Asian cinema has its own share of mind-rotting, vomit-inducing garbage. During the early 90's, exploitation films were all the rage in Hong Kong. While the violence is not as graphic as "Hostel" or "The Human Centipede", Asians have a knack for artistic, subtle violence that terrifies you psychologically. Acts of disemboweling and chopping up limbs are only hinted, their ghosts are there to spook you, rather than to chase after you with a chainsaw. This, in my opinion, is a finesse that truly separates Asian cinema from Hollywood (who prefers violence to be crude, into-your-face). Asians play on the unknown fears, while Hollywood just wants everything to be blatant.

Enter Hong Kong's Category III Films, a type of torture porn made famous in the 90's. There is no equivalent in the Western world, except for maybe the NC-17 ratings. HK Cat III deals with serial killers, prostitutes, ah longs, imperial courts and bizarre fetishes. Below are my Top 5 "Best Of..."Awards for Cat III films.

BEST SERIAL KILLER

The Untold Story (1993), also known as Human Flesh Buns, is probably the most iconic film that defines the Cat III genre. Anthony Wong's performance as a disturbed, creepy psycho who goes about raping and mincing people into meat buns was brilliant enough to win him a Golden Horse Award for Best Actor. The plot is really simple: a man kills an entire family and masquerades as the new restaurant owner, while dishing up "pork buns" made from human flesh to his greedy customers. This movie tries to be deep. It provides a social commentary on police brutality, criminal law, the mass media and ultimately questions the notion of justice. You'll find the victim-victimizer role gets shifted around as the story proceeds. What a shame this film is so underrated and underappreciated (just because it is Asian). More people from the West should watch this! If you love grindhouse movies, this is definitely the one for you.

BEST STALKER 

 

Red To Kill (1994) is one of the sleaziest, most sordid Cat III films ever made. It is some sort of exploitation extravaganza full of gender violence. Plus it has the most satisfying climax and ending in an HK movie. The story is set in a neighbourhood plagued by a predator who stalks and rapes women wearing red clothes. The rapist gets turned on by the colour red. What is frightening (and educational) about this is the identity of the rapist. He is in fact, a teacher working with the mentally-disabled children in a shelter, and a trusted member of society. In my opinion, this reflects the reality of sex crimes; most people who commit rape are usually in a position of trust and responsibility (eg; family members, priests, etc) and therefore are able to slip under the radar easily. The least suspecting ones are in fact, the most dangerous. This movie rates really high on my list of "perverted filth" due to the amount of disturbing sex and gore floating around. Go watch it now.

BEST SEX 

Don't Stop My Crazy Love For You (1993) portrays obsessive love that turns bad real fast. Veteran actor Simon Yam starred as a fan who spies on his object of affection, Kitty, a pretty anchorwoman, who lives across his house. Problem is she does not realize his existence on the same planet. Besides playing peeping tom, he also sleeps with a life-sized dummy resembling Kitty. Then proceeds to send tapes containing harassing messages to her. If you think that isn't creepy enough, he eventually murders the poor woman's boyfriend in a psychotic rage. Our heroine, desiring revenge, baits her stalker using sex and this results in a very steamy, immensely smutty bedroom scene with some serious full frontal. The raw passion and lust that is captured by the camera lens during the love scene is quite unparalleled in its intensity, IMHO. Actress Yvonne Hung gained fame overnight for her salacious portrayal of the beauty in distress, and I find that fame rather justified. The rest of the movie is not very graphic, but the final climax more than makes up for it.    

BEST HISTORICAL SHIT 

Men Behind the Sun (1988) made controversial headlines the moment it was released. It becomes the first movie to earn the Cat III ratings in China. Directed by Mou Tun Fei, it is a documentary that supposedly depicts the cruelty of Japanese soldiers against Chinese civilians during World War II.  The Unit 731, a top-secret unit, was designed to conduct inhuman experiments on Chinese prisoners in order to create the ultimate biological warfare. Eeeww, those experiments are really pukeworthy. Examples: a man had his intestines explode when tortured by high frequency noise, a woman had her skin peeled off her arms, and a boy is dissected alive while his heart is still pumping. Although the term "documentary" lends an air of respectability to this film, I must say the exploitative elements tend to get played up a lot by the mass media, therefore misleading the public into thinking that this movie is just some cheap shitty gimmick. Personally, I don't find this movie sensational in any way. The media hype can be very damaging to a good film which I find to be more educational than your average history textbook in school. 

BEST S&M

Love To Kill (1993) is a little-known Cat III flick that remains a classic in the art of sado-masochism. Anthony Wong played the role of an abusive husband who forced his gorgeous wife to submit to all manners of S&M lovemaking. Domestic violence, while a heavy issue, has never looked sexier than in this movie. Hubby turns into a beast at home whenever he gets in the mood resulting in lots of hot Master-Slave scenario, ranging from bondage, spanking, insertions, asphyxia, water sports, etc. For those who are curious about genuine S&M techniques, this movie will educate you in graphic details. Despite its rather smutty nature, the wife never takes off her clothes fully and never reveals as much skin as other Cat III actresses. The focus here is not exploitation, but on the acts of violation done on the wife in the name of connubial love. Wifey eventually gets her revenge on hubby in the end, in a predictably gory and messy way. "50 Shades of Grey" can't even begin to compare with the nastiness of this HK original.

"Antichrist", a 2009 movie, tries really hard to be art but fails miserably. This story pretty much reinforces the Cartesian man/woman, mind/body binary. The whole idea is woman = nature and therefore, woman embodies irrationality, passion, flesh, desire. Meanwhile, man = culture. He is everything she is not, thus man personifies intellect, rationality, mind, logic. The only way the female can escape this unfair binary is to either die or become mad (which she did both in this film).

