~ 20 Great Hong Kong Cult Films That Are Worth Watching ~

[MysteRy]

20 Great Hong Kong Cult Films That Are Worth Watching



The Hong Kong film industry is responsible for some of the most influential films and filmmakers of the last 50 years. It’s an industry most renowned for the epic level of martial arts cinema that captured the world’s imagination back in the 70s and 80s, but it’s also been a source of great films in other genres such as gangster films, horror, science fiction and comedy.

What seems to set a Hong Kong film apart from cinema in other parts of the world is the attitude of never letting the audience have a chance to get bored, always striving for greater heights of extreme onscreen action and outrageousness.

This list of Hong Kong classics is going to focus on a specific brand of Hong Kong output: the cult films that have been the biggest reason for Chinese cinema’s status among movie buffs. For obvious reasons, many of the entries emphasize the martial arts genre, but you’ll see nods to crime thrillers, kaiju, comedy of the 90s.

Like many film industries, many of the same actors and directors turn up again and again, and so you’ll see multiple appearances by Chow-Yun Fat, Simon Yam, Anthony Wong, Wong Jing, and Chang Cheh, not to mention more than one film produced by the mighty Shaw Brothers studios.

No matter what one feels about many of the films discussed here, there can be no doubt that they have all, in their way, had a significant impact on cinema history.

[MysteRy]

20. The Mighty Peking Man aka Goliathon



The Story:

A team of researchers from Hong Kong University set off for the Himalayas in search of a legendary giant gorilla. On the way they encounter vicious tigers and venomous snakes, and when one of their number goes missing (Danny Lee in an early role) after being captured by the massive ape, they give him up for lost.

Alone, Lee meets a beautiful female Tarzan (Evelyne Kraft), with whom he falls in love. He returns to his companions with the gorilla and his new romantic interest, after which they’re all taken to Hong Kong, where the head of the expedition plans to put the gorilla on display for profit. After enduring torments at the hands of his captors, he escapes, causing destruction and mayhem throughout the city while his human friends try to keep the military from killing him.

Why You Should See It:

Produced exclusively to cash in on the release of the 1976 Dino de Laurentiis remake of King Kong, Mighty Peking Man manages to out-perform that film in some key ways. Unlike the remake, the action gets going right away, showing the monster attacking a small village in a flashback.

The filmmakers have no interest in coyly hiding their creature until later in the run time or engaging in time-wasting story development; the approach here is to pull the audience in from the beginning, and they succeed handily.

Slammed by critics at the time as a cheap rip-off, the movie thrills in ways that can’t be denied by anyone who takes the time to watch it.

The Motown-style soundtrack is priceless, there is some surprising gore that comes at the end of a fight scene between a stuntman and what appears to be an actual tiger, and the gorilla’s rampage in the last twenty minutes is as colorful, explosive, and minutely detailed as anything produced by Toho Studios in its many giant monster features.

Roger Ebert even retracted his original negative review of the movie after viewing it again years later. It’s also noteworthy for being one of the films released by Quentin Tarantino’s now-defunct Rolling Thunder video distribution company back in the late 90s.

[MysteRy]

19. Naked Killer



The Story:

Simon Yam plays a cop with serious firearms issues (after accidentally shooting his own brother, he throws up at the sight of guns) pursuing a killer who gives special nasty attention to a certain part of the male anatomy. After witnessing a woman named Kitty (Chingmy Yau) repeatedly stab a man, he thinks he’s found a suspect, but ends up letting her go.

During an incredible gymnastic gun battle in a parking garage, she runs into Sister Cindy, an assassin who targets dastardly men—she even keeps several chained up in her basement for practice. The two become a team, but then run afoul of another killer with ties to Sister Cindy.

Why You Should See It:

Infamous parodist/schlockmeister Wong Jing wrote and produced this film, essentially a spoof of Basic Instinct with all of the prurient elements turned up by a factor of 10. Unlike Paul Verhoeven’s randy classic, it isn’t shy about putting the more salacious (and attention grabbing) aspects of the film’s romantic relationships front and center. As this is a Hong Kong film made in the 90s, there’s also a smattering of airborne kung fu action and unrestrained gunfire.

