:00:29

just wreck them. And then the wolf lady

1:00:31

gets curious. She's like, what is this white gen sing

1:00:34

like? And he describes it and she's like, oh,

1:00:36

yeah, I ate that years ago and

1:00:40

there won't be another for a thousand years. Whoops.

1:00:43

Yeah, so

1:00:45

Wong is mad, but Lee says,

1:00:47

perhaps it's for the best, and so he's got to go

1:00:49

home and tell his father that the route will not

1:00:52

be found, and they sort of

1:00:54

they convince wolf Woman to come with them,

1:00:56

but first they have to admit to her that

1:00:58

her wolf mother is dead. I

1:01:01

think they've been lying to her about this the

1:01:03

whole time so far, which

1:01:05

is weird, messed up.

1:01:08

And then the wolf woman is greatly saddened

1:01:10

by this, and the grief over her

1:01:12

dead wolf mother causes her

1:01:14

to turn blonde suddenly, and

1:01:17

like I think, hair grows down over

1:01:19

the front of her face. And this is not

1:01:21

the last time she will like activate

1:01:24

her gensing powers through

1:01:26

profound emotion and turn blonde.

1:01:29

Yes, yeah, it will happen again, and it's

1:01:31

not permanent. When it happens here, I thought, maybe she's

1:01:33

just gonna look like this the rest of the picture, but she does not.

1:01:36

So Master Lee and Wong go down the mountain

1:01:38

and arrive at the home of Lee's

1:01:40

master, his own teacher, and this

1:01:42

is Master Chew. Master Chew is

1:01:45

your classic sage. He's dressed in

1:01:47

all white, with long white hair, gigantic

1:01:50

eyebrows, like a mintat long

1:01:52

flowing mustache and facial hair.

1:01:55

And they meet him and he's like,

1:01:58

I know everything that happened. Don't tell

1:02:00

your father about the wolf lady, because he will

1:02:02

just accuse you of wasting your time chasing women

1:02:05

instead of accomplishing your quest. And

1:02:07

then he also gives him a gift. He gives

1:02:09

him a little box and he says, the thing

1:02:11

in this box, it will protect you as soon

1:02:14

as you open it, and then Master Chou flies

1:02:16

away.

1:02:16

The other thing I like about Master Choo is that he, like

1:02:20

you encounter this sort of performance

1:02:23

and characterization a lot in like

1:02:26

Hong Kong action films, with shot films and so forth,

1:02:28

where it's clearly a much younger actor who's

1:02:30

been dressed up to look like an old, sagely

1:02:33

individual. So on one level,

1:02:35

like it's obvious, but on the other level it kind

1:02:37

of works because it's like this concept

1:02:39

of like a Taoist immortal, Like yeah, it's

1:02:42

like an old young in or

1:02:44

young oldie, whichever way you want

1:02:46

to look at it, Like, yeah, he's an old man, but he

1:02:48

also there's something unnaturally

1:02:50

young about him too, And I don't know

1:02:52

how much of that was ultimately like accident

1:02:55

of filmmaking, because you need this

1:02:57

older individual to also do death defying

1:02:59

stuff.

1:03:00

Uns.

1:03:01

However it comes together. It's kind of a

1:03:03

staple of the genre that I like.

1:03:04

There.

1:03:05

Would you agree that there's almost something kind of

1:03:07

impish or mischievous about Master

1:03:09

Chew in the way that he just pops up

1:03:11

to to with

1:03:14

ease deliver information that other

1:03:16

people had been struggling to learn

1:03:18

or whatever. He just pops up and is

1:03:20

like, hey, I know everything, or

1:03:23

he just wanders into a scene and says, here's

1:03:25

the real truth. Here's who the devil is.

1:03:28

Yeah, yeah, he is. There is an infish quality

1:03:30

to it.

1:03:31

We also see inside the gift,

1:03:33

the box that Lee is given,

1:03:36

there is some kind of highly reflective mirror

1:03:38

in there. It's is it kind of an amulet?

1:03:41

Yeah, yeah, some sort of an amulet in there. So

1:03:44

we're like, okay, magic guide.

1:03:45

Him for later. Okay, So next we get a

1:03:47

homecoming. Lee and Wong returned to Lee's

1:03:49

father and they admit that they were unable

1:03:52

to find the gen Sing. So there's got to be another

1:03:54

way to stop the demon. Next thing

1:03:56

is they commence a mission. There's like they're

1:03:58

going to go raid the the demon

1:04:01

hideout. I guess so. Like Lee, his

1:04:03

father and a group of warriors, all dressed

1:04:05

in different colors, trek into

1:04:08

this lush green forest, which

1:04:10

I get. Did you understand this to be the demon's

1:04:13

camp?

