IslandGuru Who payed the critics

NekoHomey Purely Joyful Movie!

Ogosmith Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Rainey Dawn Sha chu chong wei translates to 'Breakout from Oppression' in English. It is an action-horror film from Hong Kong. This is not a film that is overrun with martial arts as the poster shows. It's actually a fairly creepy psycho slasher film to my surprise.I got this film in the Mill Creek Drive-in 50-pack. I didn't think much of the movie when I first started watching the film but I found the film to be "ok"... not a terrible horror film. It's not great but it is surprisingly watchable - pretty good.It's got a strange but groovy 1970s soundtrack. Some oddball scenes. An overall eeriness once you get into the story good and one crazy psycho jealous woman that is killing people slasher style.The movie does have entertainment value for horror fans. It is a surprisingly fairly interesting film.5/10

Wizard-8 Godfrey Ho and Joseph Lai didn't just make cut-and-paste ninja movies, they also made a number of movies with one clear story from beginning to end. This movie is kind of a strange one - it's never made clear where the events of the movie are taking place, for one thing (my guess is Taiwan.) There is also lousy dubbing as well as some goofy situations that make for some occasional unintended laughs. But for the most part, the movie is kind of dull and seems to be repeating itself more or less over and over until the action-packed climax (which has some similarities to the climax to the American movie "Friday the 13th"). If the rest of the movie had had the energy of the climax, we might have had something here. But as it is, the movie is only really for die hard fans of Asian movies who happen to be in a silly and forgiving mood. One last thing: While the IMDb currently claims this movie was made in 1978, the movie's copyright listing in the opening credits is actually for the year 1985.

capkronos Fresh from an eight-year prison stint after falsely being convicted of the the murder of her married lover, Fonda Chiu (Fonda Lynn) gets a new job as assistant editor of a newspaper, moves into a nice house in the country and tries to have a fresh start, vowing to keep her criminal background a secret. Everything's looking up for her socially, professionally and romantically, as she's making new friends, doing well at her job and begins dating her nice and understanding boss Simon (Alan Tam). Unfortunately, Fonda has also attracted the attention of a vengeful psycho who goes out of their way to make her life a living hell. Said nutjob is a jealous 17-year-old psycho-bitch named Sheena (Lona Chang), who works for the same newspaper as a secretary, victimizes her wheelchair-bound granny and tortures a male prisoner (the missing newspaper president) in the cellar of her home! Sheena also twists the head off her doll, kills animals (including chopping off chicken heads and hanging Fonda's pet monkey), tries to seduce Fonda's new man, beats someone to death with a flashlight, beats another guy over the head with a wrench, stabs a guy to death with a butcher knife and feeds a child a spring roll laced with broken glass! To make matters worse she's clever enough to implicate Fonda for her crimes, turning friends and coworkers against her.The version I saw was the one released on one of those 50 movie packs by Mill Creek Entertainment. The dubbing is pretty awful and the picture quality is equally bad, as they used a flat-looking, washed-out VHS-level print. However, the story itself is entertaining enough to make this worth watching regardless. It's also very fast-paced and seldom drags. The weaving of the current storyline with flashbacks is confusing at first, but the film adequately ties up all the loose ends by the end and is done with some competence. In other words, it all starts to makes sense if you hang in there long enough. The film also boasts quite a few entertainingly weird moments, such as when a shrieking monkey appears out of nowhere or when Fonda and a photographer (Jacky Lim) visit a crime scene and are suddenly attacked by some random madwoman with a butcher knife.Perhaps the most startling thing about this film is that if it were indeed made in 1978 then a very famous slasher movie completely ripped off the ending and hasn't been called on it. Ever heard of Friday THE 13TH? Here we get the female lead vs. the psycho on a beach. There's an overturned canoe nearby. They fight with oars. The psycho gets on top of our heroine and starts beating her head into the ground, and finally the leading lady grabs a machete off the ground, runs up to the psycho and chops her head off. The shots, editing and even use of slow-motion are completely identical and Fonda is even seen floating in a canoe the next morning when the police arrive! If I had to venture a guess, I'd say the year for this film is incorrectly listed here. I even think I heard snippets of Pino Donaggio's DRESSED TO KILL (1980) score being used, so this film was likely made sometime in the early 80s as opposed to 1978.

Flowbeer I found this title on a 50-pack of 'Drive -In' thrillers distributed by Mill Creek Entertainment. At first, I was disappointed because it seemed to be bad quality right from the start. The dubbing IS pretty bad and the lines & scenes happen so quickly, you're not sure what is happening, they just go from one thing to another, and you're supposed to be following the plot line, as fast as it goes! But the plot starts to become more obvious and you realize that the female lead, who just got out of prison, was given a job working for a newspaper. There is animosity from 2 other female co-workers, one who feels she got her job because of her looks and the other, who is jealous that the boss is asking the new girl out instead of her! So, there are some catty moments, but they scream so quickly in the English dubbing, it really takes concentration to hear all their lines - which usually end with a 'Hummpph!' in that cute 'Asian way' that we've come to expect from Chinese/Korean/Japanese ladies in many films. The boss is enamored with the new gal/ex-con, while the jilted employee seethes and plots some sort of destruction on one - or both of them! You will have to watch it to find out! But really, it's not a bad plot and the soundtrack is quirky, in a 70's kind of way. The direction isn't as bad as I thought at first, in fact it's typical of some of the newer Korean directors currently out there, with some dramatic imagery & effects. All in all, I thought it'd be crap but it turned into a neat little story worth finding, if you can! I doubt it's on DVD solo, I have mine on the 50-Drive-In set I bought off ebay for $18.99! I give it a 5 out of 10 ***** As in, average!