Spooky Encounters: A Gwailo's Guide to Hong Kong Horror

A Gwailo, for the uninitiated, is the Chinese term for a white foreigner, literally translating as "ghost man" or "white ghost", thereby giving Daniel O'Brien's guide the sense of being both by and for the white outsider to Hong Kong Chinese culture.

Following some useful scene setting as to the distinctive historical and cultural contexts of Hong Kong and its cinema, O'Brien's first establishes the long history of films with borderline horror elements, such as King Hu's magisterial A Touch of Zen (1971), prior to the better-known – if hardly representative in its elcectic combination of Chinese and European vampire lores and a Magnificent Seven/Seven Samurai styled approach – Hammer/Shaw Brothers collaboration The Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires (1974).

The true founding text for the Hong Kong horror film thus emerges in the form of the film that gives the book its title, the multi-talented – actor/producer/director/action choreographer – Sammo Hung's Spooky Encounters (1980) which, contrary to its Spielberg-inspired title, took a more traditional approach in showcasing such figures as the kyonsi or hopping corpse, striking a chord with domestic audiences who evidently hadn't been sure what to make of Seven Golden Vampires.

Hung was equally important in the second wave of Hong Kong horrors, spearheaded by the surprise hit Mr Vampire (1985). Directed by Hung associate Ricky Lau the film established the Chinese vampire in its own right, being followed by numerous sequels and imitations – the so-called CVK or Cute Vampire Kid subgenre – while making a star of Lam Ching Yin, its ghostbusting Taoist priest.

One of Mr Vampire's subplots saw one of Lam Ching Yin's hapless assistants fall under the spell of a female ghost or huli, thereby presaging producer-director-all-round impresario Tsui Hark's A Chinese Ghost Story (1987), starring Leslie Cheung and Joey Wong and the breakthrough film as far as reaching the more mainstream western audience was concerned. Soon thereafter Stanley Kwan's Rouge (also 1987) pitted Cheung alongside Anita Mui in a more arthouse styled tale of tragic love, again reaching beyond the traditional Chinese diasporan audience.

From these high points the trend is predominantly a downwards one, with only a few entries such as Ronny Yu's FX-driven horror-fantasy The Bride with White Hair (1992) and the Category III softcore influenced Erotic Ghost Story (1990) seemingly warranting much attention in the run up to the 1997 handover, while the most successful horror productions since, the Pang Brothers' The Eye (2002) arguably takes things full-circle in terms of its influences, being more inspired by the current new wave of Japanese horror than traditional kyonsi and huli legends.

The general impression one gets from this history, then, is that those films which are relatively easy for the gwailo to see are also the best, their respective sequels and imitators frequently not worth the effort. It's not quite a case of O'Brien saying "I've had to suffer through the likes of Mr Vampire 2 so you don't have to" however, with numerous less well known titles also emerging as warranting seeking out, such as the early Tsui Hark entries The Butterfly Murders (1979) and We're Going to Eat You (1980) – notable for their distinctly Italianate giallo-esque and cannibal influences – fellow new-waver Ann Hui's Spooky Bunch (1980), the Better Tomorrow era Chow Yun Fat entry The Seventh Curse (1986), and just about everything King Hu ever made.

Spooky Encounters: A Gwailo's Guide to Hong Kong Horror's only weak spot is a slight lack of focus implicit in its title and subtitle: While the supernatural emerges as the dominant manifestation of horror in the Hong Kong context, they are clearly not entirely commutative. Thus, while Category III productions are referred to where necessary to better contextualise a film or its personnel, the late 80s/early 90s sex and violence cycle in particular receives relatively short shrift.

The result, one feels, is perhaps somwhat akin to an account of British horror that comprehensively takes into account Hammer's gothic horror output but isn't so concerned with, say, Amicus and Tigon let alone Peter Walker. Nevertheless, even if unavoidably partial in places, with one getting the sense that the book could have been two or three times as long and still not covered everything, there is no doubt that O'Brien does know his stuff – many authors would surely have confused the three Tony Leungs he carefully distinguishes, for instance – and has spent way too much time in front of the screen, big or small.

If Spooky Encounters is the only game in town for as far as English-language guides to its subject are concerned, thankfully it's also a damn good one.