Yeh moh sin sang

The Nocturnal Demon opens in sick serial killer mode, with a psychotic taxi driver attacking a hooker with a craft knife, slashing her throat and then urinating on the blade - and all over his victim's body!! What a start!

Soon after, we get some impressive martial arts fighting as roller-skating cutie Wawa (the lovely Moon Lee) saves some cops from a gang of armed jewel thieves (led by Yuen Wah, who always makes for a great villainous adversary).

The film is going great guns at this point, but it's not long before that blight of many a Hong Kong movie rears its ugly head: abysmal comedy. And that's the main problem with The Nocturnal Demon: whenever the film gets going, the action is quickly nipped in the bud, replaced by more gurning idiots and slapstick nonsense, making it a very frustrating experience.

The plot sees Tin (Alfred Cheung), Wawa's cousin, being pursued by the police, who mistakenly think that he is a murderer due to his uncanny resemblance to the crazy killer cabbie. Wawa and her blind grandfather (Kau Lam) try and help Tin to prove his innocence, which leads to all sorts of lunacy, none of which is very funny.

Every now and then, director Ricky Lau picks up the pace with some more fighting, but it's soon back to the silliness, which comprises the bulk of the running time. Moon Lee is the best thing about the film, providing both beauty and brawn, and the ending, in which she wears knee-high PVC boots during a fight with the killer, is just about worth the wait. Just about.

No matter how many HK movies you watch, you never quite get 100% used to their frequently schizophrenic mix of extreme brutal violence and broad slapstick comedy. "Enter The Lady Boxer" / "Nocturnal Demon" is basically a serial killer story, but most of the time it wants (and usually fails) to make you laugh with its inept cops, naive young girls, blind old men, etc. Moon Lee is both cute and sexy here (the fact that she spends the entire last section of the movie in knee-high boots doesn't hurt, either!), and her fight scenes are top-notch (one has her doing a dizzying series of spin kicks while she has roller-skates on, another has her using a broom like a spear!). The bad news is that there are only 4 of them in the entire film, and none of the material in-between is really worth watching. If you just fast-forward to Moon's fight scenes, you will miss very little. ** out of 4.

Directed by Ricky Lau, who made the 'Mr Vampire' movies and 'Spooky Encounters 2' with Sammo Hung. This offers a mix of slasher film, martial arts action and wacky comedy. Be warned - the opening sequence is VERY violent, and the switches in mood from horror to comedy are not always very smooth.

Moon Lee is cute as a button and her roller-skating fight scene with Yuen Wah is awesome. The action scenes are generally good and the knockdown, drag-out finale is fast and furious.

It's a pretty low-budget movie, but it's packed with cameos, including Yuen Wah, Richard Ng, James Tien, Corey Yuen and Tsui Siu Ming.

First of all it must be pointed out that while Moon Lee is a very popular actress with an abundance of material available on her, this particular movie's video title and original English title, "Nocturnal Demon" have not been connected till now. It was widely released on VHS in 1999 under the title "Enter the Lady Kickboxer" with the director's(Ricky Lau)credit separate from the others.When motion pictures are given many alternate names it is never a good sign. And yes, it has a third title as well, "Demon Intruder". Moon Lee doesn't get the most minutes in this action flick either, which is a major let down as it would have been vastly improved had she done so. "Nocturnal Demon" has very good individual fight and comedy scenes, but on the whole the story never jells. It really should not be viewed either as a murder mystery or martial arts action movie but as a dark comedy. And yet that may be difficult given the laugh out loud shenanigans of Wawa's(Moon Lee)Uncle. The well known Billy Lau guest stars. 75 minutes.

So the main plot of this horror comedy is a taxi driver serial killer on the loose, who happens to resemble the film's main propagandist, Chau Wai-Tin (Alfred Cheung). While the cops are out to nab the psycho-path, much of the film is consumed in slapstick comedy and screwball humor involving Chau and his cousin Wawa (Moon Lee), who immigrates to Hong Kong to be with her grandfather (Kau Lam).

There are numerous subplots that turn the audience's attention away from the main serial killer plot, including Chau running from loan sharks, Wawa's druggie friend, and Wawa's grandfather's mahjong games. It appears the filmmakers tried hard to mix all the comedy, martial arts action and horror into one film. Unfortunately, the comedy outweighs the horror elements so much that the purpose and background of the serial killer have been left ambiguous, leaving out needed suspense and ***spoiler ahead*** giving us an anti-climatic end. ***spoiler ends***

There is also numerous cameo appearances made by a vast number of familiar Hong Kong actors, which I thought was wasted away in such a low-budget film. Acting wasn't bad, though.

Overall, it's an unbalanced film. Could have used more horror elements, but the movie did make me laughs on several occasions.

Grade C