Original title: 鬼域
Avengers from Hell is a three story omnibus Shaw Brothers feature directed by Lee Pooi-Kuen from the studio’s decadent late period, though this one’s really more competent and routine than decadent.
The first story concerns a rookie beat cop’s (Alex Man Chi-Leung) intense obsession with a haunted house and the resident ghost of a murdered woman (Lee Yin-Yin), the sort of thing that will need an intervention by his girlfriend (JoJo Chan Kei-Kei) sooner or later.
The second one is another tale of a philandering Hong Kong business man (Phillip Chan Yan-Kin) cheating on his pregnant wife on foreign soil (though it’s the Philippines for a change), killing his mistress (Lily Chan Lee-Lee) over a pregnancy, and soon having to fend off a pissed off ghost you’d probably root for over him if it hadn’t nasty plans for his wife too.
The third one is the comedic close-off of the whole affair with the tale of luckless elderly gentleman Liang Jiu (Lau Hak-Suen) who finds a pair of glasses that brings him in contact with a ghost who will finally help him win at gambling for once. Hot mah-jongg action is of course to follow.
As the basic plots of the film’s segments suggest, Avengers from Hell isn’t a long lost classic of Shaw Brothers horror but rather the sort of quickly shot, competently made film the studio’s exploitation arm excelled at this late in its existence (one could argue throughout it); it’s also the sort of film nobody involved took for anything more than another job to fill some cinema slots when nothing more profitable came around.
Fortunately, everyone involved was at least a professional, so the film might not be all that original, but it is neither lackluster nor boring nor seems too disinterested. Director Lee Pooi-Kuen provides some pleasant moments of lurid fun – although this isn’t the sort of Hong Kong horror film that becomes more than mildly unpleasant and never gets really icky at all - and keeps everything moving along nicely and not without a degree of visual style.
All the while, the thirty minute segments never overstay the welcome of their basic set-ups, so while it is rather difficult to become very excited about Avengers from Hell, or find hidden depths in it, it’s also rather difficult to not be entertained by it on the basic level it wants to entertain.
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