The kung-fu horror classic Lanterns has been quietly terrifying and thrilling audiences since 1982 - but it took a pair of modern Hollywood stars to get people talking about its wildest sequence again. Poorna Jagannathan and Garret Dillahunt, who have been hosting a deep-dive rewatch series on the Sun Chung-directed cult favorite, sat down to break down Episode 5 of that breakdown - the episode centered on the film's explosive climactic fight - and they didn't hold back on why the sequence still lands four decades later.
"It's a game-recognizes-game situation," Dillahunt said, describing the face-off between Tony Liu Tian-jue's Master Lung Shu Ai and Chen Kuan-Tai's Tan Fu. "You've got two guys who've spent their whole lives training, and the movie knows it. The camera knows it. The audience knows it. That's the fireworks."
Jagannathan echoed the sentiment, pointing to the way director Sun Chung stages the confrontation not as a simple brawl but as a grim ritual - one that's been building since the film's very first reel. "What I love is that it's not just punches," she said. "There's a whole philosophy underneath it. You're watching two masters who respect each other even while they're trying to destroy each other. That's juicy."
A Psychotic Craftsman and a Disturbing Source
For the uninitiated, Lanterns revolves around a psychotic craftsman who pits two rival kung-fu masters against each other while designing special lanterns from a disturbing source. It's a premise that sounds like a fever dream, and the film leans all the way into it - blending horror and action with a runtime of just 99 minutes. Released on July 14, 1982, the movie has hovered around a 6.1 out of 10 rating on TMDb, which is the kind of score that usually signals "divisive gem" rather than "forgotten relic." Its cast is a who's-who of martial arts cinema: alongside Liu and Chen, you've got Lo Lieh as Chao Chun Fang, Tanny Tien Ni as Lee Chin, Choh Seung-Wan as Yen Chu, Lam Sau-Kwan as Master Tan's Sister, Lo Meng as Kwai Sze Yin, and Sun Chien as Sgt. Poon.
What makes Episode 5 of the rewatch series such a lightning rod is that it arrives at the point where all those threads - the craftsman's grotesque lantern-making, the rivalry between Lung Shu Ai and Tan Fu, the creeping dread - finally combust. Jagannathan noted that the film's horror elements don't get enough credit for how they prop up the action. "You can't separate the fight from the fear," she said. "The whole movie is about what people will do when they're pushed. The lanterns aren't just props. They're the reason everyone's losing their minds."
Why a 1982 Film Still Hits in 2026
Dillahunt, who's spent much of his career in genre fare, argued that Lanterns predates the modern obsession with "elevated" action-horror by decades. "People talk about genre-blending like it's new," he said. "This movie was doing it when nobody was calling it that. You've got a craftsman who's basically a mad scientist, you've got two titans of kung-fu, and you've got a body count that keeps you honest. That's not a gimmick. That's craft."
The rewatch series has been giving the film a second life among viewers who might have only known it by reputation - or not at all. Jagannathan and Dillahunt's rapport has a lot to do with that; their episodes are less academic lecture and more two friends genuinely losing their minds over a movie that refuses to behave. Episode 5 is the peak of that energy, because the climax is where Lanterns stops pretending to be one thing and becomes something far stranger.
"It's a game-recognizes-game situation" might sound like a throwaway line, but it's actually the best possible summary of what Lanterns has always been about. Two masters, one psychotic craftsman, and a pile of lanterns made from a source nobody wants to think about too hard. Forty-four years after its release, the film is still setting off fireworks - and thanks to Jagannathan and Dillahunt, a whole new audience is finally watching them go off.
Source: The Hollywood Reporter
