Lost souls
Following a group of Illegal immigrants escaping mainland China to get to the relative freedom of Hong Kong, Lost Souls quickly becomes a trial by ordeal. The characters are caught by various gangs and if they don't have contacts in Hong Kong they're raped and tortured by their sadistic captors.
Its pretty much a straight up exploitation film. It has the pretence of addressing social issues from the beginning but quite quickly its clear the film is more interested in delivering a gruelling experience to its audience that is genuinely hard to forget. Its a decent film. Well shot and written. The acting is mostly decent and it has a genuinely bleak ending. However be aware going in your getting a whole lot of rape and abuse.
Corpse mania
A necrophiliac serial killer has escaped the local nut house and is targeting the girls from the local brothel. A tough street cop is on the case and aims to catch the madman before he can do too much damage.
The film is given a period setting, some point in the 1920's. Its beautifully shot with some great locations that are dripping with atmosphere. The director was apparently influenced by Mario Bava and its very believable when you watch the film which plays very much as a Hong Kong made Giallo picture with plenty of blood and a nicely paced running time just under 90 minutes. This one is definitely worth checking out.
Human Lanterns
Two rival swordsman are constantly attempting to one up each other. As they're both 'heroes' its not a flat out fist fight as one might expect rather social competitions with wealth and women.
Keen to beat his rival in an upcoming Lantern festival one of the men approaches a local Lantern maker to commission a Lantern that will win. He discovers the Lantern maker is an old enemy he bested in combat but is keen to win so commissions him anyway. The Lantern maker is carrying a huge grudge however and begins killing of the women in the other swordsmans life making it look like his enemy has finally snapped and taken the rival to a deadly new stage. The lantern maker still carries on making the lantern. Only he's using the skin of his victims as the raw materials.
Human Lanterns is an odd little movie. On one hand its a straight up kung fu flick with a morality tale buried in its narrative. However its also a horror. The lantern maker don's a demon mask when he goes out kidnapping and the silent slow motion movements of him hopping about in wire-fu style is genuinely creepy and the fact that he's skinning his victims gives it a nasty edge you don't often see in kung fu pictures.
Killer snakes
A Hong Kong take on films like Willard and Stanley. A nutter with some real BDSM fantasies gets mugged and thinks he's lost the love of his life all on the same day. He's also befriended some snakes he's saved from the neighbouring pharmacy where they are harvested for their gall bladders. The snakes take a liking to their new friend and they begin helping him getting revenge on everyone who has wronged him.
Another shaw brothers exploitation picture. This one has a sleazy, sweaty tone to it that makes it uncomfortable viewing. It feels like one influenced by the sort of Grimey exploitation pictures that were coming out of new york at the time. The 'bad guys' are all street hustlers, pimps and whores and the sleazy vibe gives it a real 42nd street feel. Not as good as calamity of snakes though.
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