Shaw Brothers BLACK MAGIC unique for its time

There was a large, standalone movie theater in my hometown that specialized in Asian cinema, predominantly Chinese kung fu movies, Chinese historical sword and sandal dramas, Japanese karate movies, and once in a while, some Chinese and Japanese dramas and comedies.

Yet I remember distinctly. Back in 1974, I walked by the theater's entrance and in one of the movie poster glass disply cases, I saw a vivid colorful movie poster with a montage of scary photos on it. It was a Chinese (Hong Kong) horror movie. I didn't recall seeing other Asian horror movie flicks at the time. The poster was unique in that it was abundantly clear there was a strong sexual element to the screenplay. Even more unusual for its time of 1974, there is nudity depicted in one of the photos.

I never saw the movie but have ordered it off Amazon.com and am still awaiting it delivery. The plot seems to involve some Chinese, wild hippie-looking sorcerer mixing voodoo doll black magic with love/sex spells. I didn't know ancient Chinese sorcerers practiced West African and Haitian voodoo (or voudun or houdun) sorcery with magical totem representative dolls. The movie poster's photos sent the message that this crazed-looking Asian sorcerer was using the voodoo dolls to incite sexual arousal and intercourse within its intended victims. Whew! Maybe this movie should be remade but takes place in the U.S. with some people finding and hiring an obscure Chinatown alchemist/sorcer practitioner to devise the love potion. That would be a wild movie.