1:04:13

I guess so. Yeah, going into demon country.

1:04:16

This was a very cool looking and

1:04:19

dangerous feeling seen. We hear strange

1:04:21

bird calls echoing through the trees,

1:04:23

and at the camp there are the bodies

1:04:26

of warriors hanging from the trees. But

1:04:28

then it's a fake out because they think these are

1:04:30

the demon's victims, but actually the bodies

1:04:32

hanging there are the devils pretending

1:04:35

to be corpses, and they attack.

1:04:36

And from this week get into the first of many

1:04:39

action sequences here, where one

1:04:41

of the core objectives is to nail

1:04:43

demons to trees with arrows

1:04:46

and or swords. This happens a

1:04:48

lot and it never gets old.

1:04:50

Yeah, it's good stuff. And the frenzied

1:04:52

editing the demons appear

1:04:54

and disappear. They use trickery and

1:04:56

magic. We see the Witch from the

1:04:59

opening scene using this. She's wearing

1:05:01

like a jeweled veil and she uses

1:05:03

magic to knock Lee unconscious,

1:05:06

and then later Lee awakes in

1:05:08

the temple slash throne room from the

1:05:10

beginning of the movie, and he now

1:05:12

is the one affixed to the red cross.

1:05:15

Uh oh, this doesn't look good for him.

1:05:17

They mock him, and the gist

1:05:19

is basically, you're a student

1:05:21

of Master Chew, so you think you're really hot,

1:05:23

but are you strong enough to defeat my fingernails?

1:05:27

And the Demon Priest really likes

1:05:29

laughing at nothing and then spraying people

1:05:31

with dust from his sleeves.

1:05:33

Yeah, he's constantly.

1:05:35

Yeah. So the Demon Priest

1:05:37

also wants to know what happened to the White Gensen

1:05:40

route, and after torture, Lee

1:05:42

tells him it was eaten by the Wolf

1:05:44

Woman, and the demon is mad about

1:05:46

this. He does not like this information.

1:05:49

This exchange is great because he's like, somebody

1:05:51

ate it? And he's like, somebody ate it? Who ate it?

1:05:56

Okay, Well, anyway, we got to get back to the wolf woman.

1:05:58

What's she been up to? I missed the ye.

1:06:01

She finally comes down out of the mountain

1:06:03

and she is now using a

1:06:06

fraying knotted rope

1:06:08

like Indiana Jones uses a whip.

1:06:10

Rob did you think that maybe this this rope

1:06:13

slash whip was made out of rabbit pelts.

1:06:16

That was the sense I got that this is like

1:06:18

some sort of a super elaborate ninja

1:06:22

whip weapon made

1:06:24

out of rabbit pelts stitch together,

1:06:26

but then with some sort of a

1:06:29

four pronged animal

1:06:31

claw situation going on at either

1:06:33

end of said weapon.

1:06:35

Oh yeah, she also has like bird claw

1:06:37

feet bird feet claws that she uses

1:06:39

as weapons. Yes, but she's using

1:06:41

this whip to swing around

1:06:44

through tree branches and fly through the forest.

1:06:47

And then the Wolf Woman she walks

1:06:49

into the Kingdom of the Demon. Now, first,

1:06:52

she goes into a barn, finds a chicken,

1:06:55

rips its head off and starts eating it raw.

1:06:57

And the farmers catch her stealing the chicken, and

1:07:00

they attack her with weapons, and she violently

1:07:02

defends herself. So there's another action

1:07:04

scene. We

1:07:07

get a brainwashing scene with Master

1:07:09

Lee. So the Demon Priest uses

1:07:11

the Golden Needle to

1:07:15

essentially brainwash Lee into making

1:07:18

him one of them, to making him loyal

1:07:20

to the demon. And now Lee goes

1:07:22

around doing he's an enforcer

1:07:24

for the Demon Priest. Basically, he's like going up

1:07:27

to people's houses telling them to surrender

1:07:29

to the devil power.

1:07:30

Yeah, he's decked out in red. Now cutting

1:07:33

like a red veil covering half his face.

