Rating: 3.5/5
Cult Movie Challenge 2018 | 10/52 | HK Cat III
Hong Kong 1978 Chan Chi-Leung and Keung argue as they put away majhong tiles. Chan asks Keung to lend him money to pay an old debt, but Keung refuses and tells him to leave. So, Chan smashes him over the head, douses him in conveniently placed gasoline, and burns Keung alive. Chan burns his HK ID and gets a new Macau ID under the name Wong Chi Hang.
Macau 1986 Two children play on the beach as their mother sifts through the sand for clams. The two brothers find a bag lodged in the sand. It has a rotten smell. The mother comes over to see and finds the bag is full of severed human limbs. The police arrive on the scene to investigate, and we meet some detectives whom I assume we’ll meet again. We also meet their supervisor,
Cut to Wong Chi Hang working at the Eight Immortals Restaurant. A man delivers a letter for Cheng Lam, which Vong takes and rips up. Vong goes to a lawyer with the deed for Eight Immortals Restaurant to sign over from its previous owner, Cheng Lam, to him. But without any signature or approval from Cheng Lam, who has mysteriously vanished, the lawyer can do nothing for him.
What will the police investigation reveal? Where is Cheng Lam? What heinous things is Wong Chi Hang up to?
The Chinese title, 八仙飯店之人肉叉燒包, which translates to something like “Eight Immortal Restaurant Human Meat Buns”, refers to the infamous murders that occurred at the Eight Immortals Restaurant in Macau in 1985, on which the filmmakers based this movie. Americans would have probably considered that title a spoiler since they were likely unfamiliar with the news story.
The film has a black comedy tone to it, especially with the police detectives. They all seem inept or amateurish, and their understandably grossed-out response to the evidence is the source of several hijinks.
The special effects are sufficiently realistic to induce a nausea response in me, especially with characters responding to them as though they are disgusting. The kills are also pretty grisly, even when they have a comedic touch. And of course, Wong can’t just kill the women victims, he has to graphically SA them first. So, I understand the CAT III rating on this one.
I could do without the subplot where Bo, the only woman detective, tries to convince the other detectives that she’s hot enough for them to lust after. Also, the third act gets a little tedious until the genuinely disturbing finale — I won’t get into any specifics.
If I weren’t a vegetarian before this movie, it would’ve definitely pushed me in that direction. Depending on the type of genre fan you are, that’s either a warning or a ringing endorsement.
** Stray Thoughts / Spoilers **
- Anthony Wong really transforms himself just by making that unhinged face the whole time.
- Ah, back when you could demonstrate competent chopping skills and get a job on the spot.
- Watching Wong Chi Hang gleefully butcher a pig is, uh, gross!
- Inspector Lee always has a different beautiful woman in his arms.
- Detective Robert is always flirting with whoever Lee is seeing. He also has a sick switchblade comb.
- Chopping off the fingers for fingerprints. Gross! Man, I do not envy the tedium of print matching during the paper fingerprint system days.
- Urinating on your hands to clean the blood off is wild.
- It’s deeply fucked what they do in front of kids and to kids in this movie. Like, this movie had to scar those child actors. What parent would sign their kids up for this?? I really need some way to know that those kids are okay.