Good reading: Hong Kong Category III

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Sep 27th, 2007 by Bryan White

Ugh. Category III. If ever you want to see some downright malicious movies, look no further than your local Asian video store for movies bearing the Level 3 rating. At different times throughout the history of cinema, different parts of the world have pumped out a fairly consistent burst of intense, morally reprehensible movies. In the early 90’s it was Hong Kong’s turn to go for it and they swung for the fences. Best known Category 3 titles earned a real nasty reputation among fans of extreme cinema around this time and still carry those reputations to this day. Good examples are Untold Story, The Story of Ricky, Dr. Lamb and the blindingly crazy Ebola Syndrome.

Twitchfilm took some time out to talk up some of the unsung heroes of the Cat 3 legacy and I really enjoyed the article. So much, in fact, that I think everyone should check it out.

Posted in Whimsy

3 Responses to “Good reading: Hong Kong Category III”

on 01 Oct 2007 at 11:18 am1JC4President

I just read about that Ebola Syndrome. Sounds like a crazy movie. Has anyone actually watched that film?
on 01 Oct 2007 at 11:30 am2Bryan White

Discotek actually just put out a region 1 reissue of it. Up until now I don’t think there was one. I had a VHS boot of this that I received back in the mid-90’s. I went on a Hong Kong action binge and wound up with tons of martials arts and heroic bloodshed flicks and it was inevitable that I wind up with a few Cat3 movies. I’ve seen Ebola Syndrome but not for a long, long time. I also saw Untold Story around the same time and the double whammy of those movies made me petrified of Anthony Wong.

In spite of his willingness to play some downright horrible people and engage in some unspeakable acts on camera (for instance, Untold Story’s ‘Fistful Of Chopsticks’ scene) he’s an actor that I enjoy greatly to this day and I’m always thrilled when I see him in Movie X.
on 14 Oct 2007 at 7:14 pm3Ryan Midnight

Thanks for the heads up on this Twitch article.

I was an absolute HK junkie for many years (sold the DVDs for quite some time as well). INTRUDER is a must hunt down, which is criminally only available on DVD in Germany. I think there was a VCD release at some point.