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香港奇案 (1976)
The Criminals


Reviewed by: andras
Date: 04/07/2004
Summary: THE CRIMINALS

Three newspaperstories dramatized by the Shaw Brothers:

1. HIDDEN TORSOS: a sadistic husband,his wife and their mute daughter.Who will survive and what will be left of them? I find this the best of the bunch,very good direction from Cheng Kang,his hand-held cameratechnique is impressive(see KIDNAP).The ending was rather abrupt but with 25 minutes You can only go so far...Possibly had an influence on REMAINS OF A WOMAN and other "true-crime" roughies of the early 90's.

2. VALLEY OF THE HANGED: cheating wife,angry husband,more dead bodies.This is more"traditionally" directed by Hua Shan(INFRAMAN)and the only one of the trio with nudity.But nothing outstanding here.

3. THE STUNTMEN: this one almost plays like a Young&Dangerous saga told in 30minutes.Lo Lieh plays a down on his luck guy who makes his fortune with the triads. A woman is involved so the result is more dead bodies.Directed by the prolific Ho Meng Hua,the story takes You (briefly)to an authentic Shaw movie set(spot those primitive cameras they used) and Lo Lieh puts in a good performance.I'm not sure this was based on a true story,but I can't prove it didn't happen either...

While this tabloid exploitation anthology not the classic it's reputation suggested,it was sleazy and loud enough to be enjoyable on a midnight viewing.Looking forward to the sequels.