The Cat
The world is once again in terrible jeopardy and
its survival lies in the hands of sci-fi writer and adventurer, Wisely
(played here co-incidentally enough by the similar sounding Waise Lee).
Director Nam Nai-cho (Peacock King, The Story of Ricky, Erotic Ghost Story)
brings the character of Wisely (a series of popular books in China) to
the screen for the second time. Six years earlier in 1986, Nam created
the delightfully bizarre The Seventh Curse in which Chow Yun Fat took on
the role of Wisely. The Seventh Curse has taken on the sheen of a cult
classic over the years, but The Cat has not fared nearly so well. Perhaps
unfairly.
If The Seventh Curse is a terrific B-movie, then
I would have to categorize The Cat as a reasonably enjoyable C-movie. It
has some wonderfully ludicrous moments and contains echoes of The Terminator,
The Blob and numerous low budget alien exploitation films from the 50s.
Lots of low rent special effects come your way that are too cheesy not
to appreciate on some level and the film rarely slows down for a moment
unless it is to focus in a nearly fetishistic manner on the sweat dripping
off of Christine Ng (Wiselys girlfriend) in a truly odd selection of camera
shots! This film may also have one of the greatest fights in HK film
between a cat and a dog that is. Animal lovers beware!
Wisely is brought into the odd case by a friend
who has been kept awake at night by the pounding of his upstairs neighbors.
He knocks on their door only to be met by the strange appearance of an
elderly gentleman (Lau Siu-ming) and a lovely but vacant looking young
woman (Gloria Yip) holding her black as night cat. After they depart one
day, he finds bloody intestines in their apartment and calls in Wisely
and a police friend (Phillip Kwok) to investigate.
After a museum theft of an ancient mysterious
object in which numerous guards are horribly murdered, Wisely tracks down
the secretive couple, but is nearly killed by their ferocious cat. He later
decides that the best way to fight a cat is to get a dog and he finds
one of the most enormous dogs imaginable. This leads to a scene that is
incredibly bizarre even by HK film standards as the two animals battle
it out for what must have been ten minutes ripping into one another with
the force of a freight trains that would have many Americans picketing
the movie theater. Now I am used to most humans in HK films knowing kung
fu but not a cat! This cat is a kung fu master and performs some amazing
stunts and though this cat claims to do all his own stunts I am reasonably
sure I detected some stunt cat doubles being used. In truth, there are
clearly often puppets and other cinematic means being utilized and I
am sure no cat or dog was hurt filming this movie. Uh-huh.
Wisely finally realizes that he has been fighting
the good aliens who have been sent from a distant star to stop an evil
alien from destroying the earth. Only the cat that Wisely did his best
to
kill can save the world. This alien can possess humans though their
eyeballs tend to pop out but it is also growing monstrously fast blob
like tentacles all very gooey and it is sucking people in like melting
Popsicles can the world be saved? If ever you find yourself in the mood
for a fun and totally low budget HK sci-fi film of which there are very
few this might fit the bill.
My rating for this film: 6.0