To fully understand the genesis of Hong Kong genre cinema in the 80s and the early 90s, you must first witness a man battling a reanimated corpse with a wooden bench. That scene, in all its boisterous, bone-crunching, and gleefully macabre glory, is the definitive moment in Sammo Hung’s 1980 film Encounters of the Spooky Kind.
While many films I discuss channel whisper themes to art-house enthusiasts, Encounters bellows from a midnight movie pulpit. It is a cinematic chimera: a kung fu actioner stitched to a horror-comedy, then lacquered with Chinese folklore and astonishing practical effects. The result feels both unruly and precise—chaos orchestrated with a stuntman’s peerless sense of rhythm.
The film cements Hung’s transition from stunt coordinator to auteur-star and single-handedly invents the “hopping vampire” (jiangshi) subgenre, creating the blueprint for the blockbuster Mr. Vampire, which Hung himself would later produce.
Our hero is ‘Bold’ Cheung, a rickshaw puller whose reputation for courage is a constant invitation for trouble. His humiliation is twofold: at home, his wife is having an affair with his wealthy boss; in public, his friends bait him into life-threatening dares. As he proves his courage, his boss is worried what will happen if his affair is exposed. His employer doesn’t simply hire a thug—he hires a corrupt Taoist priest to eliminate Cheung through supernatural means. This act sparks a duel with a rival priest determined to defend the integrity of his sect. Here, the supernatural is weaponized theology, where spells are parried and ancient rites become a form of combat.
Formally, the film is a bridge between two decades. It anticipates the fantasy spectacle and gag-driven kinetics future Hong Kong cinema, yet its narrative spine is pure 1970s kung fu. The plot is a conveyor belt for ever-more-inventive set pieces, not study of character or theme. The film’s priorities are relentlessly physical: bodies colliding with tangible force, props that carry genuine weight, and slapstick that lands because, in Sammo Hung’s world, gravity is a dependable straight man.
The comedy, rooted in kinetic slapstick and practical stunt work, needs no translation. Hung performs with a physical fluency that is deadpan one moment and deliriously inventive the next. The result is a film both historically pivotal and effortlessly accessible—an exhilarating watch that also serves as a key document, charting Hong Kong cinema’s glorious pivot toward high-concept, hybrid-genre excess.
Optimistic Indie Roleplaying 