Ebola Syndrome (1996)

Makes "Outbreak" look like monkey business

Hong Kong, 1986: Kai (Anthony Wong) is sleeping with the boss's wife while her little girl stands out front. The boss suddenly comes home and catches them. He beats Kai, forces his wife to pee on him and then attempts to castrate the adulterer--Jerry Springer would be proud. Kai suddenly reverses the blade and kills the boss, wife and employee, while leaving the traumatized little girl soaking in gasoline when someone comes in just in the nick of time.

Johannesburg, South Africa, 1996: Kai is now working in a restaurant after fleeing China. The new boss's wife thinks he's no good but the boss says it's hard to find cheap labor, so they put up with him. Though she might just be right as he spits and ejaculates in food, as well as treats customers like they're doing him the favor of eating there. Kai carries a terrible smell around with him and can't get laid by white women nor Asian, even with cash in hand. The boss and him visit an out of reach African tribe called Zulu to secure some pigs at a cheap price and on the way back Kai decides to take advantage of a woman who just looks at first drunk. Yet, when she convulses and spits in his face he comes down with something that would play out quicker than AIDS. Kai contracts the organ-melting Ebola virus, yet with the exception of a high fever doesn't have the other symptoms as it turns out he's an incredibly rare carrier type. Soon enough things go for the sleaziest with rape, murder and then serving up the chopped up meat to patrons at the restaurant in the form of "African Buns" that look like hamburgers. After an outbreak of the Ebola virus at Kai's unsanitary hand, he heads back to Hong Kong with cash taken from the dead boss and a fresher smell. The sleaze continues when he picks up prostitutes and they contract the virus. With an outbreak on the rise, HK detectives--with the help of the little girl now grown up--start to back-track to find the man responsible for now bringing havoc to China.

There have been rapists and murderers in other films aplenty, though not many movies include the mentioned and then also have the guy feed human meat to unsuspecting humans, and then none that I know of that includes a real known virus--zombie films don't count--to spread his destructive behavior even further. It's an all time low for the human species, but an all time high for ways to single handedly reap devastation. The film has some shocks but one thing it lacks is suspense, as the camera focuses too much on Kai's character for his every move and even the element where the good guys attempt to stop him is delayed to see more carnage. Essentially what the audience gets is more of the bloody disgusting and less heroics that other films are dominant with when it comes to amoral subjects. The experience sails over the top due to the score card for the villain being nearly a shut out for the good guys.

If you're looking for sharp acting and crisp dialogue you won't find that here. The full uncut version I'm reviewing is for a Dutch DVD that includes terrible English subtitles that sometimes don't even make sense as some appear to be translated as is. Though the story isn't likely to get confusing. This has an extremely odd sense of humor at times, that ranges from somewhat light to pitch black. Wong makes some of the most ridiculous faces while doing his deplorable deeds. The events unfold more straightforward than "Untold Story." Wong plays a degenerate in both films, though he's more of just a perverted slacker than the goal-oriented, manipulative sociopath he was in "Untold Story." In both cases still a scumbag by any stretch. Though his performance in that film held more mysteriousness for what he'll do next and was more effectively creepy as such. What "Ebola Syndrome" did do better is it included a more consistent tone where the humor isn't entirely goofy to the point of distracting. This again plays on how much trust we give to people handling and serving our food to the point of making you give a few more glances at who's prepping your meal next time out. Not to mention it takes it further by making public places a hazard, where viruses and diseases are rampant and just a sneeze away from being infected and meeting a violent end.

