Xiang Gang qi an: Xi xue gui li wang

You just have to love Category III films from Hong Kong. This movie had me laughing from beginning to end. It's the story of a man who's family is torn apart when his wife borrows from the triads. This movie is DEFINITELY not for everyone. But it was really refreshing to see a movie that is not constrained by the bounds of good taste :)

The Underground Banker is another CAT III (Categoy III) movie, when a movie is rated CAT III by the Hong Kong film censor, you would expect excessive sexual content (mostly rape) and extreme violence.

The Underground Banker is about a trucker named Ming (sometimes nicknamed as Marshmallow), Ming finally succeeded in finding a new house for his family, but there are 3 things that are affecting his life: 1) he suffers from sexual impotency 2) his son became a close friend of the Serial killer "Dr Lamb" (it's from the CAT III movie of the same name, unfortunately Dr Lamb is not played by Simon Yam, but Lawrence Ng did a good job), now Dr Lamb, is not interested in killing anymore, he found redemption in Buddha. 3) after that Ming's wife played on the Hong Kong stock market, she lost a lot of money and after asking help for a friend called Canner (it was even a ex-crush, if i remember correctly), Canner introduce to Ming's wife his brother, who is a loan shark (played by William Ho, you will probably remember him for having played many villains in other CAT III movies, like Daughter of Darkness), Ming's wife decides to lend some money from the Loan Shark, but for pay the debt she is forced to become a whore.....

For make this movie enjoyable there is: a good amount of nudity and sex, also some (typical) funny subtitles, with grammar errors and mistranslated words or slang, the violence is not gory, but it didn't "ruined" the film for me. Check it out CAT III fans !

This a lesser seen Cat111 film from Hong Kong and starring Anthony Wong, of course. He is not the baddie in this but the father of a family that gets into trouble because of a bad investment, gambling and loans that get bigger instead of smaller as they are repaid. Rather more sexual violence in this than gore and many an uncomfortable scene. Children in peril, once more, much crying, screaming, hitting and running around. Also, again not unusually, totalling inappropriate humour whilst everyone overacts and grimaces like crazy. Just like crazy, actually. Not unlikeable for all that but this is not for the casual viewer. There isn't another country in the world that produced films quite like this up to the time of the handover. Good job too, some would say but for all the lack of sophistication, there is a level on which these pretty despicable and almost childish films can work a certain magic like no others. PC this is not!

The story revolves around Anthony Wong playing a family man with the urge to increase sexual potency. At the same time his wife, who's a complete babe, idiotically gets into some money problems with the local Triads. And to make things even more interesting Dr. Lamb, from the famous CATIII flick of the same name, is free out of jail and is living next door...and is very fond of Anthony's young son! Well, what follows is a tale of greed, abuse, sex, rape, and....yep, laughs! This is just another CATIII gem all fans of this sort of stuff should check out in a heartbeat. It has all the ingredients: funny subtitles, crazy violence, firm Asian breasts....everything you need. So, get finding/downloading or what have you and find The Underground Banker.

It was difficult to tell at first, since so many Cat IIIs open with scenes of silly humour, but once the film passed the halfway point, it became clear to me that director Bosco Lam (A Chinese Torture Chamber Story) had his tongue firmly in cheek, poking fun at films such as Run and Kill, Dr. Lamb and The Untold Story.

The film stars 'Bunman' himself, Anthony Chau-Sang Wong, as meek truck driver Tong Chi-Ming, who moves into a new public housing complex with his wife Kitty (Mai Ching) and son Tak (Wai-Lim Chu). Soon after, Tak makes friends with neighbour Dr. Lamb (Lawrence Ng), a reformed serial killer, and Kitty is reacquainted with an old flame, Canner (Chi Yeung Wong), with whom she begins to play mahjong.

When Kitty loses a fortune gambling, Canner introduces her to his loan shark brother Chao (Ka-Kui Ho), who gives her the money she needs, but at an interest rate that she cannot afford. Forced into prostitution to pay her debts, Kitty is no longer able to keep her situation a secret from her husband, who sells his truck to try and help. Chao refuses to let the couple off the hook, and humiliates Chi-Ming, who leaves with his cash. Not content with making Chi-Ming lose face, Chao also tries to rape his sister Chi-Kwan (Pui Hui), sends a gang of thugs to steal his money from him, and then torches his apartment with his wife and son inside.

Three months later, after visiting his disfigured son in hospital (the film's funniest scene, in which everyone breaks down in floods of tears at little Tak's inability to play computer games), Chi-Ming finally snaps, and with Dr. Lamb by his side, goes looking for revenge.

Over-the-top mayhem ensues, with Dr. Lamb learning to love killing again, and the once affable Chi-Ming chopping and slashing his way through Triad henchmen to get to the villainous Chao. If you're a big fan of the Cat III genre, Bosco Lam's affectionate parody should prove a whole load of demented fun, right up to the castration of Chao in the final act.

7.5/10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.