Troublesome Night 4 has three of the stalwarts of the series – Louis Koo who appeared in the first seven films in the series before he learned how to say “No”, Wayne Lai also managed to find himself in seven of the films – but both these guys are pikers compared to Simon Loui who seemed to show up in nearly every low budget horror film of the period – he was in thirteen of the Troublesome Night films and is probably wondering where his career went. Of course one of the fun things about those early TN films was the large casts that were needed in order to make three separate episodes. Many of these were up and coming actors - some who went on to bigger careers but most of them fell back into working in television once the low budget horror films ran out of gas.
Venturing out of the safe confines of Hong Kong
for travel to Southeast Asia has never been a healthy thing in Hong Kong
films though it is generally Thailand that brings on death or curses, but
occasionally the Philippines gets in on the act – Fatal Vacation where a
group of Hong Kong tourists are kidnapped and killed, Marianna where Sally
Yeh is terrorized by zombie lepers and even Leslie Cheung’s luck ran out
there in Days of Being Wild. A planeload of passengers from Hong Kong are
on their way to Manila – two of them are on their honeymoon (Louis Koo and
Pauline Suen), one fellow (Timmy Hung, son of Sammo) is unknowingly delivering
an urn with a girl’s ashes to her home, a businessman has brought his secretary
along for some fun (Raymond Wong and Karen Tong in a running gag where ghosts
keep interrupting their tryst) and the rest are part of a tour group led
by Emily Kwan. Three of these (Simon, Wayne and Cheung Tat-ming) are friends
going for the whoring and are pleased when Emily informs them that “guns
and whores are commonly found here”. And finally U2 and K2 are along for
the ride to it seems promote their workplace, the infamous China City Club
where they are hostesses. Since neither of them (Marianna Chan and Joey Choi)
have any particular involvement in any of the stories, one might guess they
are either just in it for the eye candy or are friends of Herman.
The first two stories have zero bite to them.
Allan (Timmy) begins seeing the ghost of the dead woman (Via Veloso) that
he is carrying to her home which isn’t all that bad since she is naked some
of the time and in the second segment the newly married couple has a falling
out after she suspects him of having a fling with an exotic dancer (Anna
Capri). But the film hits comic gold in the third piece. After a few frustrating
days the horny threesome decide that tonight they are finding some girls
to whore with but they get much more than they bargain for in a finger chopping
night of ghosts and zombies who judge them for their wicked whoring. It is
like the Three Stooges trying to get laid and is quite loony and funny. The
extremely well-built (the “oh my god” expression on Wayne Lai’s face when
he sees her naked charms is hilarious) Filipina in this one is Aya Medel
and to say she is an eye full is total understatement.
