Golden Venom

aka 金蠶降

1991HKMDB Link
Directed by Lam Yee-Hung

Throw your hands in the air, and crystal ball like you just don’t care!

Golden Venom is a kung fu fantasy with laser beams shooting out of people that turns into gross out horror as two families feud in non-game show format. It’s pretty uninspired at times, and I’m not sure what the real point of it was, because it isn’t enough of a gross out film to satisfy the gross out fans, but it’s not enough of a good wuxia type film to satisfy those fans, either. It’s a halfway effort that fails everyone. The only reason I watched Golden Venom is because characters were wearing crazy colored wigs and doing magic kung fu moves, but the overall plot was disappointing, the villains are generically evil, and even though I like the goofy effects, the rest of it is boring.

Gingers do so have souls!

Saying Golden Venom is not fond of women would be an understatement. Every female character except one is killed, many are sexually degraded, and most are just quickly killed and tossed aside. The only real strong female character is Skeleton, and she’s evil and crazy!

The only real cool thing are the villains and how outlandish they are. The almost cartoonish look seems inspired by the Golden Light Puppets, much like many of Pearl Cheung Ling’s films and other Taiwanese fantasy flicks seem to feature goofy wigs more than other countries. Even though the bad guys look like kids fantasy characters, with the nudity and grossness I doubt this is intended to be a kids flick.

The “Golden Venom” from the title is the name of the mouth laser beams. It’s poisonous and comes in different flavors unique to each family’s secret recipe. Each family also has cures, which can’t be made without the help of the family.

Welcome to Comicon!!

The presentation is okay, though in this print the subtitles keep changing the names of the characters. This is only a problem because some of the names are cooler than others.

Golden Venom is flawed and is too mean-spirited for my taste. I generally hope for a fun kung fu adventure, not a film walking the line towards being pure exploitation but afraid to pull the trigger. Director Lam Yee-Hung also directed a bunch of terrible Category III flicks before disappearing into the ether. After seeing Golden Venom, I’m wondering why it took so long.

Master Ying Kim (Ku Feng) – Blind patriarch of the Kim family and former police officer. The family’s quest to do what is right causes trouble when this jerk family of monsters decides they should be able to do whatever the heck they want. No one bothers to stand up to them except the Kim family. Chih Kim (Mark Cheng Ho-Nam) – Master Kim’s son, a cop who keeps the peace, even though some people seem to have a problem with him punishing their family members for raping people. What a jerk, right? Sister Kim (???) – Master Kim’s daughter doesn’t even get a name, and I don’t know who played her. She then sacrifices for the family (and a female servant then sacrifices for her!) and ultimately pays the highest price. Cherry (Gam Chi-Gei) – Local girl saved from rape by Chih Kim, who then helps out the Kim family. Cherry’s Grandpa also helps, but he gets killed in the process. Dragon (Charlie Cho Cha-Lee) – Evil jerk patriarch of the Dragon family, who have goofy hair, goofy family values, and a history of seeking revenge at the cost of everything else. Skeleton (Siu Yam-Yam) – The evil wife and famed sorceress. Wears a skull necklace. Sometimes the subtitles call her Skeletor, which would have been a cooler name. Siu Yam-Yam is also in Big Bad Sis. Teh (Jue Gwan-Yeung) – Rapey son of the Dragon clan, also called Puma, but I like Teh better because it’s more Internet. Was punk before punk was cool. Mystery Guy who helps the Kim’s (Lau Shun) – A former cop who used to work with Master Kim and is partially responsible for blinding him. Feels guilty, so has his daughter Trady become a servant for the Kims and secret helps their battle against the Dragon family.

I see Starbucks has brought back the pumpkin spice latte…

I’m…home alone!!!

Two families are feuding, the noble Kims and the rotten Dragon family. The Dragons teleport into Master Kim’s birthday party and blow up some statues with their laser beams, but they are chased off by a mystery person. We find out much later this guy used to work with Master Kim when they were cops and accidentally blinded him. His daughter Trady becomes a servant in the Kim family.

