Attack of the Joyful Goddess (1983) Review

“Attack of the Joyful Goddess” DVD Cover

AKA: Attack of the Venoms
Director: Chang Cheh
Co-director: Chiang Sheng
Co-director: Lu Feng
Cast: Ricky Cheng Tien-Chi, Chiang Sheng, Lu Feng, Chui Chung-Fei, Lee Chung-Yat
Running Time: 92 min.

By Paul Bramhall

By 1983 the Shaw Brothers studio as a movie making powerhouse was on its last legs, and within a couple of years would completely close up shop to focus purely on TV production. Compared to the cinema trends of the time, the type of genre the studio continued to crank out was increasingly out of touch, and director Chang Cheh was in some ways the embodiment of the challenge Shaw Brothers faced. Known as the Godfather of the Kung Fu Film, Cheh had been directing under the Shaw Brothers banner since 1965’s The Butterfly Chalice, and by 1983 had helmed over 80 titles in the director’s chair. By the time the likes of Jackie Chan were hanging off clocktowers and battling pirates, Cheh’s brand of bare-chested heroics was already outdated, and as the studio wound down he found himself returning to the kind of supernatural tales he sometimes frequented earlier in his career.

Cheh’s last production for the studio was The Weird Man in 1983, about a monk who returns from the grave with supernatural powers and the shenanigans that follow, and he’d follow it up the same year with Attack of the Joyful Goddess. Free of the Shaw Brothers, AOTJG (as I’ll refer to it from here on in) was the first movie Cheh made under the banner of Hong Kong Chang He Film Co., a short lived production company that was created by Venoms members Lu Feng and Chiang Sheng when they re-located back to their native Taiwan.

Notably both Feng and Sheng are credited as co-directors on AOTJG, which poses the question of exactly how much Cheh directed himself. Both had tried their hand at directing before, with Ninja in the Deadly Trap from the previous year, which also had fellow Venom Philip Kwok onboard as co-director as well. The production was somewhat of a baptism of fire for the inexperienced directing trio, and ultimately veteran director Pao Hsueh-Li was brought in to ensure it got completed. From that perspective, it could well be argued that Cheh was brought onboard here for the same reason, to act as a kind of mentor should proceedings go too far off track like they did the previous year. Both Venoms are also in front of the camera as well, in addition to Baby Venom Ricky Cheng, who became Cheh’s go-to leading man in the immediate years after departing Shaw Brothers.

The story focuses on a travelling Opera troupe, whose female member (Chan Bik-Fung – The Heroes, The Revenger) grabs the attention of a local military commander (Chin Yung-Hsiang – Dynasty, Evil Hits Evil), who demands she be his concubine. Understandably, not only is she not interested, but she’s also betrothed to another member of the group, the dashingly named Handsome White (Lee Chung-Yat – Shanghai 13, The Nine Demons). For those wondering, he’s neither. In a typical Chang Cheh flick of course, the troupe would band together, shirts would be cast aside, and the troupe would likely go into bloody battle against the oppressive military, dying heroic deaths while fighting off the enemy until their last breath.

However this isn’t a typical Chang Cheh flick, so instead, the troupe decide they’d rather not have any trouble from the military, hatching a plot to kill Handsome White, in the hope that it’ll make his widow more willing to accept the commanders offer of being a concubine. Although a sound plan on paper (ok, not really, but let’s go with it for now), onscreen things don’t go so well. Handsome White is dispatched off easily enough, despite the reluctance of certain group members to get involved, however what nobody banked on was the presence of the Joyful Goddess. Taking the form of a doll that the troupe keep for good fortune, the condition is that it should always be kept lying face down. Of course it doesn’t stay face down for long, leading to the least intimidatingly named supernatural force ever to grace celluloid causing havoc for those involved in Handsome White’s death.

I should probably point out that, against my better judgement, I watched AOTJG with the English dub and less than stellar picture quality, despite being aware of superior versions out there. Call me a glutton for punishment, but knowing that Chung-Yat’s character may not be called Handsome White in the original language was enough for me to persevere. Plus, you can’t go too far wrong with a death scene that features Bik-Fung’s crescendoing ”Handsome, Handsome, HANDSOOOOME!” English dub or subtitled though, there can be no denying that AOTJG is a bizarre movie.

If Chang Cheh’s budgets looked like they were dwindling at Shaw Brothers, compared to what’s on display here they still looked lavish. Virtually the whole runtime is set either on stage or backstage of the venue the troupe are performing at, leading me to speculate if Cheh and his crew simply hired a local community hall for a week, and decided to make a movie there. What action there is is also limited to the troupes performances on the stage, which while initially interesting to watch (and the opera is something Cheh clearly enjoyed, having also employed it in the likes of 1970’s Vengeance!), soon begins to feel repetitive due to the sheer amount of it. I do give credit though to the prosthetic intestines that the actors attach to themselves during the performance, in a case of Cheh imitating his own artform from the previous years Five Element Ninjas.

The most recognisable character is perhaps Ricky Chen’s, who enters proceedings mid-way through as a double blade wielding, brace wearing (the trouser variety, not the teeth), shirtless white cap adorned colleague of Bik-Fung. Cheng’s character is clearly from the Chang Cheh stable of mildly homoerotic machismo, who’s trademark is to tip his cap with one of his blades, and give a seductive lick to the other. Tasty. Amidst all of the onstage performances, the scenes with the Joyful Goddess are always welcome, as we see the smiling doll bursting out of the chest of an actress who unknowingly incubated the living incarnation of the doll (think of the scene from Alien, only with more porcelain), all of which leads to a suitably zany extended finale.

It’s really the finale which gives AOTJG some redemption, as it turns from a rather plodding murder mystery, into out and out insanity. Also similar to Alien, the doll seems to have grown to full size, before possessing various members of the troupe, and eventually taking the form of an acrobatic child who battles a hell demon. That’s not really the half of it though, amongst the madness we also get floating furniture, projectile acid vomiting and subsequent body melts, re-animated corpses, exploding dolls, and a long-tongued vampire. Choreographed by the triple threat of Feng, Sheng, and Chen, it’s a heap of fun, and even features some hidden weapons, which hark back to the glory days of Chang Cheh’s work at Shaw Brothers. Unfortunately these events arrive a little too late in the game to change the opinions that’ll have already formed about AOTJG by the time it eventually decides to live up to its title.

More than anything, AOTJG feels like an unbalanced effort, with too much time spent on plotting and murder, and not enough time on the supernatural theme and potential horror that could have been extracted from it. The presence of Lu Feng, Chiang Sheng, and Ricky Chen is welcome, and obviously needed with the many acrobatic Peking Opera scenes, but without an engaging story, it only serves to make the lack of any real fight action all the more glaring. Chang Cheh seemed to take away the learnings from AOTJG though, and the following year would make the entertaining The Nine Demons, which dished up equal doses of supernatural and kung fu mayhem to pleasing effect. As it stands, Attack of the Joyful Goddess is an unremarkable footnote in the filmographies of all involved.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 5/10