Run and Kill (1993)

Expected more

An Exercise In Nonsense

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

RUN AND KILL (1993) - When returning home from work one day, Cheung (Kent Cheng) finds his wife having sex with the local grocer. In a state of shock, Cheung walks out and ends up at a sleazy bar to drown his sorrows. Having one too many, he unintentionally hires a local gangster to kill his wife. When he comes home the following day, men attack and kill his wife and her lover, leaving him in the frame for the murders. Cheung doesn't remember hiring the men but is soon reminded when they come calling for the rest of the money.Fleeing his apartment, Cheung hides out at the old family home in china, only to find his old neighbour and a group of professional killers held up there. The neighbour agrees to help Cheung with his trouble back home but proves to be a fatal mistake, leading to events that are far worse than he could imagine.Run and Kill is a bleak and gloomy CAT III classic from the 90's starring Kent Cheng as the extremely unlucky fatty Cheung who inadvertently runs into Simon Yam's psychopathic ex war veteran character, played here with his usual great charm. I did find Kent Cheng kind of annoying at first, and Danny Lee barely even has a role in the movie but still, Run and Kill deserves it's place as one of the CAT 3 classics from this period in HK cinema. Not wanting to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it but ending is worth watching the film for that scene alone, even if the dummy corpse looks more like a statue of a monkey!

RUN AND KILL is a pretty good HK action/drama with some notable scenes and performances. Basic story: All is well for "Fatty" until one day he catches his wife boning some other guy. Fatty goes to the local bar and gets all tore-up, where he meets a hooker who offers to set him up with someone who will "take-care" of Fatty's problem. Fatty unknowingly agrees ("unknowingly" because at this point he's too f'ed up to know what he's talking about...) and some guys murder Fatty's wife and her lover. Everything goes down-hill for Fatty at this point - and this is where RUN AND KILL starts to take off.All-in-all a good film with excellent performances by Simon Yam and Kent Cheng especially. Plenty of action and a decent story to keep the film going, but not quite as violent as I had expected. Other than 1 or 2 "rough" scenes, RUN AND KILL plays out as a pretty straight-faced crime/action drama, that to me almost doesn't deserve it's "notorious" Cat III status. The one scene that some will have issue with is the murder of Fatty's daughter, but anyone familiar with this genre of HK films will no doubt have seen worse in the past (notably THE UNTOLD STORY, EBOLA SYNDROME, etc...- there seems to be a lot of child murder in these off-the-wall HK films...). A good action film that's definitely worth a look - if you're looking for a blood-bath or horror film, this isn't it. 7/10

This Billy Tang vehicle is relentlessly grim and relentlessly entertaining. I love that.Fatty (Kent Chang) accidentally orders a hit on his wife and creates a huge debt for himself that must be repaid. Since Fatty can not repay it, others repay it instead -- with their lives.Watching a fat guy stress and sweat and fall in a blubbering heap is a highly entertaining experience that must be seen to be believed. The torching of a little girl by super-villain Simon Yam (in a superbly over-the-top performance) pushes the boundaries of on-screen depictions and the gloriously violent finale, where Fatty becomes an unstoppable monster, really delivers the chills.Danny Lee makes an appearance as -- what else? -- a cop, but he's as useful as pockets on a singlet and never manages to put so much as a dent in the gory proceedings.Director Tang was on a roll with this, RED TO KILL and DR. LAMB.This is mostly an action pic, but it also falls into the horror category simply because it doesn't know when to quit being grotesque. Love that, too.

Believe it or not, this film was intended as a dark comedy. And comedies don't get much darker than this. Hong Kong's master of depravity, Billy Tang, has made an exploitation film so far over the top that it's funny. The plot is fairly complex, actually, and ingenious in how it arrives at where it does. Fatty (Kent Cheng), tired of his cheating wife, mistakenly hires a triad to kill her. Upon her demise, he is presented with the bill, which he cannot pay. He seeks refuge with a band of former Vietcong mercenaries. When the one who has taken him in is killed by the triads, the dead man's crazed cousin (Simon Yam) seeks revenge on not only the triads but Fatty as well, whom he blames for his cousin's death. This all culminates in one moment so startling that it's shocking and funny at the same time. Let's just say it involves Fatty's 12 year old daughter and a lot of gasoline. I'm not sure anyone but Billy Tang could have gotten away with this film (for an even more depraved exercise, seek out his serial-killer-run-amok flick Red to Kill). A must for fans of twisted cinema.