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APRIL 20 VHS MOVIE REVIEW : THE SEXY KILLER (1976)
Sex, drugs and violence as only the Chinese can do it. When her sister Wanjing is found raped, naked and unconscious from a drug overdose in a discoteque/drugden, Wanfei (Chen Ping) makes it her mission in life to kill every drug dealer she can get her hands on (She says, "Drugs, drugs, I hate it so much!"). She pretends to be a drug-addicted hooker named Sally (apparently, "Sally" also means "kill me" in Cantonese) and picks up a man called "Third Brother" (these are literal translations from the English subtitles, so bear with me) and offers to have sex with him as long as he brings her to his drug lab and gets her high. Once there, she gets topless and stabs Third Brother to death with her bracelet, which transforms into a double-bladed knife. She then kills two other workers after finding out that Long Tou (Chan Shen), also known as Brother Ma, was the man who raped her sister and made her a brain-dead addict (we see her sister in a psych ward room, a drooling, babbling basketcase). Brother Ma's boss (he has no name, everyone calls him "Boss"), a drug kingpin with a limp, thinks a rival organization called the Red Cabinet is responsible for the recent destruction of several of his labs and orders his men to bribe more cops and get the skinny on the perpetrators. Wanfei is unaware that her politician boyfriend, He Jingye (Sze Wei), is also a drug dealer, even though he's an anti-drug crusader on TV. Wanfei's close friend, police officer Deng Weipin (Yuen Hua), also known as the "Drug Smasher", seems to be the only honest cop on the force. Every time he gets a good tip on a drug deal, some crooked cop will call up the bad guys and he looks like a fool when he goes to make a bust. When Deng goes on a bust at He Jingye's house and turns up nothing (thanks to crooked cop's tip-off), Wanfei accuses him of being jealous of her relationship with He Jingye (he actually is a little bit!). Deng's old cop boss, Leifan, now works for the "Boss" and tries to bribe Deng into joining them, but he throws the money back at Leifan and tells him, "You get yourself a good coffin with this money!" Five men with pantyhose on their heads attack Deng and Wanfei with miniature shovels and pipes and Brother Ma cripples Deng with a blow to the head (He says, "Drug Smasher? Potato masher!"). Wanfei then goes after Brother Ma, tricking him into taking her to the Boss' whorehouse, where she talks Brother Ma into setting up a meeting with the Boss. When she meets him at his home, she attempts to kill him, but fails. She is captured and finally learns of her boyfriend's betrayal. Luckily, she doctored Brother Ma's drug stash, so when she gets a hot shot, it's harmless. She then goes on a one-woman killing spree and saves her boyfriend for her final victim in the way-out conclusion. This hyper-kinetic Shaw Brothers production, directed by Sun Chung (THE DEVIL'S MIRROR - 1972; BIG BAD SIS - 1976), is chock-full of violence, nudity and an anti-drug stance that, for lack of a better word, is comical. Wanfei's sister becomes a blubbering, brain-damaged mental patient after only one fix and everyone shown doing drugs is either a hooker, gang member or a disco-loving sweat monkey. Ignore the film's simplistic, moralistic politics and just wallow in the sleazy fun and violence. The most off-the-wall character here is Brother Ma, as his fey, gay-like characteristics disguise an interior that can best be described as animalistic. He not only rapes Wanjing, he hits on every woman he meets, even if all his physical actions and body movements make him look like a total flamer. This film also takes a dim view of the police where, besides Deng, all the other cops are crooked or buffoons (one cop even says to Deng that he's crooked because he gets paid so little for being a cop). There are a lot of visual highlights here, especially the way they hide Wanjing's pubic hair from the camera (by using Brother Ma's excited fist to hide the offending body part). There's also a pillow fight between Wanfei and whorehouse madam Lilly, the Boss whips one of his girls while watching porn on a super 8 projector (he also has a hidden S&M room where he attempts to rape Wanfei), one guy is thrown off a building with a noose around his neck (ala THE OMEN, filmed the same year) and Wanfei's erect nipples are prominently displayed in several close-up throughout the film. The finale, where Brother Ma attempts to rape Wanfei on a sewer pipe and the Boss whips some poor chained-up girl in his S&M room is classic Chinese cinema. After killing Brother Ma in the sewer, Wanfei drives a car through the Boss' living room, grabs a shotgun and begins blowing everyone away, which climaxes in a pretty nifty slow-motion waterbed explosion. She then goes to her boyfriends house and teaches him a painful lesson which he will never forget. This is the Hong Kong equivalent of the blaxploitation flick COFFY (1973, it's nearly a scene-for-scene rip-off!) or THRILLER: A CRUEL PICTURE (aka: THEY CALL HER ONE-EYE - 1974), although it's apparent that some of the nudity and more violent scenes, including He Jingye's death, have been edited. This is an extremely insane action film that should be seen by all. Also starring Hsu Hsia, Chiang Yang and Corey Yuen as one of the Boss' henchmen. A Celestial Pictures DVD Release. Not Rated. { text from critcononline.com }
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