The Dragons return to their cave and sit Indian style spinning around in circles, plotting their next caper. Skeleton pulls open a tablecloth, underneath it is more black magic stuff, including a skull with blinking electronic light eyes! Evil, now for sale at Spirit Halloween Store! She magics up some Venom God grubs that power their golden venom attacks, but one is missing – and only their son Teh could have taken one. They claim with disappointment that Teh is not that evil, but we see him the next scene ripping clothes off of a sleeping woman and getting ready to rape and kill her! Just imagine how evil he’d be if he was actually evil!

Chih Kim saves a girl named Cherry from rapists, while Chih Kim’s sister is spied on by Teh. He tries to rape her that night, but is chases off by Chih Kim, though Teh manages to shoot some laser effects into Chih Kim’s mouth, because Chih is a moron. Cherry helps the injured Chih Kim.

Look at that! Yes, it is a thing worth looking at. A veritable object for us to focus on. We shall look, and enjoy it.

Here, hold my sword while I kick this guy’s butt…

Both fathers have to meet each other to trade magic herb to cure their sons, but Dragon won’t give his herb until his own son Teh gets better, but he returns too late, Teh is dead! Dragon and some caveman goons attack Master Kim, they take advantage of his poor eyesight and kill him.

Cherry gives Cheh an herb that helps his pain, but she can’t cure the Golden Venom, only Skeleton and Dragon can.

Instead of worrying about peace, Skeleton uses witchcraft and a weaved orb to put a spell on Chih. He starts acting all afraid of his sister, then tries to rape her, but Trady does a Spock neck pinch on him. Cherry knows Chih needs to have sex or he will die, so that’s what she does.

By the next day, his hand is all gnarly and bleeding and he’s Michael Jackson ghostly white (Note: The rough draft of this review is so old I originally wrote that when Michael Jackson was alive!) Scars have grown all over his body, and in a very nice effect one scar is bubbling blood. Later in the film they’ll use real live maggots, if you’re into that sort of thing.

A Taoist priest called into help by the Kim family gets get spat at by effects and runs away. Cherry begs her grandpa to help, he agrees so it’s exorcism time! Grandpa vs Skeleton, fighting via remote out of body battle. They make lots of kung fu stances of their spell-casting powers, but though grandpa defeats Skeleton, Cheh can’t be cured.

He-Man’s looking a little rough…

Mom? Dad? What’s that rhythmic thumping and moaning sound….AHHHH!!

Sister Kim is now forced to auction herself off at a brothel to earn money to buy the cure off of Dragon. Even more disturbingly, instead of sleeping with the auction winner herself, she has her servant girl Trady do it instead!

I guess we’re supposed to respect how she’s preserving her boss’s dignity or something, but instead I’m outraged at the abuse of a servant. This continues with more substitutions, but what is weird is the guys are so out of it during these sequences they probably could have used a dog and peanut butter and still gotten paid.

Okay, film, let’s wrap this up and stop with the long creepy brothel scenes that aren’t interesting.

Finally, Dragon shows up laughing and teleporting all the while. He demands a son by Sister Kim or no cure. At this point Trady attacks him, but he kills her pretty easily. Cherry steps in and is also hurt, finally Grandpa returns to fight Dragon. After a pretty long teleporting battle, the two kill each other. But Cherry and Sister were both venom infected in the fight, and there are only two cures, so Sister Kim gives them to Cherry for her and Chih.

A cured Chih and Cherry try to track down Sister Kim, who wandered off to die. Which she does, as first her hand then her ear falls off. Then her eye. Then she explodes into a pile of clothes. Because that’s what happens to women, I guess. So I urge you, the viewers at home, to explode your copies of Golden Venom into piles of clothes. Turnabout is fair play!

That thing from Spencers Gifts sure shows up in a lot of movies…

Why you should wash your hands before you eat, the hidden truth.

Rated 3/10 (Shelf, portal, shelf)

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