The Six Devil Women

 

Director: Tony Ma Tin-yiu
Year: 1996
Rating: 5.0

There are certain films you want to watch just because of the title. It was that way with Lunatic Frog Women and it was that way with The Six Devil Women. I had no idea what it would be about, but felt certain that there would be a certain exploitation angle to it. And trashy it was. Sex and violence. Much more violence than sex and even then the sex tended not to be exactly loving and tender. On another level beyond the exploitation angle, there is actually within this film a fairly interesting sociological theme. It looks pretty harshly at the way life is changing in Mainland China and the negative effects it is having on some people. The way that materialism is gaining a hold on the people again and leading to crimes such as those that take place in this film.


 
The film begins with the trial of a gang of four men and six women. They are being tried for luring men back to their apartment and then brutally killing and robbing them. The girls all came from poor rural areas to Shenzen to look for money and a better way of life. They are drawn into this criminal lifestyle by the flash of green and the flashing lights. As the girls await their sentence, their stories are told in various flashbacks. One young innocent girl joins her sister and is horrified the first time she witnesses a killing, but before long she is the most vicious and greedy of them all.



But this is trash, not a sociological treatise. The killings of their victims are numerous and graphic. There is some nudity, but not a huge amount. But there is the equialent of a wet sari scene with four of the girls getting hosed down with bonus points for focusing on Diana Pang Dan in her white almost see-through outfit. For the most part this is an unpleasant film, but at the same time fairly intriguing. And in the final execution scene – done in slow-mo of course – there is a certain amount of pathos for all these wasted lives.