Reviews (23)

GOOD LORD!!!!!
I have always thought that I was somewhat impervious to violence and gore, having breezed through the worst Hollywood has to offer. That is, until I watched The Untold Story last night. I had always read that this was just about the most depraved thing ever put on film. This is an understatement for sure. Only Dead Alive can top it, but Dead Alive is so cartoonish that nobody could ever take it seriously. The brutal scenes in this movie would never pass the censors in this country, especially with the new crusade against violence. Scenes of dismemberment, children being hacked up, cannibalism, and graphic rape are prevalent, yet crucial to the story. Anthony Wong, one of my favorite Hong Kong actors is magnificent in the lead role, giving one the most chilling performances I have ever seen. Danny Lee in his usual role of a hard-nosed detective is great as always. The bumbling, arguing group of cops that he leads provide ample humor which helps counter the violence.

The DVD itself is a testimony to the quality of Tai Seng's domestic releases. Sharp picture, for a Hong Kong movie, and excellent dolby sound, coupled with a neat interactive menu and cool previews for other Anthony wong flicks, not to mention 2 commentaries. I highly reccomend this magnificant film to anyone who can handle it.

Gory but not fun
Being a big fan of HK cinema and an even bigger fan of gore films, I highly anticipated watching the untold story. The box promises cannibalism in a humorous vein and comes with a standard warning of graphic violence, so I figured it would probably be a lot of fun. The first scene has Anthony Wong, the big time bad guy, setting fire to a man after a gambling dispute, very realistic. Then, after some plot developement which more less establishes Wong as being a despicable man, he kills again and chops up his victim into pieces in a scene which is gut wrenching and very convincing. So far, I think it's pretty cool. then the film suddenly slaps you with this awful rape scene, certainly the most disturbing, graphic, and frighteningly realistic of such depictions I have ever seen. I won't repeat what all Wong does to this woman but I can assure you watching it is far from what anyone should be considering enjoyable. After that we're treated to about 40 minutes of moronic cops torturing Wong into confessing. These scenes are not any fun either, they're drawn out and pointless and lead the film nowhere. Eventually, after much police brutality and sleep deprivation the film goes into a flashback where we see Wong slaughter 8 more people, including 5 young children whose participation in the film must have been traumatizing for them considering their age. This is another very gory scene, and a rather long one, but not quite as disturbing as the one I mentioned earlier. Like I said, I was looking for a movie a little bit more laughable in it's use of blood and guts, but this film is no laughing matter! It's main purpose seems to be the intention of shocking and upsetting the veiwer, and to it's credit it acheives these goals. Wong received the Hong Kong film awards best actor for his role here and I guess he deserved it considering all the awful things he did for this movie. A true study in method acting but other than that he just sneers and screams alot. The cops, as I said, are depicted as sexist and incompetant morons who turn surprisingly cruel once they have their suspect in custody. HK movies often depict cops as idiots for comic relief (see Dr. Lamb or Naked Killer among others) but here it's just really out of place and unnecesary. That's the main fault of the film, but mainly I want to warn others who might consider renting or buying this movie in the hopes of getting some laughs out of it- you won't. This is some hard core stuff. As a side note, the extras and additional trailers are really neat, and the transfer looks great.

Dark but overall very tame and dull
comedy scenes that drag on and on, with very little going on for them, given that they are NOT FUNNY AT ALL, just plain stupid. The gore looks very fake and you don't get to see much. The 2 stars are for Anthony Wong who displays some talent as the baddy, the dark atmosphere during the jail scenes & the final murder, which are nasty enough to be compelling. Not worth the trouble, Daughter Of Darkness is way better.

don't waste your time...
i read a few reviews about this movie here on amazon.com, and it sounded like it might be worth my $$... definitely wasn't. i read that it was so graphic and extreme, loaded with gore, but it definitely fell short of my expectations. if there is a guy cutting someone up, i wanna see the body without the limb, not the bloody limb that they bought at spencer's for $10. the "graphic" gore scenes were mostly red syrup and you have to use your imagination for the rest. the only reason i give this movie 2 stars is because of the rape scene... although they only show him stabbin at nothing before the blood red squirts, i guess the idea of stabbing an innocent women in the snatch with a fistful of chopsticks is pretty brutal. but don't let that one piece trick you into buying this film, it was terrible.