There are many wicked and bloody moments, but none of it comes off as terribly offensive or cringe-inducing, and overall everything seems amazingly tasteful for a movie that features frequent risqué scenes and off-color humor.

[MysteRy]

18. Infra-Man



The Story:

A newly-minted cyborg superhero (Danny Lee) does battle with the ancient Princess Dragon Mom and her prehistoric monster minions, which include but are not limited to an octopus man and a pair of metallic warriors with spiked balls for hands, as they try to take over the Earth.

Why You Should See It:

Colorful sci-fi pop art delirium as seen through a filter of hallucinogenic mushrooms. Shaw Brothers takes a cue from the Ultraman TV series, fractures the particulars into a kaleidoscopic tornado of monster karate and lasers, and hurls it at the viewer with a liberal dose of explosions, kaiju action, and motorcycles.

Detractors might say that this is nothing more than Power Rangers with Mario Bava lighting and ADHD, overlooking the fact that Shaw Brothers did it decades earlier, with an exuberant sense of fun and inventiveness missing from similar entertainment. Never mind the cheesy costumes and comical story—this is all about fun, and it’s there in goofy, unselfconscious spades, like the best Saturday morning cartoon ever produced.

[MysteRy]

17. The Eternal Evil Of Asia



The Story:

A group of young men vacationing in Thailand get on the bad side of a local wizard when they accidentally kill his sister. He follows them back to Hong Kong, employing a voodoo doll and other dark spells to enact his revenge. Worst of all, he promises to ravish and kill the wife of the one man who had least offended him. Luckily, his wife has made friends with a young Thai witch living in the city, who tries her best to prevent the remaining victims from the wizard’s vengeance.

Why You Should See It:

People watch cult films from Hong Kong for certain reasons, good taste not being chief among them. With that in mind, this horror/comedy presents for curious viewers images that they will probably not find anywhere else.

A man’s head is turned into a giant penis with his face on it. A sorcerer couple—shall we say commingle?—in mid-air while blasting their rival with explosive energy bolts. A man goes into a cannibalistic frenzy in a busy restaurant, and out of desperation chews his own arm down to the bone.

Star Ellen Chan is violated by a phantom presense while swinging from a chandelier. All of which walks the line between extremely questionable taste and brilliant audacity, and that is, essentially, what sets most Asian film industries apart from Hollywood—the ability to entertain ideas that would never make it to the screen in the West. The Eternal Evil Of Asia represents that freedom as fully—and, truth be told, as engagingly—as any other film out of Hong Kong in the 90s.

[MysteRy]

16. Way Of The Dragon aka Return Of The Dragon



The Story:

Bruce Lee plays a young man who travels from Hong Kong to Rome to visit his uncle and cousin and help them out with some trouble they’re having with the mafia, who want them to sell their restaurant. The local mob boss repeatedly tries to intimidate and kill Lee, to absolutely no effect, and eventually resorts to hiring martial arts experts to take him out (one of whom is played by Chuck Norris).

Why You Should See It:

The only one of Lee’s film written, produced, and directed by Lee himself (Game Of Death doesn’t technically count because he died before it could be completed), Way Of The Dragon showcases Lee at his very best, and demonstrates as well as any of his films why he became the James Dean of the martial arts world.

He proves himself to be a competent director, shooting comedic and action scenes alike with enough flair to make one wonder what he could have accomplished had he lived to produce more works. Certain moments also seem to reflect Lee’s own philosophy about life, and impatience with tradition in the face of new ideas—his character at one point remarks that he would tear down some of the old architectural relics of Rome and put up high rises if he had his way.

It was often said that Lee had to slow himself down in order to be caught on film, and Way Of The Dragon is a testament to that. Often he moves so quickly as to seem only a blur.

