Devil Curse (1988) - To Lo-Po

I have a weird feeling of deja vu. The smug face of Herman Kwan, a bunch of actors ive seen before and dudes going to thailand gettings cursed by scorned thai chicks. I'm positive that I've seen parts of this before, but perhaps I gave up on it the last time. I gues the deja vu could be explained by the fact that this movie features the exact same cast and was shot the same year as Devil Sorcery, as well as a plot we've seen a thousand times before... HK cop gets cursed by lusty thai babe, screwing with his life after he returns to HK. As the babe starts stabbing voodoo dolls, our shitty protagonist begins hallucinating at work, eating roosters at night and his hands turns werewolfy from time to time. All classic symptoms of a Devil Curse! The devil in question is some sort of dumb doll stuck in a bird cage. If only our moron protagonist had listened to the wisdom of Herman Kwan, this whole movie could have been avoided. It is a pretty basic black magic affair, but a rather dull one at that. Culminates with the classic scenario ofHerman Kwan vs. evil Thai wizard. Also, features krasue, Herman Kwan's daughter messing with horny ghost cops, weird doll shenanigans, mannequin love and some cop drama involving a lowlife called "Doggy". I generally agree with how some dude on hkmdb described Devil Curse - "Mostly alternates between dull and confusing, with minimal entertainment value." It could have been far worse though, and the final duel is sort of funky.

The Beauty's Evil Roses (1992) - Lam Wah-Chuen

As I've been rather busy the last couple of months, I haven't found the motivation or time to watch much much at all. Stuck offline in the mountains for a couple of days, I eventually ended up watching some stuff found on my laptop hard drive. It should come as no surprise that the hard drive was filled with nothing but sexual curse-flicks I had long forgotten about. Picking one at random, I ended up firing up The Beauty's Evil Roses - a movie about... stuff I guess. While I have called other flicks incoherent before, I am not joking when I say that this movie most likely hold the dubious honour of being the least coherent film I've ever watched. I am also not joking when I say that there is not a single second of plot WHATSOEVER during the first 30 minutes of the film. It opens with some sort of weird sex scene where some dude is turned into a zombie (possibly?). It comes complete with a sleazy soundtrack that skips and jumps in all the wrong spots, indicating that the scene has been quite extensively cut. I assume some bush and possibly even some penetration had been cut out. Following this scene, we are presented with a photoshoot where some chick wiggles her tits at us for some time, before we move on two yet two more sex and showerscenes! Of course, these also featured the bizarrely jumpy music.

Stuff beginning to resemble plot eventually starts appearing after half an hour or so, when our protagonist enters a boxing ring and triggers a bunch of bad rape flashbacks in his sparring partner. Apparently protagonist-cop dude's wife goes missing or something and a gang of brainwashed, lesbian, biker witches are behind it. To be honest I had no idea what was going on or what the movie was about after 40 minutes, but as the biker witches started ranting about evil gods and tentacle beasts and shit I kept watching. After some more weird rape flashbacks and sex scenes the movie FINALLY turns into a rather straight-forward affair about hex duels and buddy-cops. The rape scenes could indicate that this was a sequel to some other smutty piece of trash, but realizing that it was not going to make more sense, I did not pursue this train of thought any further. A chap called “great priest” shows up, does some fancy magics with the help of some chick's underwear and dies. In the end it is made clear that the only way to beat the “evilest mage in Thailand” is to storm her shitty shed apartment, with akimbo UZIs and murder everyone. The Beauty's Evil Roses is a total mess of a film, but I guess its worth watching due to stuff. Also, features trippy space duels, knife-to-vaginas, revolver blowjobs and bizarre tentacle-stuff and did I mention the hundred sex scenes?

Her Vengeance (1988) - Ngai Choi Lam

A group of buddies head to Macao for some fun at the local casinos and can-can joints, and decide to end the night by brutally raping Pauline Wong. After a completely ludicrous scene at a doctor's office where she discovers that she has contracted AIDS (what's up with AIDS and lowbrow Hong Kong flicks anyways?), she decides to go all out in search of vengeance. She abandons her blind sister in Macao and head to Hong Kong in search of the raping asswipes (which includes Shing Fui-On). Once there she teams up with a wheelchair-bound Lam Ching Ying and falls in love with a nerdy journalist. Her Vengeance is a pretty straightforward revenge story of the luridly rapey kind. Not my favorite genre, but all in all it isn't too bad. Both Pauline Wong and Lam Ching Ying are excellent in this. The endings is absolutely nuts with wheelchair-fu, crossbows, fishhooks and acid baths. I guess I should come to expect this sort of shenanigans from Ngai Choi Lam flicks.

