 |
| From http://www.cityonfire.com/wp-content/uploads/ 2011/02/HumanLanterns_GoldenSwallow_SC36.jpg |
Director: Chung Sun
Screenplay: Kuang Ni and Chung Sun
Cast: Tony Liu (as Lung Shu-Ai); Kuan Tai Chen (as Tan Fu); Lieh Lo (as Chao Chun-Fang); Ni Tien (as Lung's Wife); Linda Chu (as Yen Chu); Hsiu-Chun Lin (as Tan Mei-mei)
A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #77
After watching a couple of Shaw Brothers horror films over the last
five months, tackling one of the martial arts films that they made a reputation
on which delved into the horror genre feels immensely appropriate, seeing that
as a later release of theirs, before they would eventually step out of the
cinema market, they had made so many martial arts films that taking the tropes
and narratives and splicing them with new tangents would've made perfect sense.
Most of Human Lanterns follows in
the tradition of the period martial arts films with their spiralling plots, of
rivalries and revenge. Two men, Lung Shu-Ai (Tony Liu) and Tan Fu (Kuan
Tai Chen) start off with a rivalry about the oncoming festival, Lung Shu a
pompous and spoilt egotist who pays a craftsman Chao Chun-Fang (Lieh Lo) to build him the most
spectacular lantern possible. However as the film progresses, Lung Shu and Tan
Fu's rivalry escalates to violent hostility with the local police stuck in the
middle having to keep guard of both, the rivals believing the other to have
kidnapped a loved one each and even an assassin sent to kill one of them. Within
the company's distinct set-bound period locations, of immensely beautiful decor
and all shot with exquisite palette, the same sense of aesthetic quality like
older Shaw Brothers films is to be
found. At this point the studio had made so many films that it would've taken
an exceptional failure to find bad production design, and the same applies for
the martial arts in the film; within the context of more fantastical and
exaggerated abilities for the participants, by wire-work and other effects, it's
as solid as always for these films.
What differentiates Human Lanterns from other films is that
the third figure involved Chao Chun-Fang is a sociopath hell bent on revenge
against Lung Shu for a previous transgression, very soon into the film revealed
to be the Machiavellian figure taking advantage of the lead characters'
escalating rivalry whilst he is attempting to create the titular lantern, a
gruesome concept made more horrible in how he intends to create it from the
flesh of kidnapped women, loved ones of his enemies, flayed and preserved to
make the appropriate construction material. The film's less extreme than other
Hong Kong films, even other Shaw Brothers
productions especially their line of black magic movies, but it doesn't take
long, in fact from the first frame, to develop the same Asian gothic grotesqueness
of the studio's horror films, partly evoking Italian horror with its use of
heavily coloured lighting and using locations like the lantern creating
facility against the film's own idiosyncratic personality to give it an ominous
atmosphere. That it's a martial arts film helps give this side of the narrative
more heft in how Lieh Lo is an
incredibly physical actor even in a film full of martial artists, able to use
it alongside regular acting both as his character when he's at his most
maniacal and insane, and the skull faced, half gorilla alter ego who crosses a
slasher film killer with an exceptionally agile and dangerous fighter who
cackles like a madman constantly and spouts nihilistic views of the world and
of heroes.
The horror works more as Human Lanterns becomes the darkest of
all the Shaw Brothers films I've seen
from their catalogue. With an egotistic, unlikable protagonist and even the
more nobler side protagonist succumbing to evil actions, it becomes a morality
tale of being blind to one's rages which leads to punishment for both through a
tragic ending and a large toll of deaths. More subdued in content than other,
more notorious films from Hong Kong, Human
Lanterns is still a story about women being killed and skinned to make a
human lantern, as repulsive as it sounds, those close to the lead characters
involved. From rape to the pouring of liquid mercury into an exposed head
wound, it's a gristly film that teeters perfectly between a more meaningful
tone, without falling into the lurid grossness of schlocky films, and a grotesqueness,
never nasty for the sake of nastiness in spite of its more uncomfortable moments
and ultimately having more impact because of how bleak the ending turns out to
be. Ignorance and ego, Lung Shu the central protagonist on screen the most,
leads to innocent people dying and karma destroying lives whilst the villain
strives to create his horrifying artistic masterpiece. Without spoilt the
ending, it leads to sadness and the necessary goal for one character to clean
their soul of sin through pilgrimage as a travelling vagabond. Even if it's
still an exploitation martial arts and horror genre hybrid, this twist on
expectations which leads to a bleak gut punch at the end was an immense
surprise.
 |
| From http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_74pU6eWmEHc/TFXtiB5E-XI/ AAAAAAAAAwY/lvvzAy7jOBs/s1600/human-skin-lanterns-image-2.png |
No comments:
Post a Comment