The film’s two key action sequences—a fight in an alley in which he incorporates a staff and nunchucks, and his final fight with Chuck Norris’ character—are better shot than even the best scenes in Enter The Dragon, and Lee comes off as at least the equal of Lo Wei, who directed him in The Big Boss and Fist Of Fury.

Although it’s not without blemishes (the depiction of a black man and gay man are not especially open-minded or flattering), it’s good enough to make anyone wonder what Lee might have done given more time.

(One side note: the English dub can be a little confusing. Because every character is dubbed speaking the same language, it’s not always clear that Lee isn’t supposed to understand what some people are saying to him because he doesn’t speak Italian, and needs his cousin to translate for him. This is too bad, because some of the comedy loses its timing.)

[MysteRy]

15. Five Deadly Vemons



The Story:

A martial arts master has trained five students in different styles of kung fu: Centipede, Scorpion, Lizard, Snake and Toad. The students do not know one another’s identities, and each has gone his own way. Fearing that one of them might be plotting to steal the martial arts clan’s fortune, he sends a sixth student, trained in elements of all five styles, to try to team up with one of the others and stop the offending party.

Why You Should See It:

One of director Chang Cheh’s best known films, the cult status of which cannot be underestimated. References to it come up in film, music and television all the time, and it wound up making stars of the six main actors (Kuo Chi, Lu Feng, Chiang Sheng, Sun Chien, Lo Mang and Wei Pai) who came to be known by fans as the Venom Mob.

This is a movie that came from a time when Shaw Brothers output didn’t look as fine-tuned as their films from the previous decade—production schedules likely became tighter as the demand for more releases grew.

Weighed against other Chang Cheh films from around the same time, Five Deadly Venoms actually isn’t the strongest—there are fewer fight scenes and less urgent pacing than in, say, Five Element Ninjas or Crippled Avengers—but it nonetheless gained notoriety mostly on the strength of its uniquely oddball central concept. (One character, the master of Lizard kung fu, along with being a capable fighter, also has the ability to walk on walls.)

It’s also more cruelly violent than many kung fu films, which is really saying something (the protracted torture scenes of the Toad, while not terribly hard to watch, are still nasty.)

Worth noting as well is one of the most memorable openings of any old-school martial arts movie, in which each individual master, clad in black and wearing a mask symbolizing the animal his style is based on, runs through a furious demonstration of his abilities, destroying tableware and other breakables in mesmerizing slow motion.

[MysteRy]

14. Dr. Lamb



The Story:

An accused killer (Simon Yam) is brought in by the police, along with members of his family, after being caught with photographs of a recently deceased woman. The killer refuses to give up any information, even after being violently interrogated, and it is only when his family is apprised of the nature of his crimes that he finally comes clean. As police listen, he describes the homicides, and things only get worse as investigators uncover more of the physical evidence.

Why You Should See It:

Based on the real life 1982 case of Hong Kong serial killer Lam Kor-wan, known as The Jars Murderer and The Rainy Night Murderer in the local press, Dr. Lamb sticks fairly close to many of the details of what took place: the killer often photographed or filmed his female victims postmortem, and went so far as to preserve some of their body parts in jars.

As one can imagine, any film adaptation is going to be incredibly lurid, but Dr. Lamb (directed by co-star Danny Lee and Billy Tang) does a good job of not taking things too far overboard given the content, and although it isn’t without its sensationalistic and exploitive scenes, it’s not as gory or disgusting as it might be.

The story is told in two parts: the first half depicts the killer’s arrest and interrogation, and the second delves into the details of some of the murders in flashbacks. Yam’s performance reflects this shift in subject matter, starting out reticent and inexpressive and moving gradually further into howling madness and depravity. Stylishly directed and excellently paced, the film takes its material seriously, with only occasional touches of gallows humor.

There is an unmistakable Taxi Driver influence as well, as Yam drives his cab in the rain, awash in colorful neon light and jazz music similar to Bernard Herrman’s score from Scorsese’s film, searching for new victims. Helpfully for the audience, the presence of the detectives throughout provides a human, moral grounding as the killer’s tale unwinds, keeping the tone from getting oppressively dark. Highly recommended for fans of Seven and Silence of the Lambs.

