Directed By-Herman Yau
Starring-Anthony Wong, Danny Lee
The Untold Story is a great title for a film. When you slip the disc or tape into your player you feel as though you're about to be let in on a really interesting secret (the film is supposed to be based on real events). I did anyway. Actually this movie comfirmed something I've known for awhile. Those Chinese can make some pretty brutal films. Not that they're unique in that respect. Some pretty rough stuff has come out of Japan, Italy, Germany and even the US. The Untold Story though, is definitely toward the top of my Most Disturbing Horror Films list.
The story opens in Hong Kong in 1978. Two men are discussing money: one man asks to borrow forty thousand dollars. When the second man refuses, the first man beats him and then sets him on fire. Fast forward to Macau, 1986. A pile of body parts wash up on a beach. The police come to investigate and discover the parts belong to the elderly mother-in-law of Cheng Lam, owner of a local restaraunt called The Eight Immortals. Coincidentally, the police department has also been getting letters from a relative of Lam in mainland China. It seems Lam has not been heard from in months and his relatives fear something has happened to him. A group of bumbling police officers go to the Eight Immortals to investigate and discover that the man who has been running the place, Wong Chi Hong (Anthony Wong) may be serving more than just Barbeque Pork Buns.
The Untold Story has some good things going for it. Chief among them is a strong performance by Wong, who is genuinely scary. The restaraunt kitchen is a creepy, creepy place, especially at night. On the other hand, the violence in the movie is pretty over-the-top and several scenes are very disturbing. The rape scene especially is damn horrible, as is a scene in which children are brutalized. If you're easily offended or even slightly sqeamish you'll do well to avoid this film. In addition to being crazy violent, The Untold Story has a pervasive air of sexism that is hard to ignore. While all of the cops are presented as idiots, Bo, the one female on the investigative team is portrayed as especially ridiculous. She dresses in military style clothing and is constantly trying to out-do the male officers. Any of the "strength" her character might have earned through her competitive spirit is undermined by the fact that she is enthralled with Officer Lee, her womanizing supervisor. She repeatedly makes an ass of herself trying to attract him, alnd given his behavior, there is no logical reason she would want him in the first place. The male officers treat her as a lackey and though she protests, she generally tends to obey them. This is NOT a feminist film.
All in all the film is decent but certainly not great. It aims for black comedy but is a little too heavy handed to quite hit the mark. And the violence is too graphic and too disturbingly presented to be leavened by the sporadic comedy scenes (most of which aren't even that funny). Mainly for genre completists. -Jenny Stumps
Rating: 2 Brains |
