Love, Death & Robots (2019–…): Season 1, Episode 8 - Good Hunting - full transcript
The son of a spirit hunter forges a bond with a shape-shifting huli jing.
[male narrator] When I was a child,
the whole world was full of magic.
My father was a spirit hunter,
- [East Asian melody plays]
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.
[man groans]
[man] My sweet Tsiao-Jung.
[man groaning]
[wind whistling]
[door opens]
[ominous music playing]
Don't stare at her, she'll entrance you.
[moaning]
Tsiao-Jung, have you come for me?
[East Asian music intensifies]
Hyah!
[man groans]
[man groans and grunts]
Oof!
The piss, toss it on her
before she changes.
[whispers] You are a very brave boy.
Throw it! Now!
[screams]
[Tsiao-Jung] No!
[hisses]
[growls]
She's trapped in this half form.
[growls]
- Father, I'm sorry.
- [clinking]
The hunt is not over, Liang.
[tense East Asian music playing]
[panting]
[howls in pain]
She's made her den here.
Go round back.
[rustling]
- [distant animal howl]
- [panting]
[sniffs]
[hissing growl]
[hisses]
[snarls]
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.
-[Tsiao-Jung] Yan!
Do not speak to that human!
You know how dangerous they are.
[father] 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.
[Liang] 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.
[Liang] I'm going to leave the village.
[Yan] Where will you go?
I don't know yet.
I just... I wanted to tell you.
What will you do?
Learn to survive.
[upbeat orchestrated music plays]
[Liang] I ended up in Hong Kong,
- working the train line at Victoria Peak.
- [train bell clangs]
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.
[clang]
Yes, very clever, Liang, for a Chinaman.
Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.
[men laughing]
[man] 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.
[Liang] 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.
[clock tower chimes]
[Liang] How is hunting?
[Yan] 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?
[Liang] 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.
[Liang] 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.
[squeaking gears]
As it changed, I changed with it.
I found I understood automata
even better than I understood trains.
[cat purring]
These machines were otherworldly...
and alive.
They felt akin to magic.
[clattering]
Stop right there!
Yan?
What are you doing here?
I need your help.
Tell me what's wrong.
Look.
[gasps]
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.
[Yan shouts] No! Stop!
[screams]
[gears grind]
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.
[yells in fury]
[shouts]
[Yan] A terrible thing
had been done to me.
[grunts]
But I could also be terrible.
[screaming]
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.
[Liang] 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.
[Yan groaning in pain]
[metal grinding]
[Yan] I'm ready.
[shrieks]
[gears click and whir]
[shrieks]
Good hunting, Yan.
[East Asian melody plays]
[panicked breathing]
[gasps]
No!
Stop! [cries]
No!
the whole world was full of magic.
My father was a spirit hunter,
- [East Asian melody plays]
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.
[man groans]
[man] My sweet Tsiao-Jung.
[man groaning]
[wind whistling]
[door opens]
[ominous music playing]
Don't stare at her, she'll entrance you.
[moaning]
Tsiao-Jung, have you come for me?
[East Asian music intensifies]
Hyah!
[man groans]
[man groans and grunts]
Oof!
The piss, toss it on her
before she changes.
[whispers] You are a very brave boy.
Throw it! Now!
[screams]
[Tsiao-Jung] No!
[hisses]
[growls]
She's trapped in this half form.
[growls]
- Father, I'm sorry.
- [clinking]
The hunt is not over, Liang.
[tense East Asian music playing]
[panting]
[howls in pain]
She's made her den here.
Go round back.
[rustling]
- [distant animal howl]
- [panting]
[sniffs]
[hissing growl]
[hisses]
[snarls]
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.
-[Tsiao-Jung] Yan!
Do not speak to that human!
You know how dangerous they are.
[father] 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.
[Liang] 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.
[Liang] I'm going to leave the village.
[Yan] Where will you go?
I don't know yet.
I just... I wanted to tell you.
What will you do?
Learn to survive.
[upbeat orchestrated music plays]
[Liang] I ended up in Hong Kong,
- working the train line at Victoria Peak.
- [train bell clangs]
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.
[clang]
Yes, very clever, Liang, for a Chinaman.
Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.
[men laughing]
[man] 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.
[Liang] 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.
[clock tower chimes]
[Liang] How is hunting?
[Yan] 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?
[Liang] 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.
[Liang] 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.
[squeaking gears]
As it changed, I changed with it.
I found I understood automata
even better than I understood trains.
[cat purring]
These machines were otherworldly...
and alive.
They felt akin to magic.
[clattering]
Stop right there!
Yan?
What are you doing here?
I need your help.
Tell me what's wrong.
Look.
[gasps]
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.
[Yan shouts] No! Stop!
[screams]
[gears grind]
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.
[yells in fury]
[shouts]
[Yan] A terrible thing
had been done to me.
[grunts]
But I could also be terrible.
[screaming]
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.
[Liang] 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.
[Yan groaning in pain]
[metal grinding]
[Yan] I'm ready.
[shrieks]
[gears click and whir]
[shrieks]
Good hunting, Yan.
[East Asian melody plays]
[panicked breathing]
[gasps]
No!
Stop! [cries]
No!