[MysteRy]

13. Diary Of A Serial Killer



The Story:

Lau Shu Bill (Chan Kwok-Bong) sits in jail regaling his cellmates with the details of his exploits: he is a notorious serial killer convicted of murdering 14 prostitutes. He seems driven by the belief that if he kills these women, he’ll be freeing them from an immorality and allowing them, through the suffering that he inflicts, to be reincarnated into a better life.

But even as he sinks further into deranged homicidal madness, a distant relative of his wife’s gives him a new focus, a strange sense of forgiveness for himself despite his horrible crimes, even as he awaits execution.

Why You Should See It:

It might seem odd that I’m including Diary Of A Serial Killer in such close proximity to Dr. Lamb, but I think that watching both films provides an opportunity to see two very different interpretations of the same notorious murder case that shocked the public back in the early 80s.

The influences here lean heavily toward Hitchcock, very obviously in a part that mimics the shower scene from Psycho, and a little less so in scenes that appear to be inspired by Frenzy. The tone also reflects Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer in some respects, most notably in the way the killer befriends a troubled young woman for whom he has conflicted feelings, with other elements taken from the 1980 slasher film Maniac (Lau Shu Bill applies pieces of his victims’ skin to a mannequin he keeps in his bedroom.)

It’s definitely more of an exploitation film than Dr. Lamb, mixing much more humor with the (somewhat less) gory killings, but it can’t be said to be without its merits. It moves along quickly—reflecting the overall HK film industry sentiment of never letting an audience get bored—and while it revels in the typical trait of HK cult films of the time, what happens onscreen is just a hair too campy to be taken entirely seriously.

And as B-grade as some of the proceedings are, there is enough character development to engender feelings of sympathy or pity for the protagonist, even as he goes about the business of being a serial killer. There’s even a bit at the end that hints at Bill’s own desire to be freed from the torment of what he is—his own karmic second chance, if not forgiveness.

[MysteRy]

12. The Untold Story



The Story:

Anthony Wong, in a performance that won him the best actor Hong Kong Film Award, portrays a violent, deranged loser who flees the police in Hong Kong to Macau, and begins working in the Eight Immortals restaurant owned by the family he lives with. He murders them and assumes ownership of the establishment, explaining to anyone who asks that they sold him the place and moved away.

The full story behind what took place is far more gruesome, as local police eventually discover, and as the investigation proceeds, the shockingly horrifying truth of what went on during and after the killings comes to light.

Why You Should See It:

Movie about serial killers appear to have been popular around the early-to-mid 90s in Hong Kong, and this one does not disappoint. Untold Story explores the full spectrum of what can be gotten away with in a cult thriller, and unlike similar films on this list, there are scenes that are undeniably hard to watch, particularly the brutal rape/murder of a waitress hired by Wong after he takes over the business.

What it does have in common with some other cult crime films discussed here is a tendency on that part of the filmmakers to soften the blow of the subject with odd comedic choices, in this case to intersperse broad, almost slapstick comedy with flashbacks of ghastly killings.

As in Dr. Lamb, Danny Lee plays one of the detectives. Also like that film, the script is apparently based on a true story. The story structure is similar, as well, indicating that there was a type of convention being respected among these films that was expected by the audience, or at the very least considered by the producers to be a winning formula for success.

Anthony Wong gives a riveting and disturbing performance as the killer (he’s generally quite good at portraying villains). For those with a strong stomach and a love of the macabre, this is an interesting film to check out.

[MysteRy]

11. Fong Sai Yuk aka The Legend Of Fong Sai Yuk



The Story:

Kung Fu expert Fong Sai Yuk (Jet Li) falls for the lovely Ting Ting during an athletic tournament, but her father Tiger Lui has other plans: he stages a kung fu competition in which anyone who can beat his wife in a fight will win his daughter’s hand in marriage.

