The Extreme Fox (2014) (DVD) (Hong Kong Version) DVD Region 3

In this parody of the Liaozhai classic, scholar Wang Sheng returns home after failing the imperial exams yet again, and finds that the village chief has rented out his ancestral home to a mysterious girl. All signs point to her being a fox spirit, but no one seems too bothered by this after some initial scares. Wang Sheng hatches a plan to revitalize his impoverished hometown by turning it into a fox spirit tourism spot, complete with tour groups and trinkets, a haunted house of cheap scares and Lam Suet as a tour guide. The town's tourism boom and newfound popularity, however, also bring some demon hunters to the neighborhood.

The Extreme Fox is the first feature film in over a decade from Wellson Chin, the director of the classic Inspector Wears Skirts series and a bunch of other random films from the eighties and nineties. Indeed, The Extreme Fox is made in the same vein as the silly Hong Kong costume comedies of the nineties, only instead of big stars hamming and slumming for laughs and box office, we get a B-movie appropriate cast for a lesser imitation.

Don't take it seriously and The Extreme Fox can be surprisingly funny and enjoyable. Visual and verbal gags abound with characters speaking in modern colloquialisms and curses, Chrissie donning a ridiculous fox mask, and a supremely evil guy murdering out of vanity. Ninja moves are also busted out at the end, because that makes sense. Adding to the throwback comedy factor is the fact that the English subtitles are a bit off, both for creative grammar reasons and because the subtitles are based on the Mandarin dialogue rather than the Cantonese, which is the recommended track for viewing since the leads speak Cantonese.