Rating: 7/10

Director: Herman Yau (Taxi Hunter, The Untold Story)
Stars: Anthony Wong
Links: IMDB

The Untold Story (1993)

Brutal, yet goofy

This movie truly has an odd atmosphere with cheesy stock synthesizer music, mixed with goofy humor and then to contradict all that it includes brutal murder, sneaky cannibalism and a vicious rape. This opens up with a man getting his head smashed against a wall and burned alive from a heated gambling feud. The perpetrator changes his name and appearance and heads from Hong Kong to Macau. Fast forward eight years later to 1986, at the shore of a beach where severed arms and legs are found and detectives are called in to investigate. The film uses a framing technique that has a different tone on both sides, where you get to see somewhat silly plain clothes detectives fumbling around with evidence as if it's their first day on the job, and then on the other side the character Wong Chi Hang (Anthony Wong) seems like a dead-serious, manipulative and disturbing person that runs the Eight Immortals Restaurant. He cheats at gambling, tries to get a lawyer to break the law and then kills a worker on a whim for spreading rumors about him--a real class act. Since they don't waste anything in China, why should a killer, too? He starts to chop up the body and make barbeque "pork" buns with human meat as the secret ingredient for the patrons at the restaurant. "Hey fatso! You like the barbeque buns?" Wong asks a customer who responds back with glee: "Delicious! I can't stop eating them."

About the only technical crime work the cops do is get a clue from fingerprints from the severed arm at the beach that leads them to the restaurant. Unlike all these CSI type shows on TV in the modern day, this isn't going to be heavily or even moderately researched at that on the crime aspect. Wong worked at the restaurant prior and then apparently took it over by buying out the previous owner Cheng Lam. Currently a fearful woman has worked there for only two months and just thinks of him as a nasty boss. The head inspector isn't completely fooled by the charming man on the surface who feeds the rest of the detectives with his special barbeque buns. They stake him out and wait for a suspicious move. Soon enough he throws out evidence and they're on him just before he tries to flee. The latter half takes place in a prison and then a hospital where Wong gets beaten by inmates and then cops. Now, I'm not sure if there's a rivalry going on with the providences of Macau and Hong Kong, figuring this takes place in Macau but was financed and mostly shot in the HK. Similar to every other time a Japanese guy is in a Chinese film he's made to be entirely cruel or inferior. It seems a little past the point of poetic license as the supposed good guys here, being the Macau police, are made to be almost clueless at times, with not wanting to do their job at first, mistreating female coworkers to the point of harassment, the lead inspector taking credit for his underlings as well as being loose with prostitute-like dressed woman that he brings to work, and then instead of finding real clues they use brute tactics and manipulation to get him to confess.

Like some other Hong Kong films, "Untold Story"--aka "Human Pork Chop"--doesn't always stick to its genre type or smoothly blend the multiple tones together, so there might be some misplaced humor to an unaccustomed westerner. It's been like that since the day and age of chop socky, where a serious and violent duel will take place and the very next scene will be a slapstick one. With "Untold Story," it's hard to tell if you should be light heartedly laughing or afraid, or both at the same time. The tone is really that up in the air, and it seems that both directors had a different way they wanted to make it and compromised with both ways at once. Though what makes the experience different than the usual crime fare is you're not always sure who to root for. The bad guy is someone you'd never want to meet in person but yet you can't keep your eyes off of what he'll do next, even if it involves innocent people getting killed--give us more!

The cops aren't done a service here and are essentially written to lighten the load. They also fall kind of short on keeping the mystery and crime angle intriguing. Anthony Wong plays Mr. Wong with a totally changed persona if you've seen some of his other films. He portrays a degenerate who leeches off of other people in the most extreme sense and they make him entirely creepy while at it. When this movie gets down to the dirty stuff, it does deliver, whether it be with a cruel rape scene that doesn't involve the usual penetration but still the humiliation, to not hesitating when killing little children with blood spray to show for it. I remember first seeing this back on a grainy VHS tape, which made it even more sordid. Though the scenes with carnage are the main things that got seared into my head. When I picked it up on DVD and started to pay attention, some of the other things going on here aren't that memorable and as a result it's not something that thoroughly flows in the most gravitating order it could have when it comes to replay value. First time around: remembered for being horrific and unsettling. After that: you'll wish there was more to it on all fronts.

Rating: 6/10

Director: Danny Lee, Herman Yau
Stars: Anthony Wong, Danny Lee, Emily Kwan, Fui-On Shing
Link: IMDB