Bloody Parrot (1981) User Reviews (6)

Bloody Parrot - Witches, Wuxia and Weird

[ChungMo · 7/10 · 5 September 2008]

Another film from the director of the legendary Super Infra Man, Hua Shan gives us this odd mish-mash of several HK genres of the early 80's.

An expert swordsman is suspected of being the thief of a treasure sent to Emperor. The swordsman who has nothing to do with the theft investigates and is led on the trail of the supernatural "Bloody Parrot". This leads to the "Parrot Brothel" and the star prostitute who walks around half naked. Strange things happen including a demonic possession, witches casting poison spells, disgusting autopsies and numerous sword fights. Then a dead constable turns into a vampire! This is all in the first 30 minutes!

Directed at a breakneck pace, Hua Shan predicts the hyper-kinetic films from HK in the 1990''s. The film shows a good bit of style and production values. If the story wasn't completely confusing at times it would be quite enjoyable for fans of wacky HK films. At least something unexpectedly odd happens every few minutes. For fans of Shaw wuxia action, there is quite a bit of it and the fight choreography of Hsu Hsia is very good. Ching- Ching Yeung, a very talented Wu Shu performer, appears in the last third of the film for a great fight scene and she carries one of the oddest weapons I've seen. Jenny Liang plays the star prostitute and spends her lengthy first scene half naked or mostly naked. She's quite comfortable unclothed unlike many Shaw nudie actresses of the time who seem like they are thinking of the robe just off the set. And she goes straight into a near naked demonic possession scene. After that she remains clothed. But when the film is in the last third and your mind starts to wander back to her first scene, the film has her take all her clothes off in a cavern of mirrors! Now that's service.

Not a great film but quite entertaining as long as a coherent plot isn't your first need. Every time the subtitles say "Bloody Parrot" I start to laugh and that's worth something. The autopsy scenes are brief but quite disgusting, I made the mistake of eating dinner while watching the film.

worth one watch for genre fans

[ckormos1 · 6/10 · 4 October 2012]

Come for the boobies then stay for the sword fights. Bonus - crazy chick flashing at least half of her pubic hair. This movie fits the category sometimes called "fantasia" as in fantasy plus Asia. Expect to see LSD inspired sets with plenty of colorful lighting and smoke. This time horror is added and the gross out factor is certainly there with realistic looking autopsy guts and acid burns. Jason Pai Piao spends his first fights just beating up people. I confess, I thought he was Kuan Tai Chen for the first 30 minutes. It all comes down to the final five minutes when Jason blurts, "What is the bloody parrot all about?" The exposition that follows was simple. So why did we have to go through all that just to see some skin and sword fights? Overall, the sword fights were just fine, the plot interesting though it ran a bit too long. For fans of the genre certainly worth a watch but it will never be on any top 100 list.

BLACK MAGIC

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 29 September 2022]

The bloody parrot of this film's title is a legen of a bird that was born on the devil king's birthday when all of the lesser demons gave him their blood, creatin a bird that grants three wishes to whomever discovers it. Those wishes, however, have a tendence to go poorly. One exampe is Guo Fan, a government worker who has lost a treasure and begs the bird for their return. The prize does come back at the cost of his son's life. He then monkey's paw wishes for the son back, so his wife kills him and commits suicide.

The treasure disappears again and that's when fighters from around the world learn that if they find the parrot, they will become rich. Swordsman Yeh Ting Feng (Pai Piao) an constable Tieh Han (Tony Liu) start hunting for the truth, which ends up with Tieh killled and Yeh carrying his coffin like some Shaw Brothers Django. There's also a Parrot Brothel where Pei-yu (Jenny Liang) works. There's a whole hall of mirrors for her to show off her curves in.

If you liked the gross-out side of Shaw Brothers - Hex, Black Magic, Human Lanterns - then this is what you're looking for. It also has plenty of sleaze and Wuxia moments to make one strange cocktail. Director Hua Shan has so many cards to deal you, from nudity to martial arts battles, sword fights, maggot eating, autopsies and demonic possesion to just name a few. Who are we to deny the man who made Infra-Man?

I mean, this is a movie where a woman sews a man's face onto a Frisbee and uses it as a weapon.

If that doesn't make you watch this, is there any hope?

