The Spooky Bunch (1980)

The Spooky Bunch was Ann Hui’s second film to direct. Ghosts met up with a second rate Cantonese opera troupe all due to an old familial curse in this odd supernatural comedy.

Ah Chi’s opera troupe has been hired to play for a few days by Uncle Ma. Ma invites his nephew, Dick, to watch the opera. He’s hoping Dick and Ah Chi will marry and break the curse her grandfather placed on the Ma family at the time of his death years before. What Uncle Ma doesn’t know is that the real danger lies in a company of soldiers who died due to the bad medicine Ma’s elder had created that killed the soldiers and others in the town.

This film combined low brow comedy, one of the ghosts was named Cat Sh*t, and half haphazard drama. Several characters were possessed and killed by the ghosts, but no one seemed to care. The story wasn’t terribly cohesive and the acting and staging often had the quality of a 6th grade school play. My viewing experience was hampered by a faded copy of the film with almost invisible white subtitles at times. I’m used to old kung fu flicks having this quality and did not grade off for it. In fact, I took the poor quality into consideration and bumped my score up just in case it was affecting my judgement.

If you enjoy old Hong Kong ghost comedies and Cantonese opera to boot, this might be a film to try. Otherwise, it’s skippable.

15 October 2025

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