The Imp (1996) - Ivan Lai Gai-Ming

Before I watched this I was told The Imp was mediocre shit and not really worth a look. While I can understand the reasoning behind such a description, I managed to enjoy myself while watching this. A reporter starts having visions of her twin sister getting murdered and sets off to a mountain "village" to investigate. The village consists of a shitty hotel, a temple of sorts and is surrounded by a jungle or something. It's not entirely clear where we are supposed to be, seeing as there are wild savages living nearby which the subtitles keep referring to as "aboriginals". The journalist teams up with a movie crew shooting a documentary in the area and tons of sex ensues. There's sex, nudity or something a long those lines every five minutes basically and barely room for plot at times. The plot is paper thin though, so no worries there. Watchable slasher junk with ridiculous madmen, backyard labiaplasty, gimps and plenty of blue lighting. More fun than the purely sex-based catIIIs at least. Made by the dude who did The Blue Jean Monster!

A Lamb in Despair (1999) - Tony Leung

A gloomy weirdo returns from the US and figures he should start kidnapping chicks, keep nude slaves and stab people from time to time. Apparently he's been acquitted of some similar shenanigans over in the states already, and this pisses off an equally gloomy journalist played by Anthony Wong. For some reason Mr. weirdo was in the US army and now flaunts his dog tags all over the place. Apparently this  is a bad thing and Wong is not pleased. There's some flashbacks with child abuse (don't throw cigarettes at your kids unless you want them to turn into weirdos), before it ends with some nutty facemorphing nonsense. A few weeks have passed since I watched this to be honest, and my memory of this thing is somewhat blurred. I guess the fact that I've managed to forget so much about this in such a short time, speaks volumes about whether you should bother watching it or not. Utterly forgettable.

Devil's Woman (1996) - Otto Chan

Devil's Woman is somewhat of a perfect example of what I think of when I see cat III mentioned. It manages to mix themes like rape, black magic, cops, Southeast Asia and comedy together in typical Hong Kong fashion. Baldie Elvis Tsui stars as a badass cop, who becomes clairvoyant after getting mixed up in some hex business. This time we are dealing with busty actresses worshiping "Sedan", if we are to trust the subtitles. I assume we in fact should not trust the subtitles, as they surely are referring to "Satan", and not a car type. At least we're not dealing with Carla-worshipers! Top loony wizard, Ben Ng appears too, and it should come as no surprise that he's the one casting the rape-hexes in this flick. Elvis is in deep shit in Devil's Woman, calling in sick for work due to blue balls, having a bloody fetus blasted at him by means of shotgun, getting raped by ghosts and having no girlfriend :'( Thoroughly entertaining cat III romp! Yay!

Sentenced to Hang (1989) - Taylor Wong

Three buddies  comes up with a kidnapping scheme to get rich over a couple of beers. They fail miserably however and ends up killing the poor, kidnapped schmuck. Still hungry for cash they kidnap another gent and ends up killing a bunch of more dudes to stay out of jail. Of course, as revealed in the title their scheme does not go as planned. From what I gather, Sentenced to Hang was one of the first (or the first) movie to receive the CatIII rating, but its really nothing like its wilder brethren from the 90s. For once, I think "sober" actually might be a good description of a CatIII, as this is more of a thrilling drama than a shocker. Sentenced to Hang is actually a quite decent flick though, and is definitely worth a spin! Poor Kent Cheng.

Rape and Die (1983) - Lee Wing-Cheung

I can't remember why I wanted to watch this flick, but the title is probably at least partly to blame. Rape and Die is a complete mess of a film, and while I didn't expect a masterpiece, I didn't expect this either. Rather than a snoreinducing, softcore CatIII effort, I was presented with a confusing triad, coming-of-age, social drama with rapey elements. A poor girl is struggling as her mom is a prostitute, her stepdad is a creepy rapist and her father sleeps with her classmates. She attempts to solve her problems by becoming a prostitute herself, but that somehow manages to make her life even more shitty. Features the seediest backalley abortion clinic I've seen, ludicrous disco dancers and weed as a rapedrug. In the end the moral of the story is something along the lines of "threat your mother right". An odd but mostly uninteresting film.