1:07:35

So, oh no, Lee has become a bad guy. We

1:07:37

even see him like he goes to people's

1:07:39

houses and like beats them up. Yeah,

1:07:41

there's one house he goes to and the

1:07:44

demon priest shows up there when the guy

1:07:46

won't submit, and he's like, you

1:07:48

worm, you have the guts to stand up to me,

1:07:52

And we get a sleeve blast of course, you know, he loves

1:07:54

to shoot the smoke out of his sleeve. Elsewhere,

1:07:57

we get a scene of the wolf Woman going to a rest

1:08:00

stawt. This is one we've alluded to, I think

1:08:02

a couple of times now. So she's wandering,

1:08:04

she's in civilization now, and she's wandering through

1:08:06

a city and she discovers

1:08:09

that she likes the smell of food. So

1:08:11

she goes into this restaurant. She doesn't know what to order,

1:08:13

but she listens to what others at the table

1:08:16

next to her say. And this is a large group of

1:08:18

people and they end up ordering boiled

1:08:20

eggs, half of a roasted chicken, and

1:08:22

five jugs of wine. And so she

1:08:25

just orders the same thing.

1:08:26

Yeah, She's like, I'll have what they're happening and.

1:08:28

Yeah, and the guy's like, that's too much

1:08:30

wine, but they bring it to her and she doesn't

1:08:32

know how to use chopsticks, and she gets drunk,

1:08:35

and drunken wolf Woman

1:08:37

is a problem. She like freaks

1:08:39

out, rips out her own hair and

1:08:42

turns into the Gensing blonde. And

1:08:44

then the gensing Blonde is

1:08:46

like, is a violent, drunken mess and wrecks

1:08:48

the restaurant and beats up all the guys who try

1:08:50

to stop her.

1:08:51

Yeah, she's a mess. And this

1:08:54

this whole sequence is wonderful. Like

1:08:56

it's just it's played for laughs. It's

1:08:59

ridiculous, and I loved every minute of it.

1:09:02

The comedic sections

1:09:04

of some of these older movies they

1:09:07

don't necessarily always stand the test of time

1:09:10

or translate all that well.

1:09:11

But this is all perfect, Yes,

1:09:13

But unfortunately she is

1:09:15

eventually overpowered, I think because

1:09:18

she's she's sort of on. She's not at

1:09:20

her full potential because of the five jugs

1:09:22

of wine. Right, So the townspeople

1:09:24

capture her, They beat her with rods, they

1:09:26

tie her in a sack, and then they dunk

1:09:28

her up and down in the well in a sad

1:09:31

song plays this one.

1:09:33

This was another just outrageous moment for me though,

1:09:35

because at least in the dub or

1:09:37

the or the subtitles, they were like,

1:09:39

throw her in the well, And I'm like, is this

1:09:42

standard operating procedure? Like, there is a

1:09:44

magical monster that has been arrested

1:09:46

in your town, let us throw her

1:09:48

into the town's primary water source.

1:09:50

Yeah, that just doesn't seem like the best

1:09:53

use of your well water. I'm

1:09:56

I mean, I'm assuming you're drinking that water

1:09:58

or you're using it for for purposes

1:10:01

around town. Let's not let's

1:10:03

not drain and drown supernatural beings

1:10:05

in that water just to be on the safe side.

1:10:07

Yeah, I'm confused about the strategy

1:10:09

of the town's people here. But

1:10:11

then we get an intervention by a familiar

1:10:13

face. Wong shows up. He just happens

1:10:16

to be walking by, that's right,

1:10:18

So he like goes and tries to help her, but

1:10:20

ultimately they are both thrown down into the

1:10:22

well, and then something there was

1:10:25

a disconnect here. I didn't understand what happened.

1:10:27

Somehow, Wong and the wolf woman

1:10:30

are both washed out of the well

1:10:32

into a fishing hole where Master

1:10:35

Chew is there fishing. Yeah,

1:10:38

did you understand what that was?

1:10:40

It kind of felt like a scene was missing there, But I guess

1:10:42

basically it's like down the well in water

1:10:44

flushed out to another body of water. I

1:10:47

guess it's just it's all connected.

1:10:49

So here is the scene where she meets with master

1:10:51

Chew and Master Chew tells her about

1:10:53

her history. He says, long ago,

1:10:56

about twenty years ago, your father, the

1:10:58

warrior of steel Spare, fell

1:11:01

under the charms of the Red Devil. When

1:11:03

he discovered the evils of the Devil, he

1:11:05

took your mother and you and escaped.

