Rating: **
Review Date: 11/23/15
Cast: Ti Lung, Ni Tien, Lo Lieh, Lily Li, Lin Wei-Tu
The film opens with a group of topless women swimming in a river on a hot summer day, and one of them gets eaten by a crocodile. What does this have to do with the story? Absolutely nothing! The next thing we see is Dr. Ti Lung and his wife (Ni Tien) arriving in "a tropical city" (that's what the subtitles say) to visit their friends Lin Wei-Tu and Lily Li. Strange cases have been turning up at the hospital which defy medical explanation, and black magic is suspected. It just so happens that a notorious black magician (Lo Lieh) lives nearby, and he spends his free time reanimating corpses by driving spikes into their heads. He also maintains his youth and vitality by drinking human breast milk, so he places a spell on Lily Li in order to suck her breasts every day. Being students of science, Ti Lung and Ni Tien refuse to believe in sorcery, but that changes when Ni Tien surrenders to Lo Lieh's powerful love spell and proceeds to get down and dirty with an equally bewitched Lin Wei-Tu. All hope seems lost until a dying wizard gives Ti Lung a powerful amulet (along with his own eyes), which allows him to do battle against Lo Lieh and his army of undead zombie servants.
Nearly the entire main cast of "Black Magic" (1975) returns for this unrelated sequel, which is a moderately better production than the original. Lily Li sports an adorable bob, but is absent for the majority of the film. Ni Tien plays a conservative "good girl" this time around, which gives her little to work with and isn't her strongest suit. Lo Lieh makes a suave and sleazy villain and is always fun to watch. The film looks great, apart from some terrible rear projection and an embarrassingly awful gondola fight scene that nearly ruins the entire show. It's not a great horror film by any means, and while it may have been shocking and scandalous at the time, it does little to impress by today's standards.