Gambling Gods

Traces the history of good fortune traditions from sacred divination to modern gambling

THE SHADOW BOXING (1979) is also known as SPIRITUAL BOXER 2 but is not exactly a sequel to THE SPIRITUAL BOXER (1975). It's by the same director, Lau Kar Leung, and features some of the same actors, including the star, Wang Yu (sometimes spelled Wong Yu and not to be confused with One-Armed Swordsman Jimmy Wang Yu), but has little in common with the earlier film, which was a wry treatment of Chinese folk superstitions and told the story of a conman who used villagers' beliefs in traditional gods to run various scams. There were no supernatural elements in that film. In this one, however, the main characters are a pair of "corpse herders," played by Wang Yu and Lau Kar Wing—the director's brother—whose job is to deliver corpses for burial in their home villages. They do this by putting hand-inked paper spells on the corpses (called "vampires" in the subtitles here) and making them hop from town to town on their journey at night. It's a far-fetched supernatural premise based on Chinese folklore that's treated in a matter-of-fact fashion that is completely at odds with the director's treatment of folk gods in the earlier film. Such treatment also means that the supernatural elements are never given the kind of free rein we would later see in such over-the-top horror/martial arts/action comedies as Sammo Hung's SPOOKY ENCOUNTERS (aka ENCOUNTERS OF THE SPOOKY KIND, 1980) and Ricky Lau's MR. VAMPIRE (1985). As a result, things get pretty tedious by the time the already slim plot kicks into gear late in the film. This plot involves the use of the "corpse herd" by a fugitive seeking to pass through checkpoints and avoid capture by pursuing soldiers. A lot of comic possibilities are offered up by this plot twist, few of which are adequately exploited.

God Loves Addicts, This I Know: God's Word and the Road to Recovery is an examination of both classic and modern recovery literature and the role that the Judeo-Christian Bible has played in their development, and particularly regarding how its teachings apply to those struggling with addiction in its many forms.