wong turn.
Todays Coronavirus classic is actually so good I've reviewed it about 9 times before.
Tho' that was originally about 15 years ago and according to the blog stats only 8 people read it.
Bastards.
Yi boh laai beng duk (AKA Ebola Syndrome 1996)
Dir: Herman Yau.
Cast: Anthony Wong, Yeung Ming Wan, Fui-On Shing, Wong Tsui-ling, Miu-Ying Chan and Meng Lo.
In the back room of a fashionable Hong Kong restaurant, Kai (king of the bad guys and HK's answer to Eric Roberts Wong), ne'er do well employee and general sleazy man spends his off work hours shagging his boss's sexy wife over the uncooked shrimp whilst sweating a fair bit and grunting loudly.
In Cantonese of course.
It's not too surprising tho' that before long his boss has caught kinky Kai red handed - well bare arsed - with his trousers round his ankles and his cock in his missis.
In case you're wondering, her arse is in the egg noodles causing all sorts of health and safety problems.
Gordon Ramsay would have a field day.
And probably a quick reach-around.
Like any normal jealous hubbie in the same situation, big boss man administers a severe beating upon the Kai whilst angrily shouting at his unfaithful spouse.
Again in Cantonese.
However, after about the fifth kick to the nads and general pointy fingeredness, Kai goes completely mental killing his boss and then his bosses wife in a pot noodle of blood and sweat, leaving only their young (Cantonese speaking obviously) daughter alive.
 |
| "I said SHITE in mah mooth!" |
Coming to his senses (as opposed to over the corpses which we were expecting) Kai decides the best course of action would be to quickly leg it out of Hong Kong and try to start a new, quieter and dead body free life somewhere else.
Grabbing his passport and kiss me quick hat he reckons the best place to lay low would be sunny South Africa.
 |
| "Call that a pizza? It's more like a pizzashite! Disgusting....I'm closing you down....Chef! etc." |
Thru' the power of wobbly dissolves we jump forward ten years to find that Kai has carved out (tho' not literally) a nice life for himself, working in another restaurant, the Kurried Kaffa and filling his days off by masturbating with sides of beef whilst watching his new boss Terry and his wife shagging on the tables.
Well at least he's not killed anyone else.
Yet.
 |
| Wallace and Torode - they've got something to put in you. |
All good things must come to an end tho' and after missing out on a place in the Master Chef finals and the failure of his apartheid themed Nelson Mandelicatessen, the pair desperately search for a way to keep the business from going bankrupt.
Enter (but obviously not roughly from behind) local Farmer Barney Moe who, it turns out is making a roaring trade selling cheap pig meat out the back of a van in the nearby village of Spent.
Overjoyed by the prospect of saving some cash Kai and Terry decide to hit the road and head into the great outdoors for a nice picnic and the chance to buy some inexpensive meat product for use in the restaurant's best selling hamburgers safe in the knowledge that no-one will be able to tell the difference.
Unfortunately on arrival they discover that the entire village is suffering from the infamous Ebola virus.
How's yer luck?
Grabbing their hankies and quickly covering their mouths our intrepid duo complete the purchase without incident (or anal bleeding) and beat a hasty retreat back to the car.
Surprisingly given the circumstances, everything is going swimmingly until that is they happen upon a woman lying prone in the grass and having a seizure.
Either that or she's a Gregory's Girl fan.
Kai, hypnotized by the unfortunate woman's (admittedly bouncy) breasts stands and stares for what seems like an eternity before snapping back to reality and doing what any red blooded sexual deviant would do in that situation, namely running over to give them a bloody good squeeze with his big meaty sausage fingers before unleashing his throbbing member and sticking it in her.
The romantic devil.
And before you can say 'Jingle jangle jewelery!" Kai is pulling a truly terrifying cum face whilst the woman spews up a mixture of blood and warm milk before letting out a massive fart and dying.
 |
| "Oooh Vic...I've fallen". |
A kind of 'what stains in Vegas stays in Vegas' deal.
Which would probably be OK if only poor old Kai hadn't developed a fever (and an embarrassing itch) within hours of his return.
Terry persuades him to visit his local GP who immediately recognizes that Kai is showing the symptoms of Ebola.
Which isn't that much of a surprise if I'm honest.
Luckily Kai's doctor is up to date with the latest research and prescribes plenty of bed rest and weak lemon drinks for our unlucky pal.
Oh yes and absolutely no raping.
Of people or meat products for at least a fortnight.
Bizarrely enough tho' this course of action actually works and within days his fever (tho' not the itch) has all but gone and Kai begins to feel better than he has for years.
And how does our horny hero decide to celebrate his new found lease of life?
Why by raping and murdering Terry's wife of course.
But not before bludgeoning Terry to death with a leg of lamb.
And can you guess how Kai decides to dispose of the bodies?
Yup in a masterstroke of unhinged genius our mentalist mate begins to sell a new dish, African Buns, thru' the restaurant.
And (as if you hadn't guessed) African Buns are (albeit very tasty) hamburgers made out of the by now Ebola infected folk that Kai has killed.
Hmmm.....I reckon this could cause a few problems if not a spike in toilet roll sales.
 |
| "Now get in the back of mah car so I can bite ya!" |
Indeed, it's not long before a large proportion of the populace of Johannesburg are writhing about on the floor foaming at the mouth and pissing blood and it's all thanks to Kai and his tainted meat.
