Meng gui jia ren (1989) Poster

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5/10
Forget heaven, let's go to Hong Kong!
BA_Harrison9 February 2021
Lisa dies in a car crash and is chased by two demons with tongues that would make Gene Simmons feel inadequate; she arrives at the gates of Hell where the guardian, an old woman who calls herself Auntie Ghost, tells Lisa that her name is not in the book and that she should be in heaven. Before making her way upstairs, Lisa decides to spend some time in Hong Kong, haunting two brothers, John (Denis Fan) and Jim, who run a photography business specialising in female nudes.

The brothers first encounter the ghostly girl after having visited a sleazy bar where a man and woman in their underwear perform acrobatic tricks to an instrumental version of Blondie's 'Rapture'. Popping into an alleyway to take a leak, one of the guys is shocked to find that he has urinated on Lisa's head, while the other brother gets freaked out by the spooky lass as he walks home.

The next day, the brothers see Lisa passing by, and, not recognising her as the ghost from the night before (surely the smell of stale urine would be a giveaway), ask her if she would be interested in modelling for them. In the following days, Lisa and John become romantically involved, and John decides he doesn't want his new lady friend to pose for him; instead, Lisa uses her ghostly powers to trick the brothers' sexy secretary Sue into getting naked for the camera. A steamy photo session ensues, the movie delivering plenty of nudity.

When Lisa's ghostly influence wears off, Sue is shocked to see the results of her naked photoshoot. Suspecting foul play, she visits a sorcerer, who tells her she was under a spell. The magic man confronts Lisa, but is scared away by some truly terrible special effects. Lisa then causes more trouble for the secretary, casting a spell that makes her sleep with Jim. A steamy sex scene ensues, delivering more nudity.

Meanwhile, John is also under Lisa's influence, taking her for a romantic boat trip, during which the ghost decides to pose naked for John's lens. Another steamy photo session ensues (an instrumental version of Los Bravos' Black is Black playing on the soundtrack).

Having convinced Sue that he hasn't raped her, Jim and his secretary pay another visit to the sorcerer, who tells them the secret to defeating the ghost: drench her in dog's blood. All this seems to do is make her angry, the ghost biting Jim and Sue, and then using a voodoo doll on the sorceror and tricking him into drinking 'the pregnant of the snake' (as the dodgy subtitles call it), which makes him vomit up reptiles. Unfortunately, this part of the film is so dark that it's hard to see what is happening.

Ghost Auntie then turns up, her face becoming a skull, after which the tongue demons choke the sorcerer to death with a chain.

The film closes by pulling the old 'it was all a dream' trick, John waking up from a nightmare, in bed, next to his wife, Lisa. It's corny, lacks imagination, and is a total cop-out, but one has to admire the audacity of the film-makers, who clearly didn't know how to end their film (I would have suggested another steamy sex scene).

4.5/10, rounded up to 5 for all the gratuitous T&A, and for blatantly stealing the music from A Nightmare On Elm Street.
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