Hung dang kui

Victimized women in Hong Kong's (Red Light) Portland Street neighborhood strike back at a nasty criminal (played by Simon Yam in another of his patented crazy-eyed roles), but find that revenge comes at a high price.

From the director of Run and Kill (see my review) comes another of those luridly violent Category III movies that proliferated in the late 80s and early 90s, featuring psycho gangsters and weak, ordinary people locked in some bitter struggle to the end. The whole sub-genre is not for the faint of heart, as each movie pushed the boundaries of audience endurance ever further with brutality and mass slayings frequently punctuating the drama.

The movie itself is well enough constructed, with logical story development, plausible characters and good performances from a mostly female cast of B-movie regulars like Chingmy Yau and Qi Shu. The shiny on the outside / grimy underneath world of Portland Street's bars is well visualized despite the low budget thanks to some very professional lighting and good use of actual local settings.

As slice of low-life dramas go, this one is certainly watchable, but needs to be approached with caution. The violence is not stylized and choreographed as in a Jet Li action flick. It is brutal, sudden and ugly.

Interesting view of HK's underworld of unsavory characters is marred by mass-slayings, violence, graphic brutality/ torture, and R-rated dialogue. Walkie Pi, a hoodlum striving to be the most feared man in the Red Light District of Portland Street, commits a murder and flees to Holland. Beautiful/ bright Tung Yen, girlfriend of Walkie since she was 15, impresses wealthy Yi Sen Man ("Playboy"), owner of Number One Nightclub. She displaces Karen as Playboy's favorite and becomes the club's manager. Ming Ming is Tung Yen's close friend. Min is Yen's mother; Robert is Min's boyfriend as well as her pimp. Walkie's inevitable return creates a dilemma for Tung Yen. Faint white subtitles in Mandarin as well as in English.

Shu Qi - the face of a goddess, with the body to match! She arguably steals the show even from the cute and feisty as usual Chingmy Yau, and that is no small accomplishment.

The first hour of this movie deals mostly with the rivalry between two night clubs operating in the same Hong Kong area - not exactly the stuff that compelling drama is made of. Then Simon Yam re-appears (he had left the picture after the first 5 minutes), and his forceful performance makes the film more involving - he plays a scumbag that you really want to see knocked down.

Fans of either of the three stars won't be disappointed, and fans of "Category III" Hong Kong sleaze may "enjoy" (if that's the word) the final half-hour, but pure action fans need not bother with this film. It's basically a drama, sprinkled with broad, raunchy comedy and nasty, unpleasant violence. (**)