Now that's just weird...
The Mighty Dr. Illusion | Greenville, NC United States | 05/01/2009
(3 out of 5 stars)
"Hmmm. Okay, this is a weird one. Image Entertainment has released a lot of great Shaw brothers films, as well as other Kung Fu and Asian movies. They always do a great job with their DVDs, widescreen, original language soundtrack (and english-dub if one exists) and video that looks, if not restored, to be taken from the source itself.
The movie itself is not a Shaw Bros. film. I was surprised by the amount of kung fu and fighting/action in the movie, as it isn't really portrayed as such on the packaging and in the the plot summary on Amazon. It seems they tried to sell it as a romantic ghost story, and it's really more of a ridiculously comedic kung-fu/magic spirit folk type of tale.
A more accurate plot summary is this: a fox spirit falls in love with a young man who comes from a family long-notorious for it's prolific hunting of foxes for extravagant furs. The fox spirit's mother, who I guess is like the Queen of Fox Spirits, wants the young fellow slain (as well as the rest of his bloodline) and demands that her daughter kill him. I don't want to give too much away, but here's just a few supremely weird highlights:
The fox spirit girls (as well as a human possessed by a fox spirit) actually SHOOT A CONE OF CLOUDY MIST OUT OF THEIR REARS while fighting, the exact effects of which I can't seem to remember (which means I may never have figured it out), a being known as the Hunt King arrives who grows giant and walks the streets of a model town like Godzilla, laughing and screwing with people out in the streets all the while, and everyone has a hilariously-1980's look to their hair and makeup, as do the special effects. This movie is not a kung fu classic by any means, but IT'S JUST *@%* WEIRD! If you like weird and you like some kung fu here and there, you might like it.
"Fox Spirit" is widescreen, and has chinese soundtrack with english subtitles."