Understandably worried about how this could affect his business and career opportunities Kai is left with no choice but to sell up the restaurant and head back to Hong Kong on the next available flight in the hope of at least getting a part-time job in McDonalds.
 |
| You think that wee boy looks happy now? Well just wait till the face fucking starts. |
As luck - and totally non realistic storytelling would have it - he boards the plane to HK with absolutely no problems, enjoying a slap up meal and three whole bags of peanuts on his way back.
He's so relieved he doesn't even attempt to fuck any of the other passengers to death during the inflight movie.
Not even the ones that look like they deserve it.
But you know his run of good luck can't last and sure enough who should he bump into as he's collecting his baggage?
Why only Maisie, the daughter of the couple he killed ten years earlier.
What are the chances of that?
Being a model citizen - and having a really good memory - she rushes to tell the local authorities but much to her dismay they send her packing thinking she's imagined it.
As if the police would ever ignore evidence of abuse?
With no alternative but to take the law into her own (very delicate) hands Maisie decides to follow Kai, making sure to write down everything she finds out in a little pink Hello Kitty diary.
This is a good plan for a variety of reasons, firstly it means she has evidence to back up her claims and secondly but more importantly it means we are treated to loads of montage shots of Kai abusing prostitutes and wanking into peoples underwear drawers.
Which, if I'm honest is what cinema is all about.
 |
| Emma Watson was beginning to regret taking a cameo role in Brucie: The Early Years. |
Discovering the whereabouts of his new apartment, Maisie decides to confront Kai in the hope that he'll give himself up but this only angers the munching mentalist who then proceeds to try and cut Maisie’s tongue out with a pair of blunt nail scissors.
Which shows he's nothing if not consistent.
It wont come as too much of a shock when I say that Maisie isn't really into this and a scuffle ensues culminating in our heroine biting Kai and running away into the night leaving him to carrying on doing his thing.
Or should that be doing things with his thing?
 |
| Fair enough. |
And as we've gathered his thing involves a few (well a lot) more killings, loads of sexual shenanigans, a couple more murders and a little bit more shagging.
Really I don't want to spoil it for you.
Sanity soon prevails tho' and the police finally decide (after much poking and prodding) that this Kai bloke is possibly a wee bit loony and that maybe, just maybe they should really bring him in for questioning.
 |
| "I'll give you five English pounds for a shot at Nick Berry's mooth!" |
On paper this looks like a good idea but in reality sending the HK equivalent of Nick Berry from Heartbeat probably wasn't the best way to go.
When the officer (well wee boy) turns up to ask him a few things (just minor stuff like "Are you an Ebola infected multiple murderer with a penchant for shagging bits of meat?") Kai loses the plot even more than normal (which is a sight to behold) and escapes into the busy city streets.
But not before taking a cute wee Chinese a girl hostage and daring the police to shoot him, risking his blood infecting everyone in the surrounding area.
Which begs the question of what they were planning to shoot him with?
A rocket launcher?
 |
Devo and Nick Heywood always enjoyed their
weekly game of 'What's the Time Mr. Wolf?'
|
With the police either too scared - or too busy - to risk anything Kai is almost home free until that is the small girl ruins everything (as girls do) by starting to cry for her mum, Kai reacts as any meat obsessed murderer would and shoots her in the face before running (like a girl himself I must admit) thru' the busy streets spitting on passers by and hollering "I have Ebola and now so do you!"
Which is nice.
 |
| "Ladies and gentlemen...live on stage...5ive!" |
Will Kai be captured before he infects the world?
Will Maisie turn up again or has she disappeared completely from the film due to her refusing to do nudity?
And will I ever recover from seeing the great Anthony Wong slaughtering a frog in extreme close-up?
 |
The infamous Mr. Sausage Fingers was dismayed
to discover that The Cheeky Girls would
never reveal the whereabouts of his car keys.
|
On paper Ebola Syndrome sounds as if it should possibly be one of the most offensive films ever conceived, from it's tragedy exploiting plot thru' to the constant on screen barrage of murder, sexual violence, swearing, more sexual violence, child murders and gore.
But bizarrely enough it isn't.
Somehow director Herman Yau has managed (by accident or design, who knows?) to give a skewered sense of quality and credibility to the whole thing, partly thanks to an amazing turn from Anthony Wong as ker-razy Kai.
The magnificent Wong, a mainstay of Hong Kong cinema for the past thirty odd years has made a career playing damaged characters in films of wildly varying quality, flitting happily from such critically acclaimed fare such as Infernal Affairs to shite like Raped by An Angel IV.
Here Wong manages to makes Kai the film's most interesting (if not most sympathetic) character, the rest of the (admittedly great) cast all just fade into the background when the great man is on screen.
So you can imagine that when he's got his cock out they've no chance.
 |
"It's Cccccchhhhrrrriiissstttmmmaaasssss!!!"
|
If any criticism can be leveled at the movie it has to be the completely gratuitous (and unnecessary) scenes of animal slaughter, a throwback to the worst of the 70's Italian exploitation era and, while it may only be a few frog guttings and the beheading of a couple of mangy chickens, it's still enough to taint the viewing experience somewhat.
Perhaps if Wong had just had sex with them instead?
Well it's just a thought.
But don't let that put you off experiencing such a sleaze-tastic epic that for all it's shocks is infinitely less hard going than the earlier Wong-Yau masterclass in restaurant based bad taste, the true story inspired Baat sin fan dim ji yan yuk cha siu baau.
It's still a must see tho'.
 |
This is why your girlfriend didn't
return your calls last Saturday. |
The celebrity editions not withstanding obviously.
No comments:
Post a Comment