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夜魔先生 (1990)
The Nocturnal Demon


Reviewed by: ksbutterbox
Date: 06/27/2002
Summary: Good Fun !

Director Ricky Lau really threw some wild stuff in this film. Moon Lee pays a visit to HK to visit the family. Meanwhile the opener lets you know there's a lighter fluid sniffing, homicidal maniac, killing women with an exacto knife (to slit their throats & cut out their tongue to feed his fish no doubt!?)... This was labeled "Horror" for the genre..but it's really an action packed(very black)comedy with some great slapstick kung fu. Ricky Lau uses a lot of his favorite actors from "Mr. Vampire"(a classic!) here. So...being a fan of Moon Lee and the movie mentioned above I'll give this a 7/10. Peace I.S.!


Reviewed by: Inner Strength
Date: 06/23/2002
Summary: Poor horror/comedy

[2/5]


Reviewed by: CaptainAmerica
Date: 06/06/2002
Summary: A film guaranteed to surprise!

Most Hong Kong movies are almost schizophrenic...that is, they try to be all things to all people. The reason for this is obvious: if you're a filmmaker in a country like HK, where a movie lasts for a week in the theaters on the average, you have to make as much of a film's content appeal to as many people as you can! With a few exceptions (like the films of Jackie Chan, which are usually straightforward action-comedies), genres have a way of clashing and mish-mashing in HK films. And that brings us to...THE NOCTURNAL DEMON.

Picture this...the movie opens with a cabbie picking up a prostitute. She's provocatively dressed, and the cabbie's getting more unstable by the second. Finally, he lets her out. But then he sniffs some lighter fluid, tracks her down with a box cutter, and slashes her throat, among...other things.

Sounds like a horror-slasher flick, right? WRONG! Believe it or not, this film is a comedy!

We then focus on Moon Lee (who is up there in my opinion with Yukari Oshima as two of the best warrior women in HK films) as Wawa, a country bumpkin from the Mainland who's just arrived in HK to live with her cousin (Alfred Cheung) and her grandpa (Lam Kau). Of course, like Bruce Lee's character from WAY OF THE DRAGON, this sweet bumpkin has some blockbusting moves! (This IS Moon Lee we're talking about!) An unforgettable image is stamped into the viewer's consciousness when Wawa knocks the crap out of a dangerous jewel thief (Yuen Wah in a cameo) while wearing her roller skates!

From there, Wawa and her cousin begin a misadventure of the crazy kind as they run across an old ne'er-do-well friend, an angry triad gang, goofball cops, and of course the psycho cabbie. One thing leads to another on this wild ride and, without spoiling anything for you, Moon and Alfred's characters get mistaken for being the ones responsible for the murders...as in THE FUGITIVE, they have to clear their names by tracking down the real killer!

Moon Lee is by turns ferocious and hilarious, Alfred Cheung (who I've seen once before in POM POM AND HOT HOT with Jacky Cheung and the immortal Lam Ching-Ying) is just as funny -- but not as martially inclined! -- and Lam Kau nearly steals the show as Wawa's blind granddad. There are some things you have to see to believe in this film: Moon Lee on skates, naturally, and the tear-it-all-up climax, where Moon confronts the killer wearing a hair-rock ensemble of vinyl, sequins, and a frizzed-out wig!

Note: watch THE NOCTURNAL DEMON with Yukari Oshima's THAT'S MONEY...it's a double-bill featuring two tough ladies who'll bend your mind to the possibilities of alternate universes!