Psycho Killer
Director: Stanley Siu Wing
Year: 1993
Rating: 4.0
No subs and I don't understand Cantonese
This definitely has a cheap straight to
vcd look which is a bit surprising in that it has two Hong Kong film stars
and the director of New York Chinatown, Stanley Siu Wing. But that film was
a decade earlier and probably twenty times the budget. Weirder in that one
of the stars, Chingmy Yau, was at the top of her popularity after Naked Killer
and Royal Tramp the previous year. The other lead was coming into his own
with appearances in The Bride with White Hair and Kung Fu Cult Master. But
Francis Ng would become best known in his earlier years as a villain in Satan
Returns, The Dragon Fighter and Handsome Siblings. He gets some good practice
at being a psycho here, but he is not the Psycho Killer. Though he is a psycho
and a killer.
I have had this vcd for years but even with
Chingmy in it, I just never got around to it. In my early years watching
videos of HK films, I often viewed ones with no subs, but now I have become
spoiled with dvds which almost always have English subs. I don't know if
this is available in a subbed version but I noted that it has no reviews
here or on HKMBD. So, maybe I am the only person who bought this and it is
worth millions. For Chingmy, I finally dove in. And was sorry I did. Quite
bad. Nothing much happens till the end.
Chingmy is a Mainland cop investigating
a serial killer of women with large bosums. Though there is no nudity in
the film, there are a number of women with those assets and the camera lingers
on them in profile. I am not sure quite why, but she travels to Hong Kong
to talk to Francis Ng, who is a prisoner that they keep behind plexiglass.
They talk, he stares at her chest. I am guessing this was a Silence of the
Lambs moment. Decent ending. Chingmy looks great in a police uniform.
