In the 1970's movies and television dug into the occult and often mixed it with a little sexploitation. Black Magic was one of those movies. The movie boasted a strong Shaw Brothers cast-Ti Lung, Lo Lieh, Tien Ni, Ku Feng and Lily Li. It also had a host of slimy creatures. You'd need a strong stomach to watch it.

Ku Feng played the Black Magic magician with a laughable gray wig. Lo Lieh loved Tien Ni's money so he needed her to fall in love with him. Tien Ni was in love with Ti Lung's body and needed him to fall in love with her. Ku Feng wanted to sleep with Tien Ni. Finally, Ti Lung and Lily Li had a wholesome love that was definitely going to get messed up by all the lust and greed in the air. The Black Magic started flowing and nobody ended up with exactly what they desired. Fortunately, Ku Wen Chung played a good priest who helped sort things out by the end.

There were plenty of dead bodies, nude bodies (some writer had a fetish about women expressing breast milk), snakes, worms, centipedes and other vile bits. I'd have to include Ti Lung's horrible wig among the scary objects. The only thing that caused me to rate this as high as I did was the hilarious finale where good and evil fought it out with cheap 1970's special effects and sound effects on top of a building scaffold. I watched it on my quest to see all of Lo Lieh's movies. Other than that, I couldn't recommend unless you enjoy films with all of the above.

8/26/23