Fong loses (pretty much on purpose, not knowing Ting Ting is the prize), but his mother steps in—dressed as a man and posing as his brother—to win, and inadvertently causes Tiger Lui’s wife to fall in love with her. Further complicating matters is the fact that a Ching Dynasty governor is seeking out a list of names that will reveal the identities of the members of the rebellious Red Flower Society, one of whom just happens to be Fong Sai Yuk’s father.

Why You Should See It:

What set Hong Kong martial arts films of the 90s apart from what had come before was the incorporation of tightly edited action sequences utilizing shots that are numerous, quick and varied, and intensive wire work. Director Corey Yuen makes full use of the style in Fong Sai Yuk, running star and executive producer Li through a demanding regimen of jumps, flips, kicks, pole fights and flying in the lead role.

The humor can be a bit hit or miss, though it hits more often than not, and the dazzling action keeps things going at a good pace. Listen for the gag at the end referencing God Of Gamblers.

Those who haven’t seen many of Jet Li’s older films and are interested in his filmography should really stick to the work he did during this period in Hong Kong; even the best of his Western-produced films pale in comparison to the likes of the first three Once Upon A Time In China installments, Swordsman 2, Fist Of Legend, High Risk, Tai Chi Master, and this film and its sequel. It wasn’t until he went back to making movies in China and starred in stuff such as Hero, Fearless and The Warlords that he started producing worthwhile films again.

[MysteRy]

10. One Armed Swordsman



The Story:

An orphaned boy (played as an adult by Jimmy Wang Yu) is put under the care of a master swordsman, whose other students grow jealous of his superior fighting skills and resentful that someone from such a humble background should be studying alongside them. He decides to leave, but a woodland confrontation with two other students and the master’s daughter leads to him losing an arm.

A farmgirl and her father find him and nurse him back to health, and with the help of an old, partially destroyed martial arts manual, he learns how to fight again with only his left arm. Just in time, too: his master is being stalked by a former rival, who has developed a technique that can defeat the old swordsman’s style, and is using it to kill all of his students.

Why You Should See It:

The grim bloodiness that came to be standard fare at Shaw Brothers in the 70s is generally thought to have had its start here, in the film that made a star of Jimmy Wang Yu and launched one of the most iconic characters in martial arts films.

One Armed Swordsman was followed at least three sequels (depending on how you’re counting—he made guest appearances as well in other films), not all of which starred Wang Yu, though he did take the idea and create the One Armed Boxer, just to keep the momentum going.

In the Five Deadly Venoms entry I mentioned how later Shaw Brothers movies are rougher around the edges than their films from the 60s and early 70s; One Armed Swordsman is a perfect example of that difference. Though it’s shot mostly on indoor sets like the later films, it’s lit and staged far more convincingly, with sunsets and snow-covered forests evocative of a mythical fantasy world informed by actual Chinese history and locations; even the painted backdrops of mountains give a subtle impression of a larger landscape beyond.

Director Chang Cheh also shows a stronger sense of story subtext here, with Wang Yu’s character inheriting a broken sword the foreshadows the subsequent loss of a limb, and later going head-to-head with a villain called Long-Armed Devil, an ironic counterpoint to how one might describe Wang Yu’s condition.

What’s interesting is that the more Wang Yu loses in the film, the stronger he becomes, while his adversaries, in an attempt to augment their strength with gadgets and trickery, eventually fail. A good, character-driven story with some terrific action.

[MysteRy]

9. God Of Gamblers



The Story:

A world-famous gambler (Chow Yun-Fat), while helping a client to win an illegal gambling competition, suffers a concussion that reduces him to a childlike mentality, but doesn’t take away his gambling instincts.

Andy Lau plays a small-time con man who discovers him and tries to use his abilities to win big in different gambling establishments, but the situation is complicated when Chow’s former partner plots against him, and a gangster starts putting pressure on Lau and his friends to repay a debt. The only hope is for Chow to regain his memory and take part in a high stakes card game that will determine everyone’s fate.

