Witch With Flying Head (Cheung Yan-Git, Taiwan, 1982)

A few years back I watched a truly weird, wacky, wild, gory, and wonderful horror movie called WITCH WITH FLYING HEAD. Back then I thought it was from Hong Kong but it's actually from Taiwan, and it was directed by Cheung Yan-Git who also made the weird, wild and gory THE DEVIL (1981). He's made many more films but I haven't watched any of those (you can look them up on the HKMDB).

WITCH WITH FLYING HEAD is very rare as it's never been released on dvd or on any easy-to-find video tapes. The bootleg I got hold of years ago is the same version that everybody else has; it stems from a rare TAI SENG vhs that doesn't have any English subtitles. Until very recently I didn't think a subtitled print existed but then... someone on eBay put up a Mandarin language tape from TAIWAN that indeed includes English subs. I made a hefty bid on the tape but couldn't compete with the winner whose winning bid ended up on $155!! However, someone who had dealt with the seller before suggested I write to him and ask if he's sell me a dvd-r copy instead. Fortunately the seller said yes!

I watched my dvd-r tonight and what a difference it is when you can actually comprehend the WACKED OUT story line!! The Taiwan print is fullscreen and cuts off left and right but because it's also squeezed you can actually get it "down" in the correct ratio by using the 16:9 button on the remote. The film print that was used for the vhs is fairly scratched but, arch, screw that! It's subtitled!!!

Witch With Flying Head (Taiwan, 1982)

[Tai Seng VHS, USA]

[click scan for bigger size]

This must undoubtedly be one of the most rare Asian films and video tapes!

WITCH WITH FLYING HEAD isn't available ANYWHERE!!! There are no DVDs, no video-cd's, no laserdiscs, nothing but the faint memory of some very few long lost video releases. This is actually the only release that I'm aware of but a few years back I got some third hand hearsay info that there might have been a Vietnamese video release at some point. In any case, none of them had English subtitles I don't think and I'm not aware of any fan subbed versions.

And before you ask: No, I don't own this tape. I would sure love to! The scan comes courtesy of Jean-Claude Michel from Cinehound forum. And he doesn't own it either but was lucky to get a friend who owned it to make him a scan just before he himself sold it off again. Who knows where in the world this copy is now!? A while back I asked Pete Tombs of Mondo Macabro if this where a film they would consider for release and he said they'd love to but they couldn't find neither a print nor the copyright owners!!! O_O

So for now I'm certainly holding on to my dvd-r bootleg that looks like it was sourced from a 3'rd or 4'th generation video tape.

The film's entry on Hong Kong Movie Data Base.