Eternal Evil of Asia (1995) - Chin Man-Kei

A bunch of dudes head to Thailand for some light hearted, prostitute-related fun. They soon stumble upon a wizard in the form of Ben Ng, as they haven't seen Red to Kill they mistake him for a friend. One of the poor chaps has his head transformed into an actual dickhead, while the bunch witness a mad magic duel involving sorcerors flying around fucking each other mid-air to perform the powerful "mating hex"! All of this is great of course, but the film really picks up its pace after Ben Ng's sister is gangraped by the Hong Kong-crew accidentally (love-potions are a bitch to do right). Revenge obviously has to be had and what follows is a dazzling display of hexes, absurd deaths, invisi-blowjobs, golden buddhas and other kinds of nonsense. The end result is a wildly entertaining rape-revenge-comedy-romp, that cements Ben Ng as Hong Kongs wackiest raper. Glorious!

The Complicated Raping Case (1993) - Lok Daai Yue

I'm not entirely sure what I was expecting of a flick called The Complicated Raping Case. The streak of amusing catIIIs had to end eventually. The mistress of an old man (as sweaty as he is rich) is discovered dead and someone starts blackmailing his wife for some reason. There was some raping or something as well, but the whole situation is somewhat confusing due to the often incomprehensible subtitles. To be honest the "raping case" in question does not seem particularly complicated at all, but rather quite straight forward. However the various cops in the flick keeps on the repeating lines like "this case looks complicated" and similar shit nonstop. The Complicated Raping Case is basically a dull as fuck police procedural, riddled with tedious and awkward sex-scenes that seem utterly out of place. Lawrence Ng supposedly makes an appearance in this, I didn't see him though, seeing as it was impossible to pay attention to the movie. Don't waste any time on this stinker.

Raped by an Angel (1993) - Andrew Lau

A particularly slimy lawyer uses his keen understanding of the law to rape gals and get away with it. Chingmy Yau stars in this as a student/model/something, alongside Simon Yam as a good guy triad playboy. Inevitably one of Yau's girlfriends ends up in the clutches of the rapist and revenge has to be had. They come up with one of the most ridiculous revenge plots in history and somehow manages to pull it off. It suffices to say that it involves a rapist dressed as a clown (!), a bear trap, a bathtub filled with sulfuric acid, several panes of glass, a crossbow and a girl with AIDS. Some of these CatIIIs are real treats...

The Blue Jean Monster (1991) - Ivan Lai Gai-Ming

Genre-baddie Shing Fui-On plays a badass cop that meets an unfortunate end at the hands of some mean bank robbers. Fortunately (?) his corpse is hit by lightning, and he's brought back to life as a supercharged zombie - mayhem ensues. Of course this is not a simple revenge story, but rather a comedy romp about the ails of the recently turned undead. Shing tries to cover up his wounds with cookie dough and his wife (Pauline Wong) finds his sudden lack of sexdrive annoying. Tons of weird shit happens in this flick - boobs explode, cleaning montages with chipmunk voices, burgers get fondled, births, electrocutions, explosions and struggling marriages. Great!

Three Days of a Blind Girl (1993) - Chan Wing-Chiu

I came across this flick in the middle of a bunch of CatIIIs, but I reckon this thing is a IIb or something. Veronica Yip is temporarily blinded for three days after having eye surgery, while her heart surgeon husband is out of town. This is where a long haired and boyishly dressed Anthony Wong makes his appearance and makes everyone feel uncomfortable. Cue a memorable shower scene, castrations, rape, violence and other forms of abuse (poor doggy). The fact that they restrained themselves from going all out CatIII, is probably what makes this thing a quite effective thriller at times. Wong is menacing as usual and the film does not seem as cheap as a lot of its contemporary brethren. This particularly voyeuristic effort is also known under the title of Retribution Sight Unseen and I guess it's worth a look if you're into this brand of HK film making.

The Untold Story (1993) - Herman Yau

Been watching and rewatching a lot of CatIIIs lately, so I obviously had to have another look at The Untold Story. I didn't know this was co-directed by Danny Lee, but I guess that explains why his character is continuously swarmed by chicks. I remembered this as being quite humorous, but realized quickly that I must have it mixed up with Ebola Syndrome. To be honest there's not a lot of comedy in this at all, apart from some of Danny Lee's strange brand of cop-slapstick. It's a pretty mean film, and I must admit I still winced during the scene where Bunman attemps to cut his wrists with a rusty shovel... Another shining example of fucking awful HK prisons in the 90s.

