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Chinese Torture Chamber Story 2 (1998)

Dir: Kin-Nam Cho

First off it has to be stated that this is not the un-pc but hysterical and crazy movie the first "Chinese Torture Chamber" was.
This is a much darker, grim and altogether much more serious film.

We open with a young woman named Lotus standing guilty of the murder of General Ma. She is stripped (only topless) and tied to a round, rope spider web and a net is placed over her from the neck down and slowly pulled tight. As the thin ropes start to cut into her flesh she thinks back to how she came to be in this terrible position.

Lotus, her Brother and her Fiancé try to rob a young man (Ma) who is on his way to the city to apply for the post of General.
He stops the thieves but forgives them when he hears how the high taxes have destroyed their farming business, thus turning them into robbers.
He befriends them (and the Brothers sex hungry Wife) and promises that if he gets the job he will give them jobs in the Govt.
A government he says he can make honourable. He seems a kind man.
But he also has designs on Lotus, and a dark secret.

Getting the job he keeps his promise and invites them all to stay in the City and gives the men jobs in his army who are fighting a brutal war with local bandits.
But after Ma sexually abuses Lotus's Sister in Law, (after she has tried to seduce him) he shows how cruel he really is and sets out on a plan to betray his friends, cover up his abuse and get Lotus.
A betrayal that will end in tragedy for all concerned...

 

The first half-hour lulls the viewer into a false (and rather frustrating) sense of security. The initial scenes are lighthearted and cloyingly 'All buddies together'.
There is a pretty strong sex scene between the Brother and his Wife (which, although genuinely erotic is also humorous because of the over the top moans and groans), but nothing to make you think that this is a CAT III film.

Then it all changes. Where #1 had its graphic, even nasty moments there was a lot of humour, some amazingly crazy fantasy set pieces (like the outrageous flying sex sequence) and some likeable characters.
#2 does not have any of this. Lotus, the Fiancé and the Brother are at first sympathetic, but later all are shown to be weak and selfish to some degree, and it's because Lotus does not speak out about what Ma did to her Sister In Law (because of her feelings towards him) that Ma is able to blame someone else and put into action his evil plan.

The violence here is a lot more graphic than in #1. The torture scenes are more sadistic and more gory (tongues ripped out, lips sewn shut, boiling wax poured into ears, leg tendons cut and a nasty scene with a hot, metal dildo slowly being raised between the spread-eagled legs of a woman and eventually into her) but we also have a few sword fight scenes where heads are cut off in a welter of spurting blood, and lots of arms are hacked off. Lot's of "Lone Wolf" style spurting wounds.
We also have a nasty torture scene when the Fiancé is captured by the bandits. He has a chunk of flesh bitten out of his shoulder, and the bandit leader hacks out the heart of another captive and eats it in front of the fiancé, splattering blood over his face.
The fate of Lotus is also graphic. And although the worst thing done to her is not directly shown, the aftermath is...and it's not nice.

The whole film is a bleak ride into the petty weaknesses of Man, and his deadly selfishness.

Ma, who at first seems (and indeed may be) an honest, caring man who wants to do good is eventually turned into a truly scheming, but tragic villain.
His abuse of the Brother's Wife with a huge Chinese paintbrush after she has performed oral sex on it is brutal and made even darker with the editing in of Ma having flashbacks to how he was raped by a man as a child (before cutting his penis off and shoving a knife into his mouth) and saw his Mother raped next to the dead body of his Father.
We are a long way from the craziness of #1 here.

The final sex scene also deserves a mention. Ma and Lotus are suddenly plunged into darkness except for a harsh white spotlight.
We have none of the funny moans and groans of the Brother/Wife sex scene at the start of the film...it's played serious and the lighting gives it a harsh, cold eroticism. It's sex with a cold razor blade soul...and it works superbly.

The final act of murder is astonishingly brutal and blood splattered, and with the nakedness of the killer and victim sprayed red, we go back to the tortured body of Lotus...

So, not a fun movie in any sense, and lacking the more fantasy elements of #1 that made the graphic scenes easier to take. Here we have stark (if typically OTT) realism, tragic, damaged characters and a bleak take on Human nature. But it's to be commended that this brutality and harshness is never played for cheap, out of place laughs.
The suffering of all concerned is never trivialised and the film (after the initial slow half-hour) is always gripping and very well acted by all concerned.
It's a nasty, gory film but it's also a very well made and satisfying one.

Well worth a look.