When I was a child, the whole world was full of magic.
My father was a spirit hunter,
one of the brave men who protected humanity against spirits
that would harm it.
When will she come?
Soon, Liang. A huli jing cannot resist the cries of the man she's bewitched.
My sweet Tsiao-Jung.
Don't stare at her, she'll entrance you.
Tsiao-Jung, have you come for me?
Hyah!
Oof!
The piss, toss it on her before she changes.
You are a very brave boy.
Throw it! Now!
No!
She's trapped in this half form.
-Father, I'm sorry.
The hunt is not over, Liang.
She's made her den here.
Go round back.
Why are you hunting us? We did nothing to you.
Your mother bewitched the merchant's son. We were hired to save him.
Bewitched?
He's the one who wouldn't leave her alone.
That's not true.
Once a man has set his heart on a huli jing,
she can hear him, no matter how far apart they are.
All that moaning and crying,
she has to go to him every night just to keep him quiet.
No, she lures men and feeds on them for her evil magic.
A man can fall in love with a huli jing just like he can with a human woman.
-It's not the same! -Not the same?
I saw how you looked at me.
- Yan!
Do not speak to that human! You know how dangerous they are.
Liang, have you seen any sign of pups?
Are you listening to me?
Yes, Father, I...
I've seen no sign of any pups.
Fine.
Let's collect the bounty for this huli jing head.
It was five years later that my father died.
I laid him to rest next to my mother.
I miss my father terribly...
but a part of me was relieved he died when he did,
before the first trains roared through the village.
The world was modernizing. He would not have understood.
There were many things he would not have understood.
Yan never blamed me for what had happened.
Sometimes, the hunter became the hunted.
Hello, Yan.
Thank you.
How is hunting?
Worse this year than last.
It's getting harder and harder for me to return to my true form.
Some nights, I can't do it at all.
What's causing it?
Iron roads and machines that breathe smoke.
Magic is draining from the world and with it,
we magical creatures grow ever weaker.
Yan, I have to tell you something.
I'm going to leave the village.
Where will you go?
I don't know yet.
I just... I wanted to tell you.
What will you do?
Learn to survive.
I ended up in Hong Kong,
-working the train line at Victoria Peak.
It was there that the English lived, our colonial masters.
We could take them up to the top of that mountain,
but we were forbidden to stay.
After five years, I knew the grinding of the gears and the rumbling of the pistons
as well as I knew my own heartbeat.
Yes, very clever, Liang, for a Chinaman.
Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.
Oh, come now.
How can you be done for the day when there's good money to be earned?
Please, I'm very tired.
Oh, don't be shy now.
You Chinese are goers, everyone knows that.
Hey! Leave her alone!
This isn't your business, boy.
I said, leave her alone.
I said piss off, you fucking chink.
Why don't you go find what you're looking for elsewhere?
Right, yes, of course.
How is hunting?
I'm stuck now in this human form:
no claws, no sharp teeth.
I can't even run very fast.
All I have is my beauty.
Now, I live by the very thing you accused my mother of:
I bewitch men for money.
And you?
I also serve our English masters.
I keep their precious trains running.
Are you happy keeping their engines running?
Happy?
I don't know, but I'm good at it.
I dream of hunting in this jungle of metal and asphalt.
I imagine my true form leaping from beam to ledge to terrace roof
until I am at the top of this island.
Until I can growl in the faces of all the men who believe they can own me.
I meant what I said to Yan.
I enjoyed my work.
As the years passed,
I learned more and more.
Technology in the city was exciting and always changing.
As it changed, I changed with it.
I found I understood automata even better than I understood trains.
These machines were otherworldly...
and alive.
They felt akin to magic.
Stop right there!
Yan?
What are you doing here?
I need your help.
Tell me what's wrong.
Look.
What happened?
The Governor.
For months, he had been a client,
but he seemed a gentleman.
He'd pay, but we never...
Then, one night, he put something in my drink.
No! Stop!
The truth is he could only get hard for machines,
and he wanted the ultimate machine to serve that twisted desire.
One night, I'd finally had enough.
I told him no.
That word coming from me, it sent him into a rage.
A terrible thing had been done to me.
But I could also be terrible.
We'll find some way to reverse this, Yan.
It's too late for that, Liang.
What I want is to hunt.
Hunt the men who think they can own us.
The men who perpetrate evil, but call it progress.
I need you to help me.
I told her I would do it.
The old magic may have been gone from the world,
but I could make a new magic from their machines.
A magic we could use against them.
I'm ready.
Good hunting, Yan.
No!
Stop!
No!