Gore + Decent Story=Great Movie
Unlike most splatter films, this one actually has a pretty solid story and some really good performances. The gore is really over the top, and should please most gore hounds out there. There is also some scenes that may make you flinch(like the suicide attempt). If you aren't into gore, but enjoy a decent crime drama, this movie *MAY* be for you. Although, there is quite a bit of gore, and several shocking scenes...so, you may be covering your eyes too often to enjoy it.

Anthony Wong is definitely the stand out in this film. He does a great job with the psycho killer character he is given. Many of the other characters seem to be put in for comic relief...perhaps to give the audience a break and a chance to breath. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Stephen Chow is.. The God of Snooker!
This film is a must for any Stephen Chow fan. As well as featuring Yeun Wah, Teresa Mo (All's Well That Ends Well) etc. any English viewer will be dumbfounded at the appearance of Jimmy "Whirlwind" White's performance as the gwailo snooker champ Chow has to beat to save his village falling into the clutches of a HK business man. With all respect to Jimmy White (british snooker champ) he could not look more confounded and oblivious to what's going on in the film and it's nutty behind the scenes footage at the end. The "Legend of Dragon" refers to Chow's father's (Yuen Wah) Bruce Lee (.."Si-lone..") fixation and mirroring his real life, he tells people throughout the film that he did stunts for the big man in "...the film where he beats up foreigners..". The film features all of Chow's trademarks - sporadic high energy kung-fu, women getting punched in the face, flawless Bruce Lee impersonations, gormless gwailos and in-jokes on HK films past and present. My favourite joke is when Chow leaves the mainland to visit HK for the first time, Yuen Wah makes him promise not to fight and get into trouble, and gives him a sealed note ".. only see what it says when you fear for life.."- Chow promptly gets in trouble with some local thugs as soon as he gets to HK. He opens up the note, which simply says "FIGHT!" and beats up them all up with an umbrella to the Wong Fei Hong theme (From Once upon a Time In China). ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Pap
Here is another entry that many fans of Asian cinema promised me would deliver the goods in the gore department. This title often appears in the same breath with "The Untold Story" and "Ebola Syndrome," good, gory movies sure to induce a burning sensation in the pit of your stomach. "Dr. Lamb" is part of the grand tradition of the notorious Category III Hong Kong stomach churners. Since I have not seen newer entries in this particularly revolting sub genre, I assume that with the Chinese acquisition of Hong Kong from the British a few years ago these sorts of movies have gone the way of the dinosaur. After watching "Dr. Lamb," I am almost relieved to see the end of these types of films. Not because the majority of them are bad, not at all. "The Untold Story" was a wonderful, morally redemptive tale of transcendental spiritual values expressed through the preparation and consumption of human meat patties. No, I applaud the end of Category III because "Dr. Lamb" is such a boring, atrocious mess of a movie. This one is dullsville all the way, folks, and is best left in the nearest trash receptacle. I feel cheated of the nearly two hours I spent watching this piece of crud.

Dr. Lamb is really Lam Gor-Yu, a taxi driver with the most unusual proclivities. The beginning of the film shows us why he has so many problems adjusting to reality. His father spoiled the boy incessantly from the earliest years of the child's life, refusing to scold him for questionable behaviors directed at the other kids in the apartment building or towards family members. It is just a part of growing up, argues the elder Lam, to express a curiosity for girls and the young women dad brings home. That a social worker would probably think otherwise never impresses itself on this father's mind. These seeds of degeneracy blossom fully once Lam Gor-Yu attains manhood. He does not leave the house to seek his own destiny, but maintains a room in his father's home that he shares with one of his brothers. Only when the men in the family leave to earn their daily bread does Lam Gor-Yu express fully his grotesque desires, first with a few female relatives and later with women he meets on the streets of the city. The police step into the picture when a photo development laboratory brings in some pictures of a dismembered body left by a customer. That a calculating killer like Lam Gor-Yu would do such a stupid thing is only the first salvo of idiocy fired in this clunker.

