Fun with Category III

I've been fortunate enough to catch up on a few rare Category III titles this past week, thanks to Kenneth over at So Good Reviews. He sent me a wonderful care package full of beautiful trash and I figured I would share some of the filth with ya'll. Among the dirty titles are gems like I LOVE MISS FOX, HONG KONG EVA, THE LEDGEN EROTIC MOVIE STAR (yes, it's spelled LEDGEN!), GIRLS FROM CHINA, LOVE CHASER, DESIRE, and REVANCHIST. I have included a few screenshots in this post that sport some choice subtitles. If you would like full reviews of these zirconias in the rough, head over to So Good Reviews. And thank Kenneth. Thank you Kenneth!

The two screen shots above and the two immediately below are from the flicker, LEDGEN EROTIC MOVIE STAR aka THE LEGEND OF AN EROTIC MOVIE STAR, starring Liu Chi-tak, Nam Yan, Stuart Ong, and a Cat III 'ledgen' in his own right, the fantastic Lee Chung-ling. The film concerns a poor girl, Liu Chi-tak, from the mainland who leaves her home and husband for the bright lights of Hong Kong in hopes of making it big as an actress and eventually securing immigration papers for her husband so they can live happily ever after in HK. And of course, things don't go as planned. Upon arrival, she is forced into prostitution and then into 'blue movies.' The film easily mixes comedy, ye ol' in-out, and a touch of hanky panky rough housing. Liu is put through the wringer and her country bumpkin naivete is fully taken advantage of in rather explicitly rude ways. In one scene, a male actor, played by the seedy Stuart Ong, enlists a bunch of film crew pervs to run a train on Liu. All the while, Ms. Liu, who is blindfolded (which of course needs to be to make the scene work), thinks the soft core action is being performed solely by Mr. Ong. That shit is sometimes tough to watch, even for a jaded Cat III perv...ummm, enthusiast, like me . At first the misogyny is maddening, but as the film progresses, makes Liu's plight more endearing. Ok. I'm not going to read too much into this lovely filth. It is a fun and sometimes funny film that has a bucket load of naughty bits and fur for the fans. I like boobies.

Isn't it?
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STD jokes. A HK film staple.
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The next movie up is LOVE CHASER. An odd little Cat III comedy/drama with a touch of sorcery shitacular that is all over the place. The plot is a bit convoluted but, as the film unfolds, we meet the two main female characters in the film, who are sisters. One is a struggling actress and the other a whore, who's mother, played by legendary Shaw Bros. 'adult' film actress, Siu Yam-yam, is her pimp! Siu Yam-yam is credited as coming up with the original story. How much is actually from her noggin' is any ones guess? You can most recently see the iron jawed Siu in the HK cinema darling, THE GALLANTS. There is a ton of nudity and bangin' going on in LOVE CHASER which holds the film together. The film may not be for the casual viewer and will probably only be enjoyed by the most seasoned HK/Cat III film goer. It's an erotic hybrid of a film that vacillates wildly between comedy, melodrama, and horror, all culminating in blood and booger violence. Yes, I said, "booger." Check out the screen cap below to see what I mean. After the jealous boyfriend accidentally kills his beloved he breaks down in tears and mucus. Dig that string of snot leaking from his nose. I had to rewind this scene a few times because the tears of laughter in my eyes were blinding me and I wasn't really sure if I was seeing what I was seeing?! The boogie-string got longer and longer. The snot strand eventually sploshed down on the poor dead girls face. I almost shit! No one broke the scene. Probably the best acting I have ever seen in a Cat III movie!

Sir? Ummm? You have a little something....umm...right there.
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The rest of the screen caps belong to the film, I LOVE MISS FOX. The film appears to have been handled with a lot of care and scrapes the surface of legitimacy with it's production value and the inclusion of a cameo by popular Shaw Bros. actor Leung Kar-yan, aka Beardy. The Cat III 'ledgen', Lee Chung-ling, wraps this film together as a boring nerd married to another boring nerd, who just go through the mechanical motions of the everyday ho-hum. Lee travels to Macau for business and, once there, his pants rise when he lays eyes on the beautiful, and ALL natural, Lee wai-gwan. Yowza!!!! Boiiing! Upon doing the deed with his object of erection, Lee returns home a new man and attempts to inject some more excitement into his home life. Complications arise when his Macau conquest shows up in HK. Director Stephen Yip Tin-hang fashions a fun nudie romp that sometimes pushes towards a bit of bedroom farce. It unfortunately doesn't fully go in that direction but the odd man out mishaps of Lee are still very funny and charming. In my opinion, Lee Chung-ling is the Cat III equivalent of the mainstream Tony leung Chiu-wai (who is one of my favorite actors in ALL of cinema). Lee, like Leung, is an everyman actor. Not the tall, strapping leading man type. But his presence is ever serviceable and he brings a level of assurance to each production. And as an everyman who constantly gets to knock it around with sexy starlets, he gives schlubs like me a reason to believe that we can too!

What stink! Shit!

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Again, big ups to Kenneth. Please visit Kenneths review site, So Good Reviews. Also, check out Kenneth and his Asian cinema cohorts on the very cool podcast, Podcast On Fire. Kenneths knowledge of HK films, as an adoring fan, is unrivaled.

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Also, If you like to have fun with Hong Kong film subtitles and you are a member of Facebook, go on over to the hysterical Hong Kong Subtitles page and peruse some funny broken subs. The page is run by Brian Kirby, a great guy and HK cinema fan. Join the page and you can even add your own! It was also recently confirmed that Mr. Kirby will have a recurring column of fractured HK subs in the pages of Jade Screen magazine. Congrats Brian!

Because he likes to stick it in the bottomest!
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