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Red To Kill (1994)

Dir: Billy Tang.

When her dad (her last surviving parent) is knocked over and killed, Ming Ming (Lily Chung, "Daughter of Darkness") , a mentally handicapped young women, is sent to a special home by social worker Ka Lok Cheung.
The home is run by a Mr. Chan (Ben Ng) a seemingly kind and caring man. In reality he is a psychotic rapist and murderer, who has been preying on the local girls, when he sees the colour red. One day Chan see's Ming Ming dressed in red.......

 

A nasty slice of Hong Kong Cat III film making, "Red To Kill" makes for uncomfortable viewing. In the hands of Cat III veteran Tang, what seems at first to be a plodding drama takes a turn for the worst (or best) when in the last half it becomes one of the most grueling and intense movies you will ever see.

As the ill fated Ming Ming, Lily Chung does a wonderful job in putting across her characters disability without it ever falling into a bad taste farce, that is so damaging to a lot of Hong Kong extreme cinema. She is a strong person who only wants to be happy.
At first the handicapped characters seem to be used as an uncomfortable joke, but Tang turns this around brilliantly during a genuinely touching moment when they try to comfort a catatonic Ming Ming.
It's a very touching and finely acted sequence.

But the film ultimately belongs to Ben Ng. His portrayal of the rapist Mr. Chan is one of the most animalistic and intense performances you will ever witness.

When lucid, he does indeed come across as a trustworthy, caring man. But when the desire to rape and kill overcomes him, he is a genuinely frightening presence. His performance in the brutal and uncompromising finale (which batters the viewer into an almost catatonic state due to its searing violence) is a wonder to behold. He shows only the most basic of human traits, becoming instead almost a force of nature, a rabid beats in human form.

It's also a film that shows a rare technical perfection. The amazing cinematography by Miu Kin Fai is a thing of unbridled beauty in a film drenched in every other way in grotesque ugliness. The blue/black night time photography is exquisite (in the way only Hong Kong cinematographers can be) giving the proceedings an almost ethereal quality. Add to this the expert editing by Choi Hung and clever Art Direction by Lam Wai Sum and you have one of the best looking HK films since the iconic "A Chinese Ghost Story".

But, as mentioned, the beauty hides ugliness. There are only two rapes actually shown, but both are filmed in an exploitative way. The victims are always shown with full frontal nudity shots as they are beaten and pawed. The way the camera lingers on expertly lighted bodies is almost pornographic in its caress.
Sensibilities are further shocked by a scene where a horrified almost mad Ming Ming cuts away at her violated sex with a razor. It tests the viewers staying power to the limit. But given what Ming Ming has suffered, this can perhaps be forgiven, as we are shown what devastating psychological damage she has suffered.
And rape itself is also shown to be an almost heavenly fix for Chan. Rape really does become his crack cocaine hit. But most alarming is the way Chan is photographed. His almost sculptured body is shown in such carefully arranged, almost loving, detail that he almost becomes a rapist terminator. Shadows flit across his gleaming muscled chest and arms as he stalks his victims. He is a vicious, sadistic rapist yet he is shot like a majestic predator.

The gore is kept to a minimum until the end, but the brief scenes of bloodshed (where the blood is artistically splattered over walls, screen doors and faces) are effective, especially in Chans superbly crafted flashback scene that details the traumatic event that broke his sanity.

The film does sadly suffer from that out of place comic music to score uncomfortable comic interludes that taints so much of HK cinema. Here it's a few scenes of light-hearted goings on with Ming and her handicapped friends. It's not so much the inclusion of such sequences as opposed to their cringe making execution. A fault that similar examples of Japanese extreme film making do not suffer from.

So overall we have a film that does suffer from a slow first half and poorly designed light-hearted interludes, but also a film of wondrous technical accomplishments, harsh and disturbing images, excellent performances and one of the most intense finales you will ever experience. An horrifically violent conclusion that sees Chan become one of the screens most terrifying psychos.

A flawed but at times breathtaking example of Hong Kong extremity.