1:11:08

They could not outrun the Devil's men, and

1:11:10

when they killed themselves, you used

1:11:12

their warm. There was a typo

1:11:15

in the subtitles here that said blow dough. I

1:11:17

think that means blood to protect you.

1:11:19

Then you were rescued by the White Wolf.

1:11:21

All this has been predestined. And

1:11:24

Master Chew also tells her that it is her

1:11:26

destiny to fight back because the

1:11:28

Red Devil has wronged her,

1:11:30

has killed her parents, and he is

1:11:33

the Wolf Woman's enemy, so she must

1:11:35

get revenge against the devil. It is her

1:11:37

destiny. And then there is some double

1:11:40

take editing here. Suddenly

1:11:42

we go straight from the scene where she's like being

1:11:45

told this into combat scenes,

1:11:47

just action where the Wolf

1:11:49

Woman is riding on horseback and whipping

1:11:51

devil warriors heads off with the

1:11:54

knotted rope and they're like on a beach

1:11:56

and then a desert and she's whipping

1:11:58

the rope. Their heads are everywhere.

1:12:01

She's also flying off of city walls

1:12:03

and attacking the devil soldiers again with

1:12:05

the whip. And we also see

1:12:07

her wearing a different outfit, a very

1:12:10

cool costume change where it almost suggests

1:12:12

she is now fulfilling some kind of religious

1:12:14

function.

1:12:15

Yeah, it's like some sort of divine warrior garb

1:12:18

all in white. So now she was like wolf

1:12:20

Devil Woman, the white come back to

1:12:23

avenge everyone.

1:12:24

Ah, yes, so wolf devil

1:12:26

Woman not devil Wolf Woman and Wong

1:12:28

they attack the devil's hide out

1:12:30

in the woods, the one that Master Lee and

1:12:32

his father and all their men attacked earlier. And

1:12:35

there are whoa what to say about the scene.

1:12:37

There's like flaming bats flying all around.

1:12:40

Suddenly Wong does seem like a competent

1:12:42

fighter. Here we see wolf

1:12:44

Woman versus the vampire orc

1:12:46

that was chasing her parents and she pins himTo

1:12:49

a tree with swords, just

1:12:51

general crazy wooshat action, and

1:12:54

then we cut from there to Wolf

1:12:56

Woman and Wong trekking through the desert,

1:12:59

and there's there are more fight scenes. Here's

1:13:01

one that's a great payoff where we see Wolf

1:13:03

Woman's wolf hunting skills

1:13:06

that she used against rabbits used

1:13:08

against the Devil warriors, where she's like digging

1:13:10

tunnels and popping up from under the sand

1:13:13

to yank them down and destroy

1:13:15

them. Also, there's

1:13:17

just the gore effects

1:13:19

here. I think fans of the show

1:13:22

will know. I'm not typically a gore

1:13:24

hound. Having

1:13:27

a lot of blood and guts and stuff in a movie is

1:13:29

not something I usually get excited about,

1:13:31

but in this case it is because it's

1:13:33

like the way the Wolf Woman

1:13:35

will like hit one of the Devil fighters.

1:13:38

She'll hit them and then we just see like

1:13:40

bloody severed limbs falling to the ground.

1:13:43

Yeah, there's almost just the

1:13:45

right level of slightly

1:13:49

over the top but unbelievable

1:13:51

practical bloody violence in a picture

1:13:54

can yeah take on its own reality, like

1:13:57

this isn't in the Story of Ricky Territory,

1:13:59

But like Story of Ricky is a film that I

1:14:01

haven't seen it a long time, so I don't know if it would still hold up

1:14:03

this way for me. But I remember enjoying

1:14:05

it on that level, and that it's like everyone

1:14:08

but the hero's body is made out of just paper

1:14:10

mache and jello and just comes

1:14:12

apart immediately and nothing can withstand

1:14:14

our hero. And it's the same

1:14:17

with Wolf Devil women.

1:14:18

It's like those action figure I don't remember what

1:14:20

they were called, but there were these action figures that had like

1:14:22

a button you could press and all of their labels

1:14:24

would just fall off of them at once.

1:14:26

Yeap, that's exactly what it's like with anyone

1:14:29

who dares stand up against our Snowflower.

1:14:32

So now Wolf Woman and Wong

1:14:34

are suddenly in the Devil's temple.

1:14:36

How'd they get there, I'm not sure, but

1:14:38

they see Lee dressed in the garb of the

1:14:40

Red Devil. He's got the you know, the red veil

1:14:43

on and they're like, Lee, what happened to you? They want

1:14:45

him back, but the witches and the devils say,

1:14:47

no, you can't have him. He's with us.

