Produced by Sammo Hung, and featuring HK movie legends Lam Ching-Ying and Richard Ng, horror comedy Banana Spirit opens with a morgue attendant, Chic (Francis Ng), washing the naked corpse of a young woman, and then lugging her body to a slab where he glues her eyes shut and dresses her for reception by her family. It's a startling way to open a movie, and just one of several unexpected scenes in this surprisingly entertaining slice of early-'90s supernatural silliness. There is, of course, plenty of the puerile HK comedy that I find hard to bear (but which comes with the territory), but it's worth persevering for the really crazy stuff.
The plot is totally bananas: Chic and his friend Che (Collin Chou) attempt to raise cash as ghostbusters to pay off vicious loan shark Rabid Hsiung (Kwong Leung Wong). When Uncle Tang (Richard Ng) offers them cash if they can capture the banana spirit that killed his brother, the pair accept the job. In the middle of a banana forest, they invoke the spirit, which possesses the body of a beautiful model called Iris (Josephine Foo). Calling herself Chang, the spirit becomes enamoured with Chic, and uses her powers to help him win a fortune at Rabid Hsiung's illegal gambling den.
Not happy, Hsiung seeks revenge, but during a fight, the loan shark's head catches fire and he falls to his death off a balcony. Still wanting to settle the score, Hsiung's ghost escapes from his cage in hell and goes after Chic and Chang, firing flames of fury from his eyeballs and mouth! In a couple of Terminator inspired scenes, ghost Hsiung patches up his damaged face (a rather shonky animatronic head, but-if truth be told-not much worse than Stan Winston's similar effect in The Terminator) and is blown to pieces, only for his bloody body parts to reform (a la the T-1000 in T2).
Also serving to make the film a fun watch: Josephine Foo naked, frequent use of Enigma's new-age dance hit Sadeness (Part I), Chang proving who she is to Uncle Tang by reanimating a male corpse after giving it breasts, and Chic and Master Chen Sheng (Lam Ching-Ying) sharing a bowl of boner-inducing soup, lifting up a table with their chubbies! Now that's entertainment!
The plot is totally bananas: Chic and his friend Che (Collin Chou) attempt to raise cash as ghostbusters to pay off vicious loan shark Rabid Hsiung (Kwong Leung Wong). When Uncle Tang (Richard Ng) offers them cash if they can capture the banana spirit that killed his brother, the pair accept the job. In the middle of a banana forest, they invoke the spirit, which possesses the body of a beautiful model called Iris (Josephine Foo). Calling herself Chang, the spirit becomes enamoured with Chic, and uses her powers to help him win a fortune at Rabid Hsiung's illegal gambling den.
Not happy, Hsiung seeks revenge, but during a fight, the loan shark's head catches fire and he falls to his death off a balcony. Still wanting to settle the score, Hsiung's ghost escapes from his cage in hell and goes after Chic and Chang, firing flames of fury from his eyeballs and mouth! In a couple of Terminator inspired scenes, ghost Hsiung patches up his damaged face (a rather shonky animatronic head, but-if truth be told-not much worse than Stan Winston's similar effect in The Terminator) and is blown to pieces, only for his bloody body parts to reform (a la the T-1000 in T2).
Also serving to make the film a fun watch: Josephine Foo naked, frequent use of Enigma's new-age dance hit Sadeness (Part I), Chang proving who she is to Uncle Tang by reanimating a male corpse after giving it breasts, and Chic and Master Chen Sheng (Lam Ching-Ying) sharing a bowl of boner-inducing soup, lifting up a table with their chubbies! Now that's entertainment!