Bloody Beast (1994) - Richard Yeung Kuen

One of the lesser known and harder to find CatIII nasties. The rip I ended up watching was sourced from an utterly worn out VHS, which made the subtitles unreadable most of the time. I could still make out a word here and there though, so it was still possible to get the gist of the story. There are perfectly valid reasons for Bloody Beast's obscurity though, as its a pretty shitty little flick. Lawrence Ng stars as an unemployed weirdo, who loves lactating breasts, peeping at chicks (especially his sister) and being useless. Lawrence is told to explain why he killed all "those people", and the rest of the film is told in typical flashback-from-prison fashion, with William Ho as warden! Of course nothing is explained, instead what follows is a series of quite entertaining peeping incidents and Lawrence indiscriminately killing/raping mothers and their babies with a ballhammer. However, Bloody Beast is cheap as fuck and not really worth a look.

Dr. Lamb (1992) - Billy Tang

Simon Yam stars as a taxi driver, who turns violent when it rains. By "violent" I mean strangling female passengers, hacking them up, and pickling (!) their tits. His pickled tit collection eventually gets poured over Kent Chung's head. This is actually a true crime flick, and that is probably the main problem with Dr. Lamb. Supposedly, it follows the original story quite well, but that clearly was a bad idea. The "plot" is nonexistant and the film is rather as a result. There is some naughty flashbacks in the second half and all, but in general it is pretty tame in comparison to later CatIIIs. However, Billy Tang did his best to redeem himself by making Red to Kill and Run and Kill shortly after this though. Kent Cheng always seems to have a bad time in Tang's flicks. Poor Kent Cheng.

Taxi Hunter (1993) - Herman Yau

Taxi Hunter is basically the HK version of Falling Down - with taxis. Anthony Wong stars as a timid and kind family man, who ends up loosing said family when a taxi driver runs over his pregnant wife. Needless to say Wong is pissed off and starts executing taxi drivers in no-nonsense fashion. However, shit gets complicated once his cop brother-in-law goes undercover to track down the killer. I loved this flick, despite a couple of flaws. The most important of these being Ng Man-tat as one of the worst comic reliefs in the history of cinema. Seriously, it's like Rob Schneider in Judge Dredd but with some extra bonus-awfulness... I had almost forgotten how entertaining some of these CatIII efforts could be to be honest. While Taxi Hunter actually is a CatIIb flick, it has Anthony Wong losing his marbles and going ballistic. It basically plays out like the rest of his 90s revenge/psycho flicks (also, I lack an appropriate category for it). Wong + Yau = Rad

The Underground Banker (1994) - Bosco Lam

I was under the impression that I had seen this some years back, today I realized that I had never laid eyes on this thing after all. Follows the usual recipe of Anthony Wong CatIIIs - odd slapstick, slutty wife, psychos and meat cleavers. Wong's wife uses a triad loan shark to settle some debt, which results in her getting raped repeatedly before being burned alive. Seeing as their kid caught fire too, we get to see a scene were said horribly burn-scarred kid gets told that he'll never be able to play video games again - everyone cries and there's some sad guitar music. I'm not the one being macabre here though, the flick is a comedy and never even once attempts to be serious. A redeemed Dr. Lamb even makes an appearance! Superduper tasteless, cheap and liberatingly entertaining. 

Red to Kill (1994) - Billy Tang

Red to Kill is a rather notorious CatIII flick, that raised the bar for rapeyness in cinema. The story is centered around the sad sob-story of a handicapped girl who looses her dad in a car-accident and has to move in with a collective of the mentally ill. Everyone there loves her, she learns how to dance, happy music montage, blah blah blah. The real primus motor of the story however, is the batshit insane, beefy muscle-raper, who runs around murdering/raping chicks wearing red. Our heroine figures wearing red is a great idea of course, and before you know it, you are watching the mentally ill get butt-raped by a howling bodybuilder. I guess it possibly kind of borders on the territory of the tasteless. Billy Tang demonstrates that this indeed is a serious and touching film though, by showing us a lengthy shower/pube-shaving sequence accompanied by a sad keyboard soundtrack after the rape. The rest of the flick contains some revenge, some more rape and an utterly downbeat ending. All in all a very rapey film. Way to go Billy Tang...