The Fatal Vacation if nothing else is a very sad story, I really felt some strong emotions watching this.

Eric Tsang plays a Philippines tour guide, who takes a group of people from Hong Kong around the islands by bus. Surprisingly the characters are all given their personal touches as you soon learn about each of them (mostly couples). Things all seem to be going well for the group until suddenly their bus is hijacked. It’s not a standard robbery though, as the group are taken away as hostage. They inform the government that they have the Chinese tourists hostage and they will be killed if their demands are not met. A decision takes too long for the terrorists, and they agree to kill the hostages one by one until they get what they have asked for. But too many people get killed, and one is even violently raped before being shot in front of her husband.

Story aside though, the rest of the film seems pointless, because all the film appears to do is discourage people from visiting the Philippines. A lot of things could have been done to make this more interesting, and the film certainly drags the majority of time. Saying that though, it does seem very terrifyingly realistic and as I said at the beginning, very sad.

Another note, this was actually made as a new year film back in 1990...but seems a bit out of place for a happy time.

Rating [2.5/5]