Reviewed by: ryan Date: 11/21/1999 Summary: Soft Rod, The (1999) Kam Sing Tong circuit seems running smoothly since opening. After KO Fei, we have LAU Chun-fai. After his last week's 'My Wife's Bodyguard', we have 'The Soft Rod' casting with CHO Cha-yee. Judging from the cast and the director as well as the circuit, I think you can tell that it's another category III production. 'The Soft Rod' starts with an erotic boss CHAN Tat-shing (CHO Cha-lei), who is a billionaire and an important guy in Hong Kong, is on the process for divorce while he asked his personal secretary Siu-wai to a place for them to 'enjoy'. After they have made up, CHAN found that the whole thing is a trap after Siu-wai's husband Roy entered into the house. CHAN is subsquently kidnapped for $ 10m. His wife, who is required to give the ransom, seems to be doubt about the kidnap. With times go on, CHAN is absent from several meeting which draws the attention of the police is find CHAN..... When compared with LAU Chun-fai's last direction, 'The Soft Rod' seems to be a bit better. However, the editing is still strange. You can easily separate the normal scenes and the love scenes either by music or by the color of the screen. Up to now I can't see any point in doing so. If they really want to make a movie, even a porn, they should at least make the whole thing as a whole. The story itself is also ridicious. During the kidnap process, CHAN surprising said that he would like to pay Roy to have a happy live with Siu-wai. I don't think anyone will do so under such circumstances. For some scenes, you can also find how ridicious they are. Roy called Mrs. LI several times for ransom. What we found is that whereever Roy called from Hong Kong or Korea, what you can see on screen is that he called from the same public phone stand! I don't think this can be tolerated. For the making love scenes, it seems that the skills is more or less the same but at least I found that they have more variety. You can find there is one while CHO Cha-ley is in ropes. However, I still can't find any beauty for these scenes. One thing that I think you may wish to note is the movie title. Though the title 'The Soft Rod' may make you feel a bit about Dick, there iz nothing to talk about the Dick in the whole movie. If you prefer these stuffs, you will be disappointed. By the way, 'The Soft Rod' is another strange editing movie. Though it looks a bit better than 'My Wife's Bodyguard', the brainless plot as well as settings tells you that it is not a good choice.