The Love that is Wrong
Director: Sam Ho Shu-pui
Year: 1993
Rating: 5.0
For some reason that now escapes me I was expecting a sleek, stylish Cat III thriller with a bit of trash and a twist thrown in. The twist being that it revolves around a lesbian couple in HK – an unusual subject for HK films to deal with. The film does in fact have a lesbian as the main protagonist – but my guess would be that the Lesbian Alliance of HK (if there is such an organization) didn’t invite the makers of this film to their annual dinner! This film is in fact not particularly sleek nor stylish nor even much of a thriller – but it most certainly is trashy.

I was wondering whether I had rented the wrong film at the beginning of the film as it begins with a camera crew doing a mattress commercial for TV. When the director calls “cut” – the couple decides to continue and take the mattress for a dry run – or perhaps that should be a wet run. Huh? What the hell was that about? I am still not really sure but from time to time the film shifts focus away from the protagonists and takes a little excursion down Cat III highways and byways. One takes place in a boxing ring with one fellow and three girls – doesn’t sound at all fair to me – poor guy!

Eventually after the couple have done testing the mattress for firmness, the real movie begins. Now I am not really sure if this was any better but here goes the gist of it. The lovely Ellen Chan is a manager at a company and is carrying on a clandestine affair with one of her workers – one of the female workers I should add. Its all very lovey dovey until the partner decides that the two of them should have a child to raise together and she has a male picked out from work to do the deed. People in HK always seem to have so much more fun at work than we do here in the States!


Apparently there are no sperm banks in HK so she seduces the man – and before you know it she is expecting. But you know how it is once you have been with a man (well actually I wouldn’t!) there is no going back to satin and lavender! Needless to say Ellen doesn’t take kindly to this – fires the guy from work (do I hear lawsuit?) – and soon the landscape is littered with dead bodies. Our little sweet Ellen it turns out is a complete psycho!
 

A Peeping Tom ends up drowned at the bottom of her pool and a couple having sex by the pool end up sliced and diced into the pool. A note to myself: set up a dead people pool removal business in HK someday – lots of people end up dead in pools in HK it seems.

Soon Ellen meets a nice guy (Lin Wei) – and oh no – after one little frolic between the sheets  – she too is turned to the dark side and thinks - hey that was kind of fun! What have I been missing all these years? Not exactly a PC film these days – but what HK films are?


All this was idiotic – but didn’t really bother me – it was just the lack of very much interesting going on that put a dull damper on this film. Even the Cat III scenes have little energy in them – and they are so clearly included for strictly Cat III reasons with little connection to the film. For those Ellen Chan fans, I should warn you that though she looks great in this film – and quite sexy at times – I am reasonably sure after close and arduous study that a body double was used in her sex scene. I am not sure why though because she clearly showed what assets she had in the film Fatal Love. So all in all a very disappointing film.