Review of Magic Cop:Bagua Brick-Bashing and Badass Sorceresses

Wei Tung’s ‘Magic Cop’ (1990) is an incredibly fun, lighthearted action-horror-comedy from the Golden Age of Hong Kong Cinema. It tells the story of an ex-cop turned Taoist recruited by the police to help with a mysterious case involving what seems to be reanimated corpses trafficking drugs. I’ll be referencing the 2023 88Films Blu-ray release.

Following a brief introduction to our reluctant hero, Uncle Feng, played by Ching-Ying Lam (“Mr. Vampire” ), where we see an impressive special effects demo of his abilities — we’ll come back to this–, the story begins with a police sting operation set up to catch a drug mule in Hong Kong. Just as the operation appears to be a bust, one of the officers points out a young woman who has been sitting, clenching a briefcase, for quite some time.  When he approaches the young woman, she does not react until he attempts to take the briefcase. The woman then flees and is killed. As it turns out, she is the daughter of one of  Feng’s neighbors— an elderly woman who asks him to travel to Hong Kong to retrieve her daughter’s body. Upon arrival, Feng is swept into a world of zombies, dodgy weightlifters, and ass-kicking Japanese sorceresses.

The special effects and choreography are on display from the first scene and are very impressive, even by today’s standards. Feng uses Taoist rituals to banish spirits and search for clues. Each of these rituals is elaborately choreographed, CGI-free (because it didn’t exist yet in Hong Kong, as director Wei Tung tells us many times in the accompanying interviews), kung-fu-infused eye candy, and they are glorious. Feng paints sigils with fire, flips, and twists in pursuit of an evil spirit in a wall before breaking it, catching it, and confining it to an urn. In another scene, a villain casts a spell, throwing a flower into the air; the flower lands, hovering and twirling, the power source of a magic barrier that traps Feng in a small area for an impressive battle against his environment. The flower explodes into individual petals, each of which is sucked into the earth — in the accompanying Director interview, we learn that this process would be repeated on every day of filming; it was difficult to get right because each petal had to be individually rigged, and pulled through the prop floor; a time-consuming process to be sure.

The fight scenes are also impressive; from Gyms to Dojos, Feng travels around Hong Kong, kicking ass,  taking names, and in typical Kung Fu fashion, using the items and environments around him to brutally (and occasionally hilariously) lay the holy smack down. I’ve never had this much fun watching a grown man beat up bricks with a wicker basket.

The cast is great, and Ching-Ying Lam is hilarious as the curmudgeonly but kind Feng. His deadpan delivery really shines and adds contrast to the bumblefuckery of the local cops he’s partnered with —as a side note, this police bumblefuckery seems to be a common theme in 90s HK films, for reasons I’m not entirely clear on, as yet. The lovely Michiko Nishiwaki is effectively creepy (and certifiably badass) as the sorceress, though there is one banned-in-the-UK scene involving a cat that is guaranteed to make any animal lover hate her.

This 88Films release is fantastic. It includes an alternate Thai version of the film, which is lower in visual quality but has a different, more rustic soundtrack. It also includes an audio commentary track with Hong Kong Film Experts Frank Djeng and Marc Walkow and an interview with Wei Tung, which is pretty fascinating and worth the price of entry.

I, honestly, haven’t had this much fun with a movie in a long time, and I’ve probably watched it three times since picking up the Blu-ray. It’s a pretty special mix of action, horror, and comedy. Fart jokes, spin kicks, and creepy moments are in no short supply, and there seems to be a lot of Evil Dead 2 in this movie. From the site gags to the silly suits (one in particular looks and moves much like Henrietta). I reckon any fan of the Evil Dead Franchise will get a kick out of this, as will fans of Ching-Ying Lam and anyone who likes a healthy dose of Kung Fu in their spook shows. Highly recommended.