Category III
Hong Kong 18+ Video Category: Every trigger warning
Horror Marathon 2024 Day 21 Films: 42, 43, 44
My journey of appreciation for the horror genre as a whole has been in part due to overlooking films because I was too scared. Horror films can be introspective and challenging- or treated as grotesque thrill rides. Category III rated films from HK tend to deal with not only violence, but gangland gore, and general repulsiveness.
What’s interesting is that over the last 20 years of TV we’ve also seen characters like Dexter become antiheroes while being serial killers. The level of gore for a film like the first Terrifier feels so much more blasé and worthless because the context of that film feels so hollow. How films are contextualized is important to understand.
Quite a few of these Category III films are true crime exploitation films too- and are in some ways a reaction to high levels of organized gang violence in HK and general societal anxiety. The films don’t seem to glamourize the killers as much as some Hollywood projects.
That said most of these films are meant to shock- to be exploitative and dreadfully tasteless. For the the realm of extremism portrayed the special effects of these films tend to be less realistic. They even cut away from some of the graphic parts, but the themes are pitch black.
Film 42: Human Pork Chop
2001 Directed by Benny Chain Chi-Shun
The story is inspired by a true crime murder (though they say it’s not real in the credits). A drug addicted sex worker steals (about $500) from her gang related pimp. Throughout the film she’s subjected to a vast amount of degrading things. There’s a small moment where the victim is humanized that speaks to how drug use destroys lives (could almost be seen as an anti-drug film). The killers are a small group that almost treats it as entertainment- with no remorse and callous thematic violence. For all the “edgy” sensibility this film has much is cut away from the gore shock moments while retaining pointless torture. It commits the cardinal sin of being boring on top of being a sad repugnant torture fest.
Film 43: The Untold Story
1993 Directed by Herman Yau
The next film, Ebola Syndrome, is also Directed by Yau and starring Anthony Wong. It may be helpful to contrast the two if you decide to watch them, but they both are films with hyper performances by Wong. As this is another true crime tale- this one again about a man who is so blinded by his own ego and greed that he murders a family and feeds them to customers in a restaurant.
The police investigation starts out as slapstick with repugnant sexist humor and characterizations. They eventually are able to stumble upon Wong- who is overloading the screen with this caricature of the vilest man. To get him to confess the police start to brutally hurt him. In a way this gave some catharsis to the previous film where all the hurt was on the victim, but that may be part of why the police brutality is brought up so much to question justification for violence.
Thankfully most of the gore is done in doses, but it really explodes at the end. Most of it is so garish with spurts it has its own dose of black humor mixed (the prosthetics at times are very obviously campy) in with the horrible SA and other really vile segments. These tonal shifts may create nauseating incongruency to some, but it made a trashy film easier to watch.
I also noted that there are clear references to the police wearing American sports team clothing and Coca-Cola placement. Tied with similar placement in Ebola there may be some indictment on consumption of products. *This pops up again in Ebola Syndrome, but I do think it’s a bit of a lackluster idea if it is one.
Film 44: Ebola Syndrome
1996 Directed by Herman Yau
Anthony Wong’s performance in this film is very much a companion piece to Untold Story. In this one his characterization is very much the same kind of vile human- just this time it’s amped to being a literal contagion carrier that seeps hatred for humanity. It’s a rejection of social niceties. Essentially the story this time remixes the ending of the other film- killing a family and hiding out in South Africa.
When people piss his self centered ego off he kills them in grotesque ways and feeds them to people in the restaurant (another thematic tie). What’s interesting is when he’s first seen at the restaurant he’s doing a very grotesque display of a real frog dish, and hands the dish off as an immaculate product for the white diners at the restaurant. There’s also Coca-Cola drinking that was prominent in Untold Story but this made me think more of how grotesque things are packaged.
More low tasteless things happen- from assaults to racist stereotypes coming out in the breakout of the virus. Most of the violence does cut away or are quick edits of extraneous gore while the script is a scattershot of ridiculous ideas. What was first a serial killer movie twists to mass murder with the revolting man crying out to “stop busting his balls!” It loses a lot of momentum and focus, but still this writhing mess of man’s ego is a pestilence on society at large.
As with The Untold Story, most of this is still an excuse to be exploitative though. Some dark humor moments come out just as ways to mix in some ability to give brief respite. The loose metaphors don’t always work- and may be more of an attempt of my mind trying to grasp at something more when all I’m looking at is film trash that can’t quite formulate a full idea.