As a warning, this movie makes no sense whatsoever and I'm not advising you to engage in mind altering substances - you may not even need them - but if you can't get high and watch a movie that combines Bava colors with kung fu and obscene levels of puking, then what are you living for?

Madcap

[Leofwine_draca · 8/10 · 19 May 2022]

BLOODY PARROT (1981, original title Xie ying wu) is another madcap action/horror movie from the Shaw Brothers studio, with lead actor Jason Pai Piao playing an expert swordsman tracking down the thieves of a priceless treasure and getting involved in a hunt for the mysterious "bloody parrot" - a glowing figure said to grant three wishes. Along the way he has various adventures as he ends up tangling with witches, vampires and betrayal. There are influences as wide as Ed Gein and THE EVIL DEAD in a one-of-a-kind story.

This is a gloomily atmospheric rollercoaster ride of a film with an incredible fast pacing and a ton of action. Most of the time I was trying to figure out what was going on! As usual for Shaw there's a wealth of swordplay and wuxia-inspired physicality, but the stand-out here is the horror and fantasy content. There are jiangshi (Chinese vampires), rotting corpses, possession, severed limbs, ninja attacks, an evil witch, poison clouds and needles, cannibalism, a snake pit, a frisbee made from a human face and a nude woman in a hall of mirrors. Essential viewing for fans of Asian cinema!

Incredibly enjoyable black magic effort

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 9/10 · 1 April 2018]

Accused of stealing a valuable treasure, a master swordsman follows a trail of violence back to a master sorcerer known as the Bloody Parrot which forces him and a fellow warrior into reluctantly battling the true threat together in order to stop them from stealing the treasure.

This is certainly quite an enjoyable and fun black magic effort. One of the better elements found here is the fact that this one manages to work in plenty of fun from its two main components. Still being produced during the height of the studio's wuxia phase, there's a marvelous amount of fighting and swordplay throughout here, from the opening massacre of the family to the fight with the henchmen in the tavern and the series of side-battles he engages in to prove his mettle while in the village showcase a lot of short-yet-stellar martial arts sequences. While it never goes to the extremes in letting the performers really engage in lengthy sequences to showcase their skills, the continuous nature and quality of the fights makes for a great time to be had here since it descends into a fight quite frequently. This is greatly enhanced in the final half where it has several big brawls which are exceptionally fun, from her dismantling a troop of ninjas single-handedly or the fine brawl inside the mansion to really give this some nice fighting. As well, the horror segments here are cleverly woven into the surroundings to give this one a demented tone featuring all manner of grotesque images and concepts. From the gruesome autopsy that reveals a jewel inside the figures maggot-riddled body to a graphic possession that results in plenty of bloodshed and body mutilation which highlights the chaotic turn the wizard has over people. Even more, the mystery angle about the mysterious needles found throughout the course of the film which is what in turn leads to the main witch featured here which sets up the big selling point here in the numerous amounts of spellcasting this one partakes in. By showing everything that's needed to be prepared for the spell to work, the different outcomes that are shown in graphic detail and the general air of mystery this one goes through in the fog-enshrouded graveyards, hints of mysticism with the strange pit full of creatures and the finale underneath the compound, there's plenty of strong horror elements to be worked over here. This also finds itself blessed with plenty of extravagant nudity as well, giving us full-frontal views for numerous sequences and letting it leer over these scenes rather nicely. Overall, these make for a rather fun time here to hold up over its main flaw. The biggest issue is the film's nonsensical storyline, with this one taking way too many side-plots and tangents that it really seems to go all over the place without following a coherent path. It just has too many stories that don't mean anything and could've easily lost a few. These here are what hold this one down.

Rated Unrated/R: Extreme Graphic Violence, Full Nudity, Language and drug use.

One heck of a movie

[phanthinga · 8/10 · 23 October 2021]

I've been a long time since I watch a Shaw Bros flick and I'm glad that I'm finally returning to the crazy world of wuxia with a balls-to-the-wall flick like The Bloody Parrot. I love everything about this movie from the colorful characters, the sword plays, and the cheap 80s effects although the plot was a bit hard to sit through the movie still managed to end with a mind-bending finale. I highly recommend pairing this movie with Human Lantern for a double features night of madness. Happy early 2021 Halloween y'all.