Du nu

Chen Ping is fiercely convincing and Lieh Lo steals every scene he's in, but Ho Meng-hua's "Kiss of Death" is not great film-making.

The "kiss of death" is the venereal disease Chen Ping catches when she is viciously gang-raped by a group of low level criminals. After learning that her VD ("Vietnam Rose") is incurable, she decides to kill her rapists and begs Lieh Lo to teach her how to do it in style.

For a sleaze pic, the set-up is perfect and the structure was borrowed for "Kill Bill". Unfortunately, the execution is not so perfect. The action scenes are jagged and unconvincing at times and director Ho Meng-hua has trouble maintaining the momentum. The film stops dead at regular intervals and takes irrelevant detours that do not add anything to the pace or wafer-thin characterization.

There is an oily subplot involving the spiking of drinks and women forced into pornography. Leads excepted, the performances are wildly uneven and over-the-top, although the sleaziest characters come across with conviction.

The film's score and "sting" sound effects perfectly compliment the style. 'Tis a pity a little more professionalism was not applied to the script and staging; several shots are also out of focus.

Recommended for sleaze fans, but best to lower your expectations. Chen Ping shined much brighter in the far superior "The Sexy Killer" ("Du Hou Mi Shi").

The Kiss of Death (1973) is straight up sleazy exploitation flick from the Shaw Brothers. One night a textile worker (Cheng Ping) is sexually assaulted by five deviants. The young lady tries to cope with the aftermath of this dramatic event but her life is ruined. Like a shattered vase, the pieces can be put back together but it'll never be the same. Cheng get's a job as a bar girl. She meets the club's owner (Lo Lieh) who was a former kung-fu fighter until he was crippled. Cheng uses her position as a B-girl to go after the losers who raped her, She soon learns from a sleazy doctor that she has contracted a dark V.D. called Viet-Nam Rose (a name used 20 years later by Maggie Cheung in the love comedy Boys Are Easy, making the gag in that movie even funnier). Crushed, she begs Lo Lieh to teach her kung-fu. At first he refuses until he learns her secret. Furious, Lo Lieh teaches her his deadly fight techniques (such as a groin crunching blow). Bizarre, depressing and sleazy is how I would describe this movie. In a strange way you can call this movie one of those flicks that "inspired" Kill Bill.

Lo Lieh is very charismatic as the broken down fighter turned club owner Wang and Cheng Ping is excellent as "The Lady From The Roof"

Highest Recommendation.

This is a quintessential Shaw Bros. revenge flick with Chen Ping giving a ball-busting performance as the broken and beaten factory girl who learns 'killer kung fu' in order seek retribution. Though not for the easily offended, I felt this movie's grit and gravitas was thoroughly satisfying. Lo Lieh is awesome as the crippled club owner with a soft side, and Chen Ping continues to amaze me with her body of work in everything from period chopsocky ('Vengeful Beauty') to monster movie damsel in distress ('Oily Maniac') to ( my favorite ) hellacious killing machine (as in this film and 'Sexy Killer'). Recommended to those who enjoy seeing Chen Ping stick it to the man, and not so much to those who don't see the beauty in revenge-through-castration.