Yeh ging wan

He Lives By Night is what you get if you mix a giallo movie with a Hong Kong comedy, the film combining stylish, mean spirited murder scenes (the killer using a retractable craft knife before strangling his victims) with really daft humour of the kind that often leaves me baffled. The result is a strange concoction, but one that is certainly never boring.

The film opens with a murder set-piece that immediately draws comparison with Argento: a women walking home alone at night encounters the maniac while navigating her way through washing lines hung with coloured sheets. The killer cuts the sheets, the woman running wildly amidst the fabric, her terrified face framed by one of the slashes (shades of Tenebre). Suffering several wounds, the lady crawls free of the sheets, but is grabbed by the maniac, who uses the victim's white fishnet stockings to strangle her.

The film then enters comedy mode as we are introduced to policeman Lousy Wong (an early role for Simon Yam), his overweight buffoon of a boss, Dragon (Kent Cheng), and tomboy radio DJ Sissy (Sylvia Chang), who Dragon takes an immediate liking to. Dragon's attraction to Sissy provides much of the film's goofy humour. But Dragon isn't the only man interested in the disc jockey: a nut-job obsessed with Sissy keeps calling the radio station, and makes violent threats when his advances are rebuffed. He, it is quickly revealed, is a red herring, as it is not long before the real killer is shown to be a transvestite (inspired by De Palma's Dressed to Kill?), who lost his marbles when he caught his wife (wearing white stockings) in bed with another man (dressed as a woman). Now, his murderous rage is triggered whenever he sees a woman wearing white silk stockings.

There's a little more wacky comedy, when Dragon takes Lousy and Sissy to a restaurant for a slap up feed, but the film returns to horror after the nutter - a shoe's salesman by day - serves two women, one of whom is wearing stockings. He breaks into their home, and attacks one of the women while her friend is taking a bath, using his trusty knife/strangulation modus operandi. He doesn't notice the other lady hiding behind the shower curtain, but she sees him, wrongly identifying him to the police as a woman. Fortunately for Dragon and Lousy, Sissy is something of a sleuth herself, and works out that the killer is a man in drag. She agrees to act as bait for the sicko, appearing on TV in stockings, luring the murderer to her radio station.

The final act is a lot of fun, the DJ having to keep the killer at bay while the police wrongly pursue the red herring. The action gets more and more insane, Sissy defending herself with a samurai sword, electrocuting the maniac, and finally defeating her attacker when he tries to crush her with a drinks dispensing machine (the product placement for 7-Up is hardly subtle).

6.5/10, rounded up to 7 for Eric Tsang in punk/new wave make-up, and for two inexplicably strange comedic scenes: Dragon tries to woo Sissy in his apartment by wearing glittery eyeshadow and PVC trousers (always a winner with the ladies), and Sissy and Dragon doing a silly dance in dungarees. Oh, and be sure to watch to the very end of the credits for a surprise.

This is a great fun slasher comedy. Unlike 'Scream' the comedy is not dependent upon knowledge of modern horror films but effectively makes its own humour. The killings remain horrific despite the comedy, although the film is more serious at the start, more comedic at the end and there is a great scene in the middle where we successfully get both because the victim and her girlfriend are trying to scare each other as the killer prowls about.

If there's one thing you can't criticize HE LIVES BY NIGHT is that it takes itself too serious. A campy slasher flick that revels in its own silliness, the movie chronicles the efforts of a radio deejay and a fat police captain trying to apprehend a crossdressing shoe-salesman with a murderous silk stocking fetish. The sexual handicup at the root of the killer's problem and the flashback that explains it, an opening murder that recalls Argento's PROFONDO ROSSO and a generally more refined stylish bravado than its American counterparts from the same time, all point to a certain Italian giallo influence. The film ends however with a long chase scene between victim and killer that seems plucked straight from American slasher. For a movie walking a tightrope between two traditionally horrific subgenres, He Lives By Night is oddly enough defined more by its comedy. I guess a lot is lost in the translation, but what is left is typical HK antics, a general buffoonery that is as sure to make you cringe as it is to get you hooked with its peculiar charm. Accompanied by one of the goofiest casiotone synth scores you're likely to listen, He Lives By Night is an odd but entertaining slice of goofball hack and slash that deserves more attention,

He Lives by Night is a little known, yet excellent, Hong Kong slasher flick! Unfortunately I don't have a lot to compare it to having seen less than half a dozen of this sort of film; but as a film in its own right; this is an excellent mix of horror, romance and comedy! Director Po-Chih Leong takes a basic idea for a plot and really runs with it; managing to inject a cheesy love story and a boatload of twisted humour into the tale without it seeming forced or out of place. The film takes place in an urban metropolis and focuses on a killer that stalks and kills female victims; the only similarity between the murders being the fact that they were all committed with a similar weapon; that being the victims' own white stockings! Meanwhile, a young 'tomboy' radio DJ known as Sissy is covering the murders while getting attention from the town's fat police chief. It later transpires that the female killer is actually a man in drag and the two central plot lines combine when the radio DJ is stalked by the psychopathic killer.

The cinematography in this film is great and despite the plot line, He Lives by Night is very beautiful. Hong Kong's cinema is generally known for being bloody and brutal; but this film isn't. There's a surprising lack of blood and even the murder scenes are tame compared to those seen in later films such as The Untold Story. They are very well done, however, and one that takes place in a bathroom is very well shot. There's not a great deal of sex and sleaze either - and this is mostly made up for by the comedy. That's not a big problem, however. The comedy is very funny and the storyline itself is deliciously sick and twisted enough to account for a lack of visceral horror. The idea of a transvestite killer has been used many times before in horror films; but it's a bit different here as the fact that the killer is a transvestite is never really dwelt on and provides the story with little more than a bizarre twist. Overall, He Lives by Night is a stylishly shot and very interesting slice of Hong Kong horror and comes highly recommended to fans of this stuff.

A deranged transvestite killer stalks an murders women wearing white stockings. A couple of detectives are investigating the case.The next potential victim of murderous transvestite will be a Radio DJ Sissy."He Lives By Night" blends silly comedy with slasher sub-genre.The script is obviously influenced by Dario Argento's colorful horror movies and De Palma's "Dressed to Kill".The first killing is an obvious nod to masterful "Suspiria".The killings are stylish and tame.The performances by Simon Yam,Kent Cheng and Sylvia Chang are great.I don't particularly like blending comedy with horror,but I enjoyed "He Lives By Night".7 out of 10.