WITCH FROM NEPAL (1986) ***

(Programming Note:  I fell behind posting reviews this summer.  I’m still a month or so behind, but eventually I will get to reviewing the 31 Movies of Horror-Ween goodness that I usually churn out this time of year.  This year the theme will be The Roku Horror Picture Show, where I will be showcasing a movie found on the many channels I have discovered on my Roku player.  Until then, I still have to play catch-up.  Fortunately, as I always do, I plan to extend the Halloween festivities into November with the traditional Halloween Hangover, a series of reviews that I just couldn’t cram into one month.  The good news is many of the backlogged reviews are for horror flicks, so if you are looking for horror, there should be plenty of it until Horror-Ween belatedly kicks into gear.)

Chow Yun-Fat (the same year as A Better Tomorrow) stars as an artist who takes a trip to Nepal with his girlfriend.  They go on a guided tour, and Chow breaks his leg when he falls from an elephant.  While in the hospital, a mysterious woman heals his wounds, and later, he helps her escape from the authorities who want to deport her.  She then teaches him how to do magic, and pretty soon, he’s making coffee with his mind.  Eventually, they fall in love, but trouble brews when her jealous ex, a mystical shaman, arrives on the scene to break up the happy couple.  

If you’re a fan of Chow Yun-Fat, you’re probably going to be disappointed that he doesn’t get into a bunch of slow-motion gun battles with the witch.  Sadly, that is not the case, but there are a handful of nutty moments here that make it watchable.  Chief among them:  The scene where the villain rips a dog in half using telekinesis!  

The scene where the witch fixes Chow’s leg is great too.  Instead of using splints or casts, she merely pushes him off a ten-story balcony, flies down to meet him halfway, touches him sensuously, and voila!  He lands on the ground with a completely healed leg!  

Witch from Nepal has a choppy feel to it as scenes kind of peter out and/or end abruptly before moving along to the next sequence.  The stuff with Chow and the witch feels like a fish out of water romantic comedy in the vein of Splash, which runs against the grain of the horror elements.  On the action side of things, the acrobatic swordfights are decent, although there really aren’t too many of them.  

With its everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach, it goes without saying that Witch from Nepal is going to be more than a little uneven.  However, it’s almost always entertaining and the highlights (there’s an excellent zombie attack) more than outweigh the weaker portions of the film.  Chow’s climactic showdown with the bone-wielding baddie who howls like a wildcat in heat managed to make me think of Highlander, Superman 2, and Evil Dead all at the same time, which is quite a feat, and ultimately, that’s recommendation enough to watch it right there.