Why You Should See It:

Wong Jing, a filmmaker better known for using extreme crowd-pleasing tactics in his movies restrains himself admirably with God Of Gamblers, a film that is a little bit James Bond and a little bit Rain Man, with touches of Woo-esque heroic bloodshed and martial arts stunt work just to keep it all interesting. Action fans accustomed to seeing Chow Yun-Fat in serious action roles might be pleased to see him putting in a comedic turn here, opening the door for some good slapstick.

The film looks terrific, and while the run time is slightly over two hours (somewhat long compared to many motion pictures from Hong Kong), the length is barely noticeable. Action scenes, while not wall-to-wall, are effective and exciting—a chase across two sections of bamboo scaffolding is especially memorable.

The best part is that it isn’t necessary to know very much about gambling to enjoy the story, because pretty much every victory is won through elaborate cheating, and the gambling scenes are handled with a combination of camera work similar to Scorsese’s The Color Of Money and solid acting. Followed by four sequels.

[MysteRy]

8. Eight Diagram Pole Fighter aka Invincible Pole Fighter



The Story:

A Song Dynasty general is betrayed by a traitor within his ranks, resulting in his death in battle and that of all but two of his sons. Of those two, one returns home, driven to the brink of insanity by the tragedy. The other flees to a Shaolin temple, where he begs to be allowed to become a monk, though the abbot has serious misgivings about counting such an intense and vengeance-driven man among their number.

While he tries to adjust to the monks’ non-violent ways, he works on a unique style of pole fighting adapted from his own martial arts training. When he hears that his sister has been captured by enemy forces, he leaves to rescue her, even though doing so might damn him as both a monk and as a man.

Why You Should See It:

Lau Kar-leung, who also directed classics such as The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin and Legendary Weapons Of China, once again proves why he was one of the strongest directors to work at Shaw Brothers. It differs from some of his other films in that the tone is unrelentingly downbeat, owing perhaps to the fact that popular co-star Alexander Fu Sheng died in a car wreck during filming.

Gordon Liu gives a powerful performance as a wronged warrior torn by a competing desire for revenge for the sake of his family and the detachment he needs to begin the process of healing. He is a man who has become displaced in the world, bereft of his family and too overwhelmed by violent urges to live in the society of monks.

Lau is no stranger to staging great action scenes—being himself a martial artist and veteran fight choreographer—and he doesn’t disappoint with Pole Fighter’s legendary, high-flying finale, wherein we see that Liu’s character, however much he has tried to internalize the temple’s Buddhist teachings, is sadly doomed to be a man traumatized by death and revenge.

[MysteRy]

7. Running On Karma



The Story:

A former Shaolin monk-turned-male-stripper (Andy Lau), who sees visions of karma around people he meets, gets involved in a murder investigation concerning two martial arts-trained yogis. His visions help provide clues to the killer’s location, but as he develops a personal relationship with a female detective on the case, he is reminded more and more of an unsolved murder from his past that caused him to renounce the spiritual life.

As he and the young woman come to realize that their destinies are fixed, they both eventually head back to the mountains where Lau lived as a monk, in search of a killer still at large.

Why You Should See It:

Johnnie To, sort of an heir apparent to the action throne vacated by John Woo, has crafted a very unusual specimen for the Hong Kong cinema archives: an art house kung fu police procedural that is as much a contemporary urban fantasy as it is a crime drama.

Lau, wearing a full-body prosthetic muscle man suit, plays a man trying to escape from the past who knows full well, as a result of the karmic visions that drove him from being a monk, that the past is always a part of life, and that each new action leads to events that will affect a much larger future than anyone can see.

This is a very Buddhist film, and seems to have been intended as a visual essay on the nature of karma itself, on private and public responsibility, and on the means to finding peace in a violent and chaotic world.

The film’s philosophic ambitions in no way hinder its entertainment value; this is a fun, intriguing, and fanciful motion picture, populated by odd characters, and full of action and humor. Despite occasional graphic violence and dark tone the film takes on in the last act, the ending is basically optimistic about human nature and the moral implications of living a life mindful of long-term consequences.