Cunninghamolga
This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.
Adeel Hail
Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.
Clarissa Mora
The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
Leoni Haney
Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.
Barbecue
If you think Category III means close-up vivisection of young naked women, then you'll probably be disappointed, because that's not what this movie is about.Based on a true story, this film effectively captures the banality of criminal evil. Emily Kwan plays the role of Grace, a drug addict and prostitute who steals money from a pimp, is pursued, beaten, held captive, and tortured and humiliated for weeks, before finally being killed in a manner that's as stupid and pointless as her life. Some reviewers complain that this movie is tedious, and the characters aren't interesting. Personally, I find it refreshing to see a film that accurately shows the stupidity and shallowness of human cruelty, rather than glamorizing it as some form of creative art. No, the characters aren't deep and subtle, with little background to explain their situations, but that's what makes the story believable. The characters are pretty much all unlikeable, dishonest, and shallow, which is as it should be, since they're a bunch of thugs.I found them to be remarkably realistic portrayals of sociopathic criminals. Casually sadistic, mundanely cruel. Not twisted maniacs with hidden laboratories full of elaborate torture technology, just a bunch of druggies incapable of compassion looking to alleviate their boredom. Their lives are dismal, and the chance to exert power over someone weaker than themselves serves as entertainment. Emily Kwan does a wonderful job of portraying Grace, the sly, manipulative prostitute and heroin addict who is willing to put up with terrible abuse in return for an opportunity to get high one more time. She is selfish but thoughtless, always trying to avoid responsibility, but never considering the long term consequences of her actions. She lives in a constant state of denial. Even after being tortured, she still looks for acceptance from her abusers, forgetting everything they do to her in the pathetic hope that they will accept her enough to give her another ride on the dragon. Grace isn't too dumb to understand her plight, she's too addicted to care. Her shrill voice grates and annoys, and her behavior will probably seem inexplicable to those who have never been exposed to the real effects of serious addiction. She captures the emotional poverty and desperation of addiction far more realistically than Hollywood's glamorized depictions. She's hopeless almost from the beginning, and while the specific incidents that led to her death could perhaps have gone differently, her ultimate fate seems inevitable. Most of the acting is not spectacular, though Yiu-Cheung Lai is effective as the husband/father/sociopathic pimp. But overall it's worthwhile if you're interested in the darker side of the human experience.
The Illuminated Lantern
Based on the "Hello Kitty" murder, just like THERE IS A SECRET IN MY SOUP, and in fact in addition to sharing details about the crime in question, even share the same plot device of opening the film with the police investigation, then telling the story of the woman who steals money and cannot repay her loan in flashback. Eventually her skull gets stuck in an Hello Kitty doll, but to get there we first have to sit through a lot of sitting around in a dingy apartment taking drugs, eating instant noodle, and brutal beating until death and dismemberment. Although it seemed to have a better cast (no Michael Wong, for one thing), it isn't nearly as good as its competition.
HumanoidOfFlesh
"Human Pork Chop" is based on infamous HK crime case called 'Hello Kitty Murder'.In 1999 three triad gangsters kidnapped,brutally tortured and beat a 23-year old woman named Fan Man-yee for one month until she died.Then they dismembered and cooked the body,threw most of it out with the trash,fed legs and arms to stray dogs and hid the skull inside the head of a giant-sized Hello Kitty doll."Human Pork Chop" tells the story of a young woman,who steals money and can't repay her loan.She is captured,tortured and degraded by her pimp and his crew,then killed and dismembered.Anyway,this HK sickie is among the nastiest,most sadistic and repugnant examples of the Category III genre.This filthy film is downright unpleasant and deeply nihilistic,so be prepared.Pretty much everything here is ugly and rotten.Still "Human Pork Chop" is a rather successful portrayal of that infamous HK crime case.8 out of 10.Not for the easily offended.
rustyangel13
Well now, I'm just not too sure what to make of this movie. It's another Oriental "Body Horror" flick and it's aim is to inflict as much harm pain as possible to the victim of the movie, as well as the viewer. I must say that I do really love the name of it but watching it is a totally different animal altogether. I suppose if you're into seeing a group of some really unlikable people (let's do this in degrees) mistreat, humiliate, degrade, torment, hurt, torture, and mutilate another human being for a hour and a half, then this just might be your cup of tea. It wasn't mine. And the toilet scene was almost enough to send me spewing chunks my damn self. That was super nasty! It's something I can NEVER "un-see" and really made me wonder why I ever wanted to watch this filthy mess to begin with. Those horrid scenes of feces eating lingered in my mind long after the film had actually ended. They say that this film is based on a true crime event in Asian history so that makes it even worse and just goes to show you how wickedly perverse and evil some people can really be. And that, my friends, might be the greatest horror of them all.