Wolf Devil Woman (Taiwan 1981)

Rating: **
Review Date: 11/24/07
Cast: Pearl Cheung Ling

Holy crap, what an insane film this is! An evil cult led by "The Devil" takes pleasure in torturing people with magic and voodoo. When Steel Sparrow and his wife attempt to leave the cult with their baby, they kill themselves so their blood will keep the child warm. Then they cover up their escape with an avalanche that they create by beating their heads into the ground. The infant is found buried in the snow by a white wolf and raised to become WOLF DEVIL WOMAN! Twenty years later The Devil is still up to no good and a young man named Rudolph journeys to the mountain to find the 1000 year-old ginseng that will offer protection from The Devil's deadly freeze spell. His mission fails, but he befriends Wolf Woman and teaches her to speak. When he is captured by the cult, he is brainwashed into becoming Red Devil and Wolf Woman comes down from her mountain to rescue him and avenge her parents. The "surprise ending" is anything but, since you figure out who the real villain is about twenty minutes into the film. No, the real surprises are just about everything else. The film is a frantic mixture of absurdity and violence, and not for the faint of heart. Animal brutality is prevalent, and Wolf Woman is quite fond of ripping chickens and rabbits in half, all in glorious slow motion. Very unsettling. She's also quite good at decapitating her human foes. In fact, there's a lot of dismemberment and mutilation in this film. Even Wolf Woman's parents are shown getting torn apart by wolves. Absurdity comes in many flavors, including enemies in werewolf masks, tunneling ninjas, spider web attacks (including ridiculous dime-store rubber spiders), human skin masks, and a great scene shot in "Spine Vision" where Rudolf straightens Wolf Woman's twisted spine with his awesome kung fu. Wow. She later repays the favor by dousing him in her own blood when he catches on fire...