Human Lanterns (1982)

Master Lung Shu Ai (Lau Wing) and Master Tan Fu (Chen Kuan Tai) are well to do men who have nothing better to do than annoy each other with one-up-manships and aggravate the local constable, Sgt. Poon (Sun Chien), who's a bit of a Barney Fife type character. The upcoming Lantern Festival is another chance for the affluent rivals to go at each other. Shu Ai looks up an old Swordsman rival, Chao Chun Fang (Lieh Lo), who is now a lantern designer. Fang agrees to create lanterns on the condition Shu Ai stays away until their completion.Shu Ai's paramour at the local brothel disappears. She has been abducted by someone wearing a costume reminiscent of the Voodoo Doctor on Scooby Doo. The Voodoo creature even does a dance similar to the one on the cartoon. It's hard to take this creature seriously as a "scary" entity. The disappearance prompts Shu Ai and Tan Fu to point fingers at each other. Sgt. Poon's investigation is incredibly poor and he simply shrugs and calls it a mystery. He doesn't give up on the investigation, but it seems to done with the intensity of a child cleaning their bedroom.Tan Fu's sister disappears the following day by the Voodoo creature. Tan Fu blames Shu Ai, prompting a juvenile contest at the local inn that put upon Sgt. Poon tries to halt with disastrous results. Shu Ai and Tan Fu are instructed to go home and wait for the police to finish their investigation. Neither is about to do as instructed.A botched attempt on Shu Ai's life by hired assassin Kwai Sze Yin (Lo Meng), is a convenient distraction for the Voodoo creature to kidnap Shu Ai's wife. Shu Ai is enraged he was assaulted and his wife taken while Sgt Poon's men were mere feet from the front door of his home. Sgt Poon admits no one was guarding the back of the house.Kwai Sze Yin's failure to kill Shu Ai, results in his own death at the hands of his employer, Tan Fu. Tan Fu doesn't want witnesses who can connect him to the hit on Shu Ai. Tan fu instructs his staff to take Kwai Sze Yin's body far from the estate to bury it. The staff are set upon by the Voodoo creature while carrying out Tan Fu's orders. They and Kwai Sze Yin are decapitated and their heads are hung in the Lantern District in town.The Voodoo creature reveals himself to Su AI's wife to be Chao Chun Fang. he is out to avenge his disgrace in the swordsman's world at the hands of Shu Ai years earlier. He is abducting those close to Shu Ai and using their skin for the lanterns. There is an old tale that human skin makes the best material due to its elasticity. Shu Ai suspects Chao Chun Fang is behind the abductions but says nothing to either Tan Fu or Sgt. Poon. He instead goes after Tan Fu in other of their ego driven challenges. Cha Chun Fang makes an appearance during the challenge and severely wounds Tan Fu. Shu Ai follows Chao Chun Fang back to his workshop where fight and talk about Chao Chun Fang's need for revenge. A severely depleted Tan Fu arrives in a wheelbarrow to aid in the fight. He dies shortly after the arrival of Sgt. Poon and other constables.The finale fight is reminiscent of The House of Wax. The building collapses. A fire is started, which traps Shu Ai and Chao Chun Fang in the basement with no possible exit. Chao Chun Fang become engulfed in flames and grabs Shu Ai, igniting him into a fireball as well. Sgt. Poon and other constables are struggling to dig out an escape for Shu Ai.The final scene is implausible given the events at the workshop. It seemed a "Happy Ending" was required to counter all the death and "horror". Shu Ai is sitting in his now nearly empty home. He has burns only on his left hand and left side of his face. Incredible considering how long his body was on fire. He instructs Sgt Poon to sell the house and contents to provide for the local poor. Shu Ai will spend the rest of his life roaming the countryside helping those in need. I gave it a 7 more due to the cast than plot and fight scenes. Based on other reviews, I have seen the censured version of the story. Someday, I hope to see the full version.

Human Lanterns is probably widely talked about as a cult martial arts film with some dabbling on the macabre. The opening credits show a warehouse with plenty of human remains atop a bloody grinder. In fact, it has all the ingredients of a torture porn flick, except that, horrors of horrors, this DVD edition comes censored! So gone are the scenes where the victim's skin are peeled off their bodies to make the titular lanterns, though there was a fleeting boob shot from afar that the censors seemed to have missed.Anyway, the story is nothing remarkable, with two town braggers, Master Lung (Tony Liu Yong) and Master Tan (Chen Kuan Tai) at loggerheads and always scheming to be one up against the other. Tan shows off his latest human-sized lantern which gets the admiration of the simple townsfolk, and Lung decides to go one up on his rival. His search for a master lantern maker leads him to one time love rival Chun Fang (Lo Lieh), who agrees to make him the most stunning lanterns ever seen, with a condition that he never visits his workplace. Best of all, they celebrate their strange union by visiting the whorehouse. Hmm.Also, a mysterious masked creature looking like an overgrown hairy ape with highly skilled kungfu start to terrorize the town, kidnapping young nubile females such as the #1 courtesan and the sister of Master Tan, and given the nature of the disappearance, the animosity between the two men deepen to a deadly duel. However, it doesn't take you a second to figure out just who the man is behind the creature, and there's some needless tension built up around this mystery which seemed a little waste of time. The "police" too turn out to be rather foolhardy and inept, with the sergeant always listening to the two rich men, allowing his investigations to be poisoned by ill opinions from each of them on the other. Talk about siding with those who are rich or in power.While it can't be comparable to stuff we see today, for it's time I think the fight scenes were still interesting enough to engage audiences, given its myriad of weapons from swords to fans (and the creature's gloved claws), and stunts. In fact, the stunts and sets were really impressive for its climatic battle, and I thought there was no stinginess in creating multi- layered sets for the actors to ply their martial arts abilities. What seemed to be interesting here though, is not the choreographed martial arts display, but rather the portrayal of the women's role in cultures back then. They are treated like playthings, with zero say in the ways of the world, reduced to gossipy aunties, and helpless damsels in distress. In fact, Lung's wife had to even tolerate, and even approve of her husband's infidelity. That said, Human Lanterns could have been a more entertaining watch, if not for the censoring of those crucial moments, making it like eating Char Kway Teow without the See Hum!

Chung Sun, who directed, amongst many other films, the superb "The Sexy Killer" (see review), is unable to make the elements gel in "Human Lanterns" aka "Human Skin Lanterns". Personally, I have always loved the idea of using human skin to make lanterns, so this film was an eagerly awaited one by me. Unfortunately, there's too little skinning and too much martial arts in this. In fact, the skinning scenes (there are two), while well done, feel like they belong in a different movie altogether. This is a strange effort to make a martial arts fantasy and cross it with a Hammer-style horror plot. It doesn't work. That said, "Human Lanterns" is still a sumptuously photographed and designed period piece. The Shaw's certainly spent big on its sets, cast and special effects. It's a shame they didn't focus more on the horror promised in the title. Disappointing horror. Satisfactory period-fu epic.

"Human Lanterns" mixes Wuxia-style martial arts and horror in a cultish but ultimately disappointing manner. The fights are well staged and surprisingly good for such a campy movie, but the horror elements felt way out of place. And they are far from scary.The acting is over the top, the plot is weak and the direction awkward. I know that many think of this film as a cult movie, but this only proved to me that many times cult does not equal class. Personally, I'd rather rate this trash - an interesting mix but an ultimately disappointing view.Rating: 4/10