This entertaining kung-fu action comedy was released as Spooky Encounters in the United States but it is also known as Close Encounters of the Spooky Kind (but the orginal title is Gui da Gui, which means Ghost Fights Ghost).
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Bold Cheung (Sammo Hung) is a pedicab driver. He is a good fighter and a brave guy, but not particularly bright and often bamboozled by his peers. We see him at the beginning of the film, showing off his bravery and how his friends trick him into a spooky prank. However, while he fools around, his wife and his boss Master Tam (Huang Ha) are having an affair behind his back and when Master Tam feels at risk of being discovered, he decides to get rid of Bold Cheung at once! To do so, he hires a master of witchcraft to help him. Taoist priest and necromancer Chin Hoi (Peter Chan Lung) is going to control corpses on remote with all sorts of sorcery and magic, and send them to kill Cheung.
Cheung spends a night in a temple with a hopping corpse / vampire and barely manages to escape alive, but other magic tricks are waiting for him and, on top of all that, he has been framed for the murder of his disappeared wife and is chased by the police. Enter Tsui (Chung Fat), another Taoist priest who offers Cheung some help as he strongly disagrees with Chin Hoi using their Taoist skills for evil purposes. As in every good martial arts story, Cheung will learn from the Sifu how to fight against Chin Hoi black magic, and it will be ready to head to the final duel.
The main reason to love this charming film is its unique mix of slapstick comedy, mad action, good martial arts and amazing stunt-work with the addition of horror and supernatural. It also has two extremely likeable elements, one is Sammo Hung, of course, and the other is the ‘Jiangshi' or hopping vampires. With all its imperfections, “Spooky Encounters” was one of the first jiangshi films and it went on to open the way for many future titles and inspired a whole new sub-genre of Hong Kong cinema. Few years later, in 1985, we will have the classic “Mr. Vampire“, followed by all its numerous sequels and films like “The Dead and the Deadly“, “Vampire vs. Vampire“ and also more recent revamps (no pun intended), like “Rigor Mortis“ and “Vampire Cleanup Department“.
We can see in “Spooky Encounters” the seeds of the future success of “Mr.Vampire”. Lam Ching-Ying the champion-to-be of vampire-busting, appears here as a silly police inspector on Cheung's trail. However, Sammo Hung thoroughly owns the success of “Spooky Encounters”; he wrote it, directed it, and starred in it, doing an astounding physical work. In Hung's films, action “IS” the comedy; the stunts follow the mode of slapstick comedy, but they offer, at the same time, some hysterical and breathtaking physical performances. Plenty of examples here; there is a scene where Cheung sleeps near a rotting dead body and the corpse starts to animate and mirror his movements, like in a dance. Then Cheung grabs a brick and hit his own head hoping the other will mirror him, but the corpse grabs the brick and hit Cheung's head.
On the martial arts side, there are some excellent fights, one with a Jiangshi fighting robotic-style (an unrecognizable Yuen Biao), then a very funny piece of bravura when Chin Hoi, with a woodoo-style curse, possesses Cheung's right arm. The limb starts acting on its own devices and provokes a fight with a group of policemen, therefore Cheung ends up fighting at the same time with the group and against his own arm. And finally, the amazing final showdown, set on two different levels (and altitude!). On one, the priests fight each other with witchcraft and magic, while on the other Cheung confronts Chin Hoi's apprentice first, and Master Tam later, all of them possessed by different Taoist entities, using a variety of weapons and styles. Here Sammo performes amazingly as possessed by The Monkey God (Wukong), fighting monkey-style while acting and screeching as a silly monkey and hanging from the scaffolding. Some Taoist references might prove obscure for non-Chinese public, especially in this final act, but the mix of comedy, martial arts and wacky sorcery makes it very enjoyable also for less informed audiences.
There is not much camera movement and no frantic editing like in modern action movies. On the contrary, the camera indulges on the fights capturing actions and reactions in the same frame, letting the audience feel the blows, and the natural rhythm of the choreography. The plot is undoubtedly rather simple, more a series of entertaining set-pieces that function as a vehicle for Hung's imaginative choreographies and his extraordinary athleticism.
Sammo Hung's physicality, his energy, sense of humour and charisma really are special, and they find a perfect display in the trailblazing kung-fu action-comedy-horror “Spooky Encounters”.
