Hong Kong Criminal Archives - Female Butcher (1991)
Reviewed by: Brian Thibodeau on 2008-11-09
Slick but impersonal TV movie, shot on video, with Simon Yam as real life early-80's "jars killer" Lam Kor-wan, a night shift taxi driver who dismembers prostitutes by day in his family's tiny Tsim Sha Tsui apartment without arousing suspicion, at least until he delivers a roll of film containing pictures of his latest trophy to a local photography shop for developing! Lawyer Yvonne Yung Hung channels Jodie Foster's Clarice Starling from SILENCE OF THE LAMBS in an effort to get inside the killer's head and set up the flashbacks that tell his unnerving tale. Television by necessity doesn't permit the more gruesome aspects of the case to be depicted, a situation rectified a year later when actor/producer/director Danny Lee unleashed the infamous DR. LAMB upon the world, with Simon Yam revisiting the role he plays here with far less restraint.
Reviewer Score: 6