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Daughter of Darkness (1993)

Dir: Kai Ming Lai

Mak Wei-Fong (Lily Chung, “Red to Kill“) rushes into the local Police Station and announces to Officer Lui (Anthony Wong) that her entire family has been murdered while she was staying over at her boyfriend‘s (Hugo Ng) flat.

Officer Lui (who gets suspects to co-operate by pointing his gun at them) is one astonishingly crass, crude and insensitive Cop but with the help of new female recruit Dong Huan (Money Lo) he investigates the grizzly crime and learns that all was not sweetness and light in Wei-Fong's immoral family.
The neighbours also let drop that Wei-Fong was mistreated badly by all of them .
Is there more to the case than meets the eye?…

 

“Daughter of Darkness” turned out to be a very successful entry in the infamous, extreme CAT III rating sub genre of brutal crime flicks. Like many of them it was roughly based on a true case and spawned it’s own (in name only) sequel as well as Billy Tang’s unconnected “Brother of Darkness”.
That is not to say it’s status means we have no faults. We most definitely do!

Comedy. Dreadfully dreadful comedy! Almost all of it spawned from Anthony Wong’s Officer Lui.
Lui is so over the top in his bad taste he would have lasted one day in the job!
While looking around the murder house he takes great delight in the semi-nude corpse of Wei-Fong’s Sister lying in a bath , including squeezing the breasts and sniffing the crotch in a supposed way to determine time of death and if she has been raped! And he even poses with one of the corpses when the crime photographer arrives!
He also wants to know all the sexual details of what Wei-Fong was doing that night with her boyfriend! All in all he’s a real class act!

Away from Lui as a character though (where he at least provides some kind of bad taste entertainment) his investigation gets dreadfully bogged down in boredom and bad jokes.
When Wei-Fong hints that it may have been The Triads that killed her family it opens up a whole section of the film where various shady characters are brought in for questioning and generally investigated very badly, and it also sadly opens up an opportunity for much stupendously lame and childish comedy sequences (only partially saved from being in such bad taste given the set-up) and quite frankly you can go and make a nice cup of tea during most of these stupid episodes.
Eventually some light is shed on the case by gossiping neighbours, but again almost all these scenes are broadly comical and by now our patience is being tried to the max and no mistake.

40 minutes in though, during a lengthy flashback sequence, the film finally starts to deliver it’s nasty CAT III cargo and leave the comedy behind as we are shown the hellish life that Wei-Fong led.
Her abusive, vile Father (Ka-Kui Ho, “Bloody Beast”) is the typical ‘head of the family villain’ CAT III crime shockers love and the rest of the family are just as repugnant and cruel.
Wei-Fong’s Mother and Sister are uncaring, petty and vindictive and constantly join up to belittle her, and her Brother sees her as nothing but an unwelcome annoyance worthy of only taunting and bullying.

As with almost all CAT III movies rape and sexual perversion play a big part in the set-up. And as Wei-Fong’s Father masturbates while spying on her in the shower a grimy feeling of familiarity sets in. No one quite does truly grotesque sexual practices like Hong Kong film makers.
Most welcome full frontal nudity makes an appearance in the Father’s unfaithful sexual escapades (including a pretty explicit, re-instated scene, of the him ‘toeing’ his lady companion between the legs), but this more frivolous sexuality is soon replaced with a nastier variety as we learn more of the true horror of what went on in the Mak household.

Not all the sex and nudity is either nasty or sleazy though. The sex scenes between Wei-Fong and her boyfriend (although extended and pretty explicit) carry a genuine warmth and love (helped by some fine musical backing by John Wong) and Lilly Chong just radiates open and honest passion during these lovemaking sessions and this only makes the abusive sexual scenes she endures even more unpleasant and sad.

Although featuring many nasty, violent and explicit scenes the film is also pretty heavily cut.
Sadly on release the Hong Kong censors made numerous cuts to both the sex, violence and sexual violence. The current ‘Universe’ DVD re-instates some of this footage but there are still cuts in some of the scenes, most notably during the finale.
But even with the cuts it’s an at times bludgeoning experience and one can only wonder at the brutal power the full version of the finale stabbing must have had. But as it is there’s still enough blood and sleaze to test the more sensitive viewer.

On the acting front it’s pretty much perfect all round.
Lily Chung once again has no qualms about baring her gorgeous body and as always can back up the nudity with an excellent performance. No one quite does victims as well as Lily and Wei-Fong is one of her best.

Hugo Ng (“Brother of Darkness”) also does a good job as Kin, the loving, hard fighting boyfriend of Wei-Fong, and there is a genuine bond between the two characters built up thanks to the fine performances.

Ka-Kui Ho is also good as the vile Father and thankfully he has less (though still some) over the top sick comedy aspects to his character than many of these CAT III nasty fathers have that often turn them into pantomime villains.

Anthony Wong, (“The Untold Story”, “Full Contact”) does what he has to do perfectly fine, it’s just that what he has to do is so annoying! But his character at least calms down during the 2nd half and shows some actual feelings and it has to be said that no one plays crass scumbags quite like our Anthony!

What a shame then about the awfully dull, mostly pointless, crap comedy filled first half , because it really split’s the film in two and hurts the whole despite the strong second half.
Once the story of Wei-Fong and her beastly family kicks in (and makes Anthony Wong’s first half dominating character even more redundant as he virtually vanishes and hardly ever speaks again) Director Kai Ming Lai delivers a well made, well acted, tragic, brutally blunt but genuinely emotional movie that takes the viewer on a very dark and grim ride indeed…right up till the final frame.
Go and get your snacks and drinks during the pointless first half, and then settle down for the vastly superior second half that delivers a fine slice of old school CATIII nastiness as well as some honest, if tragic, emotional drama.