The opening scene is awesome. A shower scene with a pair of hubby and wife boinking each other like rabbits. Droplets of water flying in slow motion.

While they're bumping uglies, their child opened a window, fell down and died. Parenting fail lolz.

They tried to deal with the grief and trauma of losing a child. Hubby is a cool-headed man who likes playing shrink to his ultra-emotional wife. He, who personifies culture, overcomes grief through controlling his wife using objective, scientific methods. She, who symbolizes nature, conquers grief through enjoying great sexual activities. Anyway, hubby suggested exposure therapy to "cure" his spouse without acknowledging the validity of her grief. Arrogant bastard.

They retreated to Eden, a wild and idyllic garden. Since nature is woman's playground, wifey began to grow strong, in a psychotic kind of way. She started to plot against man.

Hubby discovered a talking fox. This is supposed to be scary, but aww.... so cute :)

Soon, hubby realized wifey is evil. Autopsy report showed that their kid had deformed feet which was caused by mama tying his shoes the wrong side. Like. All the time.

So woman attacked man. She bashed a rock against his dick, crushing it, splurting blood all over. She took a heavy iron wheel...

 

And drilled a hole into his leg...

 

Then inserted a finger into his bones...

 

Before screwing the iron wheel to his leg, maiming poor hubby. 

When man tried to escape, she chased him into a fox hole and poked him with a shovel. There's some weird Freudian symbolism here... fox hole is probably a mother's womb but whatever.

Full of self-hatred, woman then mutilates her own genitals with scissors.

 

To cut a long story short, hubby got fed up and strangles wife to death.

He sets fire to destroy evidence of his crime. Burn, baby, burn!

The ending is just plain psycho. Man is now liberated. He eats poisonous berries in Eden and starts to hallucinate. Hundreds of faceless, nameless women start to appear on the hill, overrunning Eden. The end.

Verdict: If the movie had taken itself less seriously, I would have awarded it higher marks. As such, it is trying too hard to be meaningful and artful. Half-baked symbolisms and metaphors abound. The lack of clarity in message severely dilutes the power and impact of the film. 

Rating: 6/10

My second torture porn this week is a classic film by Pier Paolo Pasolini, legendary French director.

"Salo: 120 Days of Sodom" (1975), is a pretty fucked up movie containing anti-capitalism & anti-fascism ideology. It's so controversial that it is banned in many countries including Malaysia & Singapore. Based on the novel by the sadistic Marquis de Sade, it depicts how corrupted men in power engage in graphically violent and sexually perverse scenarios with naked young teenagers under their control. This movie contains so much nudity, it's practically a nudist festival.

Scatology (the study of shit) is the literary device used to indicate the moral depravity & spiritual debasement of the characters in Salo. One scene, in particular, shows men gleefully eating faeces produced from diarrhea. It's disgusting...goes to show how power made animals out of men. Scatology is often used by Christian writers too, like Jonathan Swift and Dante Alighieri. Flipping shit makes you totally awesome.

Sypnosis: 4 fascist libertines holding power in Mussolini's government decided to kidnap 9 teenagers, male and female, and torture them in orgies and S&M rituals. They were forced to eat shit and copulate. At the end of their 120 days of captivity, the youths were murdered in gruesome ways - one boy had his penis burnt, another had his tits branded, a girl had her eyes gouged out, another had her brains cut out. Then the 4 fascist libertines danced in joy. Lolz. It's mildly amusing ;)

Analysis: Literature writers often used black comedy to convey anger and condemnation towards those in power, namely the fascists and capitalists. Pier Paolo Pasolini wants to slap sense into people by shouting into their ears. This creepy movie tries to educate through shockingly lewd tactics, because conventional happy films won't have a stronger gut impact.

Follow this link to watch this shitty movie:

http://www.bmetv.net/video/3287/salo-120-days-of-sodom-full-movie

Tada!!~ Introducing my first crazy screwed up movie of the week. Exclusively brought to you from the Land of the Rising Sun:

In this low-budget film called Visitor Q (2001) by Japanese director Takashi Miike, you get the full package of incest, rape, prostitution, drugs, necrophilia, domestic violence, bullying, and breast milk.

Sypnosis: Daddy gets fired at work. But he's sleeping with daughter. The ugly truth is daddy was gang-raped by a group of boys during a documentary. He also suffers from premature ejaculation. Mommy is a junkie high on heroin and she gets beaten up into a pulp by her violent son. The ugly truth is the son is a bully victim at school and mommy street walks for cash. Everything changed for the better when daddy meets Visitor Q, a stranger who stayed with the family and taught mommy how to produce breast milk. From then onwards, Visitor Q videotapes everybody. Daddy murders a female colleague then commits necrophilia. The corpse is then dismembered by husband and wife. Lastly, everybody drinks breast milk and the family is rejuvenated, renewed. Wtf, wtf.... 

Analysis: This movie uses over-the-top graphic scenes and black comedy to show everything that is wrong with Japanese society today. There's a parody on youtube culture as well, with Visitor Q videotaping all scenes of depravity. There's an emphasis on family unity with everybody getting healed and reconciled with the help of mommy's breast milk.

Moral Value: -5/100

Family Value: 10/100

Breast Milk: 120/100

Director Takashi Miike is famous for shitty gay movies like Ichi the Killer, Gazu, Audition, Taboo, etc. Do google him up if you're interested in those kinda stuffs.


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