The Seventh Curse (1986) is a grindhouse midnight movie at its best. It has no care other than to entertain you, blood, guns, deadly puppets, nudity, bombs, arrows, pagan magic, kung fu, booby traps,... did I say blood? While Ingmar Bergman may give film viewers a glimpse of the human soul, its films like the Seventh Curse that give us a look at the downright silly and wonderfully stupid depths of our imagination. And, there are sometimes when a person just needs to sit back and be mindlessly entertained.

The Film: Dr Yuan (Chin Siu Ho, Tai Chi Master ), a geeky, unlikely looking hero, is called to the scene of a hostage situation. The brazen plan is basically to have Dr. Yuan go in, and on cue, set off a distracting flash bomb while the cops bust in, and the plan works, though it is nearly foiled by pesky reporter Tsia-hung (HK mega-actress, Maggie Cheung, Police Story, Herioc Trio, In the Mood for Love), who sneaks inside. So, now you're thinking this is a typical Hong Kong cop action film? No, no, no. After attending a swank party (because what else does a guy want to do after fighting bad guys and rescuing hostages?), Dr Yuan returns home, and is attacked by a Thai brute, He Lung, who informs him that he needs to return to Thailand to heal his "blood curse" and he should stay away from sex. Not heeding the advice, Dr Yuan tries to get it on with his girl, only to have the veins in his leg swell up, and suddenly burst. So, Dr Yuan visits his colleague Wisely (some guy named Chow Yun Fat) and recounts the tale of how he got the blood curse. In other words, flashback time...

It seems that while in Thailand, researching a cure for AIDS (though in 1986, I suspect it wasn't AIDS in the script) Dr Yuan ran afoul of the evil Worm Tribe. One night, he and some men spy on the tribes ritual, and Dr Yuan sees that a beautiful native princess (ridiculously named Betsy) is about to be sacrificed. The evil witch doctor shows that he has a few 'tricks up his sleeve', in a bit that is impossible to predict, and I wont give away, but it is freaky and weird and a huge surprise. Anyway, in the catacombs of the temple, Dr Yuan tries to rescue Betsy from becoming a sacrifice for Old Ancestor. What is Old Ancestor, you may ask? Well, Old Ancestor gives Seventh Curse the chance to have the best gut-wrenchingly hilarious skeleton puppet fighting since Army of Darkness. Needless to say, our hero rescues Betsy, but unfortunately, its rather hard to escape from a tribe full of flaming arrow shooting cult members, so Dr Yuan is captured and given the blood curse, by means of the witch doctor making him swallow a handful of bullets that will slowly explode from his body, the last one exiting through his heart. Betsy (in a strange meld of gross and sexy) gives him an interesting temporary remedy, but it will only last a year.

And thats just the beginning, a third of the film. Wisely decides Dr Yuan must go to Thailand, with Wisley following day later, and of course Tsia-hung tags along for comic relief. With the help of He Lung and Betsy, Dr Yuan finds out that the only cure, a urn of holy ashes, is stored in a large Buddha statue, and, as if the blood curse wasn't hurrying him enough, the remedy will only work within a limited time frame. But, that dastardly worm tribe and its evil witch doctor have been out stealing babies, so the babies must be rescued first. After traveling through the booby trapped jungle, He Lung and Dr Yuan take to the temple catacombs, shotgun blasting and arrow impaling anyone in their way. Oh, yeah, and Tsia-hung is kidnapped and possessed. And then of course there is the heavily guarded Buddha statue, the worm tribe attack, that freaky weird thing I want to remain a surprise, and the final showdown with the witch doctor and Old Ancestor, who morphs into a Godzilla-Power Rangers-Alien hopping, flying, biting, tearing creature, which Wisley has a very modern method to defeat it. Whew!

The Seventh Curse is exploitation cinema at its finest, a hodgepodge of style, fueled by gore and action. And, at an hour and 17 mins, with credits, it is a breeze to sit through, barely relaxing for three minutes without some kind of action. And, its that frenzied Hong Kong action, with stuntmen and stars wailing on each other, flipping, falling, jumping out of explosions, taking risks (especially in one scene where a car stunt obviously hits one stunman way too hard but they leave in the film anyway) that you just have to respect. Its very much in the tradition of Braindead (aka Dead Alive), Evil Dead 2, and Army of Darkness, though without the wink as to how silly it all is. This is a film that belongs in any b- horror/action movie lovers collection.

On a final note- The Dr Yuan and Wisely characters were meant to be in a series of films, sort of a pulp fantasy-horror Indiana Jones. This is evidenced by the fact the Seventh Curse is bookended by Yuan and Wisely telling the films story to a friend at a dinner party. One assumes they intended all the films in the series to have the same formula, the film being told as a story at a party. However, the idea must have not taken off, although the Wisely character does appear again in the films The Legend of Wisely and Bury Me High. Director Ngai Kai Lam would continue to show an affinity for the rubber monster, gore, over the top, fantasy with Peacock King, Erotic Ghost Story, and the Story of Ricky. Also, old school kung fu fans may notice Japanese fighter Yasuaki Kurata's cameo as the police chief at the beginning of Seventh Curse.

DVD Quality: Universe Laser and Video.

Picture-One of Universes more low key titles, the widescreen print is worn to the degree that it has some softness and constant graying in the blackness levels (especially evident in the night scenes). Overall, this b-film shows good color and sharpness. The "bookend" scenes, however are worn pretty bad (perhaps a different crew was used, or the scenes were lost?), but don't take up much screen time.

Sound- A competent Dolby Digital 5.1 mix, Cantonese and Mandarin language, no hiss, no pops, no reverb, no gaping flaws, but not dynamic.

Extras- Universe's standard seven subtitle options, including, of course, English, Chinese, etc (with some subtitle flubs, like- Wisely being 'Wesley', and lines like "You brought the mess because you're naughty.", "She has gone berserk and is Herculean.", "Shes away in a twinkle",and my all time favorite, "Take my advice or I'll spank you without pants."). Star Bios for Chow Yun Fat (even though he's only in the film for about 5 minutes) and Maggie Cheung. Trailers for the film, as well as Witch from Nepal, Eighth Happiness, Flaming Brothers, and Triads the Inside Story.