Review: Strange is just one word that could be used to describe this movie, along with mediocre, odd and low budget. It’s certainly not your typical tale of love and deceit, more like a mix and mash of various genres, which for the most part doesn’t provide the most entertaining of viewing experiences. The combination of love story, martial arts and spiritual goings on really did have the potential of providing something exciting, but poor execution leads to an irritating and flawed final product.

One redeeming feature for some will be the heavy focus on Chinese opera which carries on for pretty much the whole duration, each opera scene is a teaser at how the rest of proceedings could have been, well choreographed and actually entertaining to watch, but instead pretty much everything else falls short of these scenes. Now this is the point where a good cast could rescue this work from the seemingly inevitable fate, well guess what? Yet again we find another flaw, the cast are generally terrible, with only ‘Handsome’ and his replacement who appears later on, actually having any charisma or skill. I think many will cheer ‘Handsome’ on, as he’s responsible for the elimination of the crew who brutally betrayed him and of course saving the viewer from having to sit through more of their plain performances!

You’re probably wondering what the title is all about by now, let’s just say it’s the catalyst for most of the ‘Supernatural’ events that begin to occur at all different times throughout the duration of the movie. The Joyful Goddess is probably the most effective character, causing a pregnancy, killing the mother to be, bringing ‘Handsome’ back from the dead and pretty much letting her powers go off the scale in the closing scenes. Without this element most wouldn’t be able to bear sitting through this movie, but at the same time too many of the odd spiritual events just don’t seem to fit and appear for the sake of adding something different to this dull affair.

As with many Hong Kong movies of the 80’s, this is low budget, this is still no excuse for actually looking cheap. I’ve seen plenty of low cost works that still manage to please visually, and once again another flaw is exposed quite glaringly. Pretty much every set is bland and uninspiring, also when you have to see the same sets many times over, it really doesn’t bode well for the viewer. But don’t fear! The budget has been used somewhere, it appears the last 10 minutes or so has had the entire budget lavished upon it. Here’s where the film actually comes alive, although it’s still not enough to elevate this from been anything more than poor. That said, the final scene features furniture coming alive, murdered cast members rising from the dead, possession and a huge Joyful Goddess doll intent on giving the betraying crew some payback, all in a disco like setting!

Generally most will want to avoid this offering of the quite renowned director Chen Chang, but that said, his involvement may spark the interest of others. I’m not one to find it hard to sit through a movie, but this is one of the few occasions where the eject button of my DVD player has never been quite so tempting. The idea was nice but never really threatens to deliver anything more than a lacklustre piece of work, void of any real entertainment.