The Mad Monk

Ji Gong (濟公, pinyin: Jì Gōng; The Mad Monk in English) is a 1993 Hong Kong comedy film directed by Johnny To, and starring Stephen Chow as the "Mad Monk" Ji Gong, a popular Chinese folklore figure from the Southern Song Dynasty. The film follows "Dragon Fighter Luohan" as he accepts a challenge from the gods to change the fate of a beggar, a prostitute, and a villain in three heavenly days. He is reborn on earth as a mere mortal and ultimately battles an evil demon to stave off hell on earth.

Plot

The movie starts out with all of the gods in heaven complaining to the Jade Emperor about the malicious practical jokes played on them by Dragon Fighter Lohan. The Emperor summons Dragon's sworn-brother, Tiger Fighter Lohan (Ng Man Tat), in order to find Dragon. Dragon (Stephen Chow) eventually appears and rebuke the various gods for their horrible judgments on mankind. He insisted he can do a better job and is banished to be reincarnated into an animal by the Jade Emperor. The Bodhisattva Guan Yin (Anita Mui) intervene and issues Dragon a challenge. If he can change the fates of three people—a beggar, a prostitute, and a villain—doomed to nine incarnations as their current position in life within three heavenly days (thirty years), without heavenly powers, he will be upgraded in heavenly status. If he fails, he will be downgraded from an arhat to an animal. The Bodhisattva gives him a magical fan that can only be used three times a day for sleight-of-hand-like magic tricks to help him in his mission. However, heavenly soldiers force him down from heaven before he has the fan in hand.

Rasputin the Mad Monk

Rasputin, the Mad Monk is a 1966 Hammer film directed by Don Sharp. It stars Christopher Lee as Grigori Rasputin, the Russian peasant-mystic who gained great influence with the Tsars prior to the Russian Revolution. It also features Barbara Shelley, Francis Matthews, Suzan Farmer, Richard Pasco, Dinsdale Landen and Renée Asherson. The story is largely fictionalized, although some of the events leading up to Rasputin's assassination are very loosely based on Prince Yusupov's account of the story. For legal reasons, the character of Yusupov was replaced by Ivan (Matthews). Yusupov was still alive when the film was released, dying on 27 September 1967.

The emphasis is on Rasputin's terrifying powers both to work magic and to seduce women.

Plot

The story begins in the Russian countryside, where Rasputin heals the sick wife of an innkeeper (Derek Francis). When he is later hauled before an Orthodox bishop for his sexual immorality and violence, the innkeeper springs to the monk's defense. Rasputin protests that he is sexually immoral because he likes to give God "sins worth forgiving" (loosely based on Rasputin's rumored connection to Khlysty, an obscure Christian sect which believed that those deliberately committing fornication, then repenting bitterly, would be closer to God). He also claims to have healing powers in his hands, and is unperturbed by the bishop's accusation that his power comes from Satan.