1:14:49

Now there's more fighting, just general

1:14:52

great fight scenes. I can't recount every

1:14:54

point here, but I love them. Somewhere

1:14:57

in here, somebody says, huh, she fights like a

1:14:59

wolf. But this seems to me using

1:15:01

a whip and jumping a lot yep

1:15:06

and the demon. The demon comes and tries

1:15:08

to spray them with his sleeve

1:15:11

dust, which of course is very

1:15:13

very dangerous potent magic, and they

1:15:15

beg Lee for help, and this

1:15:18

suddenly snaps Lee out

1:15:20

of his trance or something, and he jumps

1:15:22

in to save them, and then he flies

1:15:25

away carrying Wolf Woman and

1:15:27

Wong, and Wong has been

1:15:29

sleeve sprayed real bad, but he's not dead.

1:15:32

And then suddenly they're just somewhere else being

1:15:34

treated by Master Chew. It

1:15:37

all happens. There's a very loose

1:15:40

spatial logic to what's going

1:15:42

on here, and it happens so fast with

1:15:44

so little explanation. But

1:15:46

I think Rob correct me if I'm wrong.

1:15:49

I think Lee explains that

1:15:51

he was never actually like

1:15:54

hypnotized by the Devil. He was just a spy

1:15:57

learning how the Devil's palace works.

1:15:59

That's right, because Master Choo's amulet

1:16:02

protected him from being brainwashed by

1:16:04

the Demon cult. So he's just been in deep

1:16:06

cover the whole time, which, as

1:16:08

he pointed out, includes beating the crap

1:16:11

out of innocence in earlier scenes.

1:16:13

Yeah, but I guess he thinks it was worth

1:16:15

it. Because he learned the secret of the demon,

1:16:18

which is that there's this golden needle

1:16:20

which has this great power. We saw it at

1:16:22

the beginning being inserted into a doll to cause

1:16:25

pain, and it can be used

1:16:27

on the demons too, I guess. So

1:16:29

we get a final showdown scene where Lee Wong

1:16:32

and the Wolf Woman team up. They go back to

1:16:34

the Red Devil Temple and

1:16:37

they're like, uh, for there's

1:16:39

some exchange. I'm afraid I'm getting this wrong, but they're

1:16:41

like, we're here to kill you, and

1:16:44

the Devil's like, you can't be serious,

1:16:47

and they're like, no, that is correct, we're here

1:16:49

to kill you.

1:16:50

There's a great scene where they're they're,

1:16:52

you know, they're attacking the d Dnomonic Temple

1:16:55

here and in comes the lead

1:16:57

demon priest and he said, or at least

1:16:59

the Subtime'll say, and I think maybe the dub

1:17:01

did this too. He says, look at me, fools,

1:17:06

you know, I am I am doing it,

1:17:08

does this huge intro number, and then yeah,

1:17:11

it's just crazy fighting from there

1:17:13

on out. There was this It was established

1:17:15

earlier that our lead demon

1:17:18

here has like frozen

1:17:20

would be heroes in a state of undeath.

1:17:22

Aout the temple and they can be brought

1:17:24

back to life by removing their needles,

1:17:27

and when they come back to life, they

1:17:30

are essentially jungshi. They

1:17:32

are the hopping vampires, so without

1:17:34

all the rules of hopping vampires,

1:17:36

but they are moving like hopping vampires

1:17:38

in these sequences.

1:17:40

Right, So there's that going on. There's just a

1:17:42

lot of tremendous fighting in this final showdown.

1:17:44

There's the Witch who's using her spider and cobweb

1:17:47

powers, and then there's

1:17:49

also a big twist slash

1:17:52

identity revealed that is then double

1:17:55

twisted and undermined if I understood

1:17:57

correctly, yes, sort of,

1:18:00

So like the Red Devil, they get his mask

1:18:02

off and he reveals his identity

1:18:05

and oh no, it is Master

1:18:07

Lee's father, bump bum bum

1:18:10

bum Bomb, and he's like, I wanted the White gen

1:18:12

Sen route so that we could rule

1:18:14

over the world, and you know, you and I as

1:18:17

father and son, we could rule the galaxy

1:18:19

his father and son. But then

1:18:22

I think Master Chew walks in and

1:18:24

is is like, no, he's not actually your father.

1:18:27

He's just a shape shifter who can look like anyone.