The cops, with Inspector Lee at the helm, begin to search for the man who dropped off the negatives. When they get him, which does not take long, the police proceed to torture the suspect in ways that would cause the entire staff of the ACLU to have a fit. The police officers beat Lam Gor-Yu with a phone book, slap him around, and generally do anything they think will get them that valuable confession. The killer stays mum despite the atrocities, refusing to give the investigators the satisfaction of breaking him. Drastic situations call for drastic solutions, so Lee brings in the man's family and tells them what Lam Gor-Yu did to his niece. Then the family proceeds to beat the killer senseless while the cops watch closely for any signs of a willingness to confess. Well, Lam does confess to the heinous crimes, all of which we see in flashback. What did the killer do? Abduct woman and murder them in his apartment. That is all, with a few sick scenes of the cops searching the apartment for "evidence" and other crime scene reenactments thrown in for balance. "Dr. Lamb" is a tasteless film, but it is also an incredibly boring one with much less sauce than "The Untold Story" or similar Hong Kong masterpieces.

"Dr. Lamb" initially promises great things. It has Simon Yam as the psycho and Danny Lee sleepwalking through yet another role as a police investigator. I keep telling myself that the DVD version I watched underwent some massive cuts because the gore just isn't there. You do get to see Lam Gor-Yu perform homemade surgery on his victims, a little blood spatter here and there, but this does not compare to the gross out effects seen in other genre entries. The other elements you would expect from a film from this genre are here: the usual bad taste humor, experienced full force when the cops search Lam Gor-Yu's apartment and engage in some gluey slapstick sequences, is as upsetting as it was in "Untold Story." The emphasis on police procedures--meaning no access to a lawyer and unending interrogations filled with brutality--dominates a portion of the film, something that probably won't improve now that communist Chinese cops walk the streets.

The only positives in "Dr. Lamb" are the soundtrack and the cinematography, but even then some of the scenes inside the taxicab on the rain slicked streets of Hong Kong run on. The DVD's picture quality was atrocious, full of haze and color bleeding during the scenes when clarity mattered the most. I have seen a few reviews from people who label this film as one of the ghastliest pieces of cinema ever to emerge from the Orient, but I did not see it. Maybe I watched some obscure DVD version of the film that left out all the grue, but the movie I saw and the one other people describe is as wide as the gulf separating the earth and the moon. Give this one a shot if you like Asian cinema; perhaps you will have a better experience than I had with it.

Not Quite The Lamb Chops I Expected
I'm not sure whether the version I saw is the full uncut version but it's Cat III and purchased on DVD in Hong Kong itself. Being a gorehound, and using other Hong Kong fare such as "The Ebola Syndrome", "Prostitute Killer" and "The Untold Story" (amongst others) as benchmarks, "Dr Lamb" is rather mild. Typical of the HK formula at the time, where the film is really about flashbacks as the killer confesses to his crimes, "Dr Lamb" is only marginally violent considering the modus operandi of the killer (dismemberment). Very few (and brief) close ups of the sordid violence, only the sprayed blood gives any indication of what actually went on. Story has a good premise (that weirdos are the result of what happened to them during childhood) but that's about it. In short, the film could have upped its ante but it didn't.

The Infamous Dr. Lamb (Caution Before Viewing)
Simon Yam Tat-Wah portrays the title character (not a doctor), an insane maniac who does things to women (living and dead) that are better left undescribed. This early 1990s movie is an "infamous" Category III title from Hong Kong. Danny Lee (the prototypical "cop" from tons of HK cop and triad flicks) plays the inspector in charge of solving the case and getting a confession (i.e., beating the suspect up until he confesses).

I don't like the idea of labeling anything as "sick" or "twisted," but if I were to, this would be the movie about which to use those terms (and I've seen and can easily stomach a lot of these Category III flicks).

What can one say about this movie? I'd put this one in the "has to be seen to be believed" category, but then that might be seen as a recommendation, and I can't recommend this one.

If you dislike violence and nudity thrown together, avoid this at all costs. If you think jokes about severed bodily parts are in poor taste, feel free to pass. However, if you are a fan of HK Category III movies, don't mind gore, extreme violence toward women, have enjoyed HK police procedurals/confession beating stories, and like Simon Yam and/or Danny Lee, well, how can I stop you? Up there with "The Untold Story" for least-likely HK movie that I would re-visit. ... Read more