Reviewed by: ryan Date: 11/21/1999 Summary: Hunting Evil Spirit (1999) Sometimes when the movie showing in the main circuit has got a bad box office, even if it not scheduled to be replaced, there will be an alternate movie showing in some of the theatres for its circuit. This looks like a common affair for BIG-Mandarin Circuit. After poor box office for 'Believe It or Not' (1999), 'Haunting Evil Spirit' suddenly opened in theatres. The casting looks old school, as we can see Pauline CHAN Bo-lin and KONG Yan-yin. Charlie CHAN (Charlie CHO Cha-lei), a owner of a underwear and bra factory, is a horny wolf. He finds he is in love with his designer Pauline (Pauline CHAN Bo-lin) but she has no interest in him. Charlie feels more frustrated after he finds that Pauline has got a boyfriend, Chairchi NGAI (TAI Chi-wai). He seeks help from a black magic Priest to release Pauline's spirit so that Charlie's spirit can rape Pauline! Sure enough Pauline feels weird and Charichi takes her to his cousin Suki, another priest, as well as her elder sister East Evil (KONG Yan-yin) for help. Sometimes, there is a good reason as to why films are not released for years. After watching 'Hunting Evil Spirit,' you may find one of those reasons. If you are looking for bedroom action, 'Hunting Evil Spirit' doesn't really satisfy, as there are only two sex scenes. The first is Charlie CHO with a unknown girl with typical 'skills'. It looks like work rather than fun however. The second one is between Charlie CHO and Pauline CHAN, but it does not fit with what precedes or follows. For most of them time, what you see are models strolling about in swimsuits, but they are not sexy to catch your attention. Prolonged zooming of these scenes only bores the audience. The editing of 'Hunting Evil Sprit' is not for the purpose of making the movie better but making it longer. This explains why you see between sub-plots, lots of totally pointless scenes, e.g. a one minute long night time shot of East Tsim Sha Tsui. Another big problem of 'Hunting Evil Spirit' is its production design. The set up is really simple and cheap. All the props for the priest's ceremony are too fake to convince audiences. It is also very strange that whenever there is a ceremony, they will put up the name and the purpose in front of the table. This won't be the case for the real ceremony, so there's a false sense throughout. Back to the priest's tool props. They are so fake, they have to cover each one with yellow paper and write it's description in Chinese character!! This is ridiculous. It only blatantly shows how lame the props are. In terms of acting, Charlie CHO comes across like a guy looking for sex while the performance of other cast members is appalling. KONG Yan-yin's voice seems to have been dubbed by some other people and it sounds horrible. However, after witnessing the production values and editing, you won't exactly be expecting any Oscar winning performances. 'Hunting Evil Spirit' failed to show us how to hunt the evil spirits. In fact, they also failed to hunt the hearts of audience towards Hong Kong movies. After you watch the first 5 minutes of the movie, you will want to leave. You will also be able to explain as to why this film has not been released for years.