1:18:29

Bump Bump Bomb. But yeah,

1:18:31

she just like strolls out from behind a pillar and

1:18:34

tells everybody does.

1:18:35

Oh, it's so good. Yeah

1:18:38

uh, and of course the good guys win in the end,

1:18:40

and yeah, I

1:18:43

loved Wolf Devil Woman.

1:18:44

It kind of comes to an abrupt end

1:18:47

though after that it's just kind of like, okay,

1:18:49

forces of evil or defeat it and

1:18:51

that's it. Everybody can go home.

1:18:53

Yeah, it's not clear what's happening to Wolf

1:18:55

Woman at the end, Like they defeat the devil.

1:18:57

Oh, and Master Chew reveals that he was

1:18:59

his evil brother, I think, and that

1:19:01

he killed Lee's father and then

1:19:04

turned to look like him. But anyway, they defeated

1:19:06

the devil. Devil turns to ash. But

1:19:09

we were told earlier by Master two

1:19:11

that it would take all of Snowflower's

1:19:14

magical ginsing strength to defeat

1:19:16

the devil, and then after the conflict,

1:19:18

she would wither and die. And now

1:19:21

here we are, after the conflicts. They have defeated

1:19:23

the Devil, and Wolf Woman is

1:19:25

shown to be woozy and reeling,

1:19:28

and Lee goes to kind of steady her, and

1:19:31

I guess we're supposed to be in suspense, like,

1:19:34

oh, is she gonna be okay? But we don't find out. They

1:19:36

just cut to the end, so

1:19:38

no resolution on what happens to Wolf Woman.

1:19:41

I do wish there was a happy epilogue.

1:19:44

I wanted to see them going to restaurants again,

1:19:47

all four of the heroes going to restaurants

1:19:49

together.

1:19:50

That would have been good, like see if she has really

1:19:52

learned how to use chopsticks yet or if she's

1:19:54

just gonna, you know, end up eating the fish

1:19:56

with her hands again.

1:19:58

More more Wolf Woman eating

1:20:00

too many boiled eggs and drinking

1:20:02

too much wine.

1:20:05

So yeah, that is Wolf Devil

1:20:08

Woman. Quite

1:20:10

a picture. Never a dull moment. This

1:20:12

is not one that is a slog

1:20:14

to watch by any stretch of the imagination.

1:20:17

Hats off to Pearl Chang. I love

1:20:19

it.

1:20:19

Yeah. All right, Well, we're gonna

1:20:21

go ahead and close up this episode of Weird House Cinema,

1:20:24

but we would love to hear from everyone out there. Are

1:20:26

you a fan of Wolf Devil Woman.

1:20:28

Do you have additional context to share

1:20:31

regarding Wolf Devil Woman and Taiwanese

1:20:33

cinema. Do you have a personal history with

1:20:35

this film or did you watch it for the first time after

1:20:38

hearing us bringing it bring it up? If

1:20:40

so, maybe you have some thoughts as well. Anything's

1:20:43

fair game, you know, if you want to talk about right

1:20:45

into us, talk about past episodes of Weird

1:20:47

House, cinema movies we covered, ages back, movies

1:20:50

we just covered, as well as movies we might potentially

1:20:52

cover in the future. We're always open

1:20:54

for suggestions and those suggestions

1:20:57

can come sometimes, you know, push things

1:20:59

up on our possible list of future

1:21:01

episodes. So yeah, keep it coming. We'd

1:21:04

love to hear from you. And if you do want to

1:21:06

see what we've covered in the past on the show,

1:21:08

well, you can go over to letterbox dot com. That's

1:21:10

l E T T e r box d dot com, which

1:21:12

is in general just a really cool sort

1:21:14

of social media site for reviewing

1:21:17

films and tracking films and putting

1:21:19

films on lists and to watch list and all.

1:21:21

While we are on there, our username is weird House

1:21:23

and we have a singular list there of

1:21:26

all the movies we've covered so far, and sometimes

1:21:28

there's a peak ahead what we're covering in the next

1:21:30

week or two.

1:21:31

Huge thanks as always to our excellent

1:21:33

audio producer Jjposway. If

1:21:35

you would like to get in touch with us with feedback

1:21:37

on this episode or any other to suggest a topic

1:21:39

for the future, or just to say hello. You can email

1:21:42

us at contact That's Stuff to Blow Your

1:21:44

Mind dot com.

1:21:52

Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio.

1:21:54

For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the

1:21:57

iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

1:21:59

wherever you listen to your favorite shows.