The Dead and the Deadly – Eureka

Director: Wu Ma
Screenplay: Sammo Kam-Bo Hung, Barry Wong
Starring: Sammo Kam-Bo Hung, Wu Ma, Ching-Ying Lam, Cherie Chung, Fat Chung, Mei Hui Leung, Ching Po Chang
Country: Hong Kong
Running Time: 99 min
Year: 1982
BBFC Certificate: 12

The Dead and the Deadly was directed by the great Wu Ma (a.k.a. Fung Wang-yuen), who was a prolific actor as well as a director. Looking at his massive list of credits on IMDB (294 as an actor, 43 as a director), you could easily dub him “the hardest-working man in show business”, in Hong Kong at least. He’s probably best known for his acting roles, particularly his showstopping turn as the rapping Daoist monk Yin Chik Ha in A Chinese Ghost Story (which shockingly still hasn’t been given the boutique Blu-ray treatment in the UK), but he was a dab hand behind the camera as well.

The Dead and the Deadly sees Ma both in front of and behind the camera. It’s a horror-comedy-martial-arts movie that’s fondly remembered by many, though I must admit it wasn’t actually on my radar before Eureka announced they’d be putting it out on Blu-ray. On top of my love of Hong Kong martial arts movies, with Sammo Hung starring and featuring as one of the action directors (he and Ma worked together a lot over the years), it didn’t take much to convince me to take a look at the disc.

The film opens with a fun and nicely staged horror-comedy sequence that has very little to do with the overall plot but effectively sets the tone and draws the audience in. It also establishes, to Western audiences, that in Hong Kong people believe in ghosts, though they’re not quite the same as our typical white-sheet apparitions.

The story then goes on to follow Wah Li (Hung), a young man working in a funeral parlour. One day, his friend Ma Lun Chio (Wu Ma) shows up dead after being out of town for a while. Bringing his body back home is his new pregnant wife Lee Yuet Ying (Mei Hui Leung) and her ‘brother’.

Li is suspicious about this situation though. After a past incident at a brothel, he knew that his friend Ma was impotent, so couldn’t possibly have fathered a child. So, whilst preparations for Ma’s funeral go ahead, Li secretly hides out by the body to sniff out some clues.

Indeed, there is treachery afoot, with Ying and her ‘brother’ (actually her lover, of course) eyeing up the funeral offerings, but it’s a while before Li realises that Ma is also part of this scheme and is only pretending to be dead! When the two primary villains discover Ma is more valuable dead than alive and the child she will bear is the most valuable asset they have, they kill Ma for real.

Ma’s ghost then goes to his old friend Li for help and complex hijinx ensue.

The Dead and the Deadly wasn’t quite the film I expected, which led to a little disappointment but overall the film won me over regardless. With Sammo Hung leading the film and also billed as action choreographer, I was expecting plenty of brilliantly staged fight scenes, but that’s not the case. There are only two ‘proper’ fights and these are quite brief, albeit very well executed.

However, I fell in love with the film, despite the lack of martial arts. Simply put, it’s a lot of fun. Frank Djeng and Michael Worth often call the humour “subtle” in their commentary. I wouldn’t go that far. There are nob and boob gags a-plenty here. However, as crass as the jokes can often be, they are still very funny, usually carefully and effectively set up and well-embedded within the story. There’s also some cleverly written wordplay, though much of this is lost on Western audiences. Thanks must go to Djeng for pointing a lot of this out in his commentary.

I also enjoyed how the story takes some wonderfully unexpected turns. I’ve always loved a crazy high-concept film and there’s not a chance anyone could predict what happens by the end of this, which is not something that could be said about most martial arts movies. What’s particularly surprising and welcome is how Cherie Chung’s character, who starts out as a very minor one, becomes the big hero in the final act.

The film looks great too, with boldly colourful lighting and production design providing some eye candy. Camera movement and unusual framing help spice things up too. The soundtrack is also pretty good, with a funky electronic score providing the ambience alongside a few stolen Tangerine Dream tracks.

So, whilst there’s far less kung-fu than I was expecting and if I were to critically analyse the film too deeply it might come up short, I’ll be damned if I didn’t enjoy the hell out of this (puns intended). If lowbrow humour and wacky hijinx aren’t your thing you might want to steer clear, but fans of Hong Kong comedy, particularly horror-comedies like Mr. Vampire and Encounters of the Spooky Kind, will be in high heaven (sorry, couldn’t resist another pun).

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