In short: Amazing Stories (1994)

Original title: 野店

This Taiwanese anthology horror film directed by Chin Ao-Hsin clearly shares the goals and aesthetics of the milder Hong Kong CATIII movies by adding quite a bit of female nudity to a trio of at heart traditional Chinese horror tales. Stylistically, the film certainly looks the part, too, for it is full of the kind of camera angles, dolly shots, colours and even performance styles typical of Hong Kong cinema of the time. I suspect this was actually shot for the Hong Kong market more than the Taiwanese one, though I certainly can’t prove it.

In any case, the first story concerns the plight of a young woman and her mentally handicapped brother who have been sold off (married?) to a sadistic prick owning and working a small pre-industrial textile mill – which makes for a very moody and claustrophobic backdrop – who likes to rape and torture the girl. After her brother drowns in an accident, our heroine’s beloved male scholar doll she has owned since she was a little child comes alive turning into a man she actually falls in love with, and who will duel the prick repeatedly. Apart from the awesome mill, this first story has it all: torture, an awkward kung fu duel, a loathsome villain, a cringeworthy portrayal of a mentally handicapped man, as well as consensual sex and a genuinely exciting climax (no, the other one) prick versus burnable doll person. And, you know, a male hero called Baby Doll.

The second story concerns a guy living in some kind of no man’s land digging out the remains of people so their relatives can take them with them when moving away (everybody moves away). He encounters one of yon seductive supernatural women who like to suck out men’s life-force during sex (an idea that, as far as I know, has been a traditional concept in various Chinese culture groups for literal ages). This specific woman even has a reason for this, for in an earlier life, he promised to commit suicide together with her, but changed his mind at the last moment, leaving her unable to ever be reincarnated as a human again. However, when the gravedigger (reverse gravedigger?) was a child, he saved the life of a female badger(?) spirit, who enters into a mild yet pretty fun wire fu duel with the sex sucker. Again, this packs a lot into a short running time, and while Chin’s direction is a bit generic, the genre in question is 90s wire fu with sexy bits of dubious taste, so it’s certainly an enjoyable little tale.


The third and longest story did leave me a bit puzzled, I have to admit. Its set-up is basically The Postman Always Rings Twice situated in civil war China, with some added bits about impotence, but the tale ends in a way I find less than satisfying, leaving exactly the wrong characters alive for the wrong reasons and presenting a plot twist plan that’s so improbable, it could be from a US horror film made in 2018. The tale also asks its audience to buy a not terribly gracefully aged, sixty-year old Tin Ching as the studliest man alive. However, in between, there are quite a few sweaty, claustrophobic moments to witness, so the third episode may be the film’s weakest, but isn’t a total wash.