The Shaw Brothers studio was, for a long time, synonymous with Hong Kong cinema. While the company, established in 1925, was originally based out of Singapore, by 1958 two of the Shaw brothers – Runme and Run Run – struck out and establish a film producing wing in Hong Kong. Their local studio complex, which opened in 1960, was for a time the largest privately-owned production complex in the world.

Through the 1960s and 1970s, Shaw Brothers produced a string of pictures that were not only commercially successful but also hugely influential to the development of Asian and martial arts cinema. King Hu’s Come Drink with Me (1966) is widely credited with establishing the modern wuxia film genre, while other titles such as King Boxer (1972) and The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1978) remain popular favourites today.

By the end of the 1970s, however, Shaw Brothers were facing potent competition from not only local rival Golden Harvest but resurgent American imports flooding Hong Kong cinemas off the back of Star Wars. It became much harder for the studio to generate commercial hits, and that led to a sense of desperation as well as an aggressive diversity of product. Producers were willing to try almost anything in the hope of securing their next badly-needed hit. By 1986 Shaw Brothers abandoned film production entirely to focus on the more lucrative television sector.

If one dips into latter period Shaw Brothers, one never really quite knows what they are going to get. In the case of Hua Shan’s Portrait in Crystal, one gets absolutely chaos: a messy, relatively incoherent mess of martial arts action and black magic-dominated horror. From moment to moment it showcases moments of superb imagination and creative style. Taken as a complete feature, it is reasonably close to indefensible. This is premium-grade cult cinema, in that its defenders will adore it but the general public will likely quit before the halfway mark.

Shaw Brothers regular Jason Pai Piao plays talented martial artist turned master sculptor Long Fei, who uses human blood to infuse a crystal statue with a soul of its own. When the animated figure begins assassinating local martial leaders, its creator is honour-bound to track it down and defeat its new master. Long Fei is accompanied by a sidekick, nick-named “Fatty” (Chun Wong). There are sidekicks named Fatty all through Hong Kong cinema. I have never managed to find out whether it is just a common character name, or if they all do have distinct names of their own and that the subtitle translators are simply lazy. Other actors in the film include Lau Yuk-pok and Chan Sze-kai. The performances are generally limited in effect, but it is hard to say whether than is an artefact of poor talent or weak writing and direction.

There is possibly enough plot in Portrait in Crystal to fill out three movies, and it only runs a frenetic 77 minutes. A packed group of characters are introduced and violently offed at a furious pace, making it quite difficult to follow the nuances of the storyline or to identify any amount with any of them. In terms of stuntwork and fight sequences, the film feels deeply below par for Shaw Brothers. What it does boast in its favour is an extraordinary use of colour – vivid even by Hong Kong’s garish standards – as well as a gleeful line in over-the-top gory violence. Blood spatters enthusiastically. People are beheaded and dismembered. One unfortunate character has his entire chest exploded open from within.

The film also populates the action liberally with Hollywood-style optical effects, part of a broad attempt by Hong Kong’s filmmakers to mimic American hits and attract the city’s viewers back to local product. In the same year Golden Harvest produced Tsui Hark’s Zu Warriors from the Magic Mountain – an effects-driven wuxia that inspired a sea change in these genre pictures, and even scored a Best Picture nomination at the Hong Kong Film Awards. Portrait in Crystal, in 21st century terms, is a cheap direct-to-streaming knockoff of that. Its makers clearly knew what they needed to produce, but simply lacked the skills and experience to do it.

Ethically-minded viewers should also be warned that the film includes some scenes of animal cruelty to snakes and a chicken. It was a filmmaking practice deemed acceptable at the time, but of course no one today is watching it in that time.