Red to Kill (1994) Review

“Red to Kill” Chinese DVD Cover

Director: Billy Tang
Cast: Lily Chung Suk Wai, Ben Ng Ngai Cheung, Money Lo Man Yee, Andy Dai Chi Wai, Bobby Yip Kin Sang, Baat Leung-Gam, Simon Cheung Yuk-San 
Running Time: 91 min.

By Paul Bramhall

During the early to mid-1990’s the Hong Kong film industry took to adapting a number of shocking true crime tales, the result of which produced the likes of The Untold Story and Dr. Lamb, and indelibly left their mark on the cinematic landscape forever. Such productions understandably were stamped with a Category III (or Cat III as it’s commonly abbreviated) rating, the HK equivalent of a hard R, and such was their popularity that the rating itself came to be referred to as its own genre. While to the unacquainted true stories of victims chopped up and turned into pork buns and other such atrocities may seems like grim viewing, often such productions were quite the opposite, instead opting for an over the top approach which made the excessive blood and gore as entertaining as it was disturbing. One director who came to prominence from said genre would be the man who was affectionately known as ‘Bloody’ Billy Tang.

While Tang gave some indication as to the dark themes he’d increasingly explore with his 1988 debut Vengeance is Mine, it wasn’t until 1993’s Run and Kill that he left his stamp on the Cat III genre like a hammer to the head. A tour de force of desperation and violence featuring a psychopath played by Simon Yam turning Kent Cheng’s world upside down, Run and Kill features more than one scene were viewers mouths are likely to be left agape, and showed Tang as a director who was willing to go where others feared to tread. As expected, Tang would stick with the genre the following year, in which he’d direct Brother of Darkness, a spin-off of Ivan Lai’s Daughter of Darkness. However while Brother of Darkness is now largely considered a disposable entry in the Cat III oeuvre, it was Tang’s 2^nd movie of 1994 that got people’s attention once more with Red to Kill.

Similar to Run and Kill, Red to Kill is a movie that feels likes its reputation precedes it. Opening with onscreen text which unfortunately isn’t translated, the unusual sight of several exclamation marks can only leave one guessing that it’s some kind of warning to clock out now if you’re squeamish or easily offended. It would be a fair warning indeed, since Red to Kill is certainly a unique entry in the Cat III canon. Eschewing the usual over the top nature of its contemporaries, here Tang opts for a more grounded and realistic (at least in the context of Cat III shockers!) approach to proceedings, and the end result is a nasty piece of work that feels both grimy and relentlessly repugnant. That’s not necessarily to say it’s a bad movie, however it feels like an understatement to say that Red to Kill certainly won’t be for everyone, and is likely to only appeal to those who like their cinema to be particularly nihilistic and bleak.

Taking place almost entirely in one of Hong Kong’s tenement buildings, the opening juxtaposes two scenes together – in one we watch from the perspective of a lurking presence prowling the stairwell, eventually pouncing on a female waiting for the elevator and dragging her off to a secluded part of the building, where she’s killed and then raped. In the other scene we watch a mother in one of the upper level apartments threatening to jump from a window with her mentally disabled child. Clearly at the end of her tether and feeling like she has no support, the arrival of a social worker played by Money Lo (Mr. Fortune, Path of Glory) doesn’t come in time to stop her from jumping, landing in an explosion of the red stuff. There’re not many movies out there that can claim to cram murder, attempted rape, necrophilia, and a traumatic suicide into their opening minutes, but Red to Kill manages to tick all the boxes.  

The plot that emerges comes to involve Lo’s social worker, as she’s left to advise one of the mentally disabled members of the community who she cares for that their parents have passed away. Played by Lily Chung (Fatal Encounter, The Eternal Evil of Asia), she’s re-housed in the welfare shelter for the mentally disabled than Lo works at in the same building, where she begins to integrate and is able to pursue her love of dance. However with a murderous rapist prowling the corridors, the question is how long will Chung be able to stay out of harm’s way? The answer is until she wears a red dress, because as the title alludes to, it’s the colour red that sends Red to Kill’s perverted psychopath over the edge.

It’s not a spoiler to say that the psychopath is played by Ben Ng (Sex & Zen II, Devil’s Woman), clocking in a suitably memorable performance. Ridiculously ripped, imagine the torso of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime attached to a mentally unstable psycho that needs to get off whenever they see the colour red, and that gives some indication as to what an intimidating presence he makes for. Ng’s character could well have been teleported in from another, more self-consciously wilder Cat III exploitation flick, as his performance is arguably as over the top as his musclebound physique. However the fact that the sexual violence he indulges in takes place in a world attempted to be portrayed realistically only serves to make him feel even more evil.

Indeed the violence in Red to Kill is almost all of a sexual nature, and is often uncomfortable to watch. By the time Ng has inevitably got Chung cornered, the fact that we’re watching a hulking behemoth soaked in sweat energetically rape a mentally disabled character is only one of the triggering aspects of the scene. At one point Ng goes on a tirade during the act itself of how he just wants them to be together, during which the soundtrack switches to a romantic saxophone piece. Apart from the fact that yes, the scene goes on long enough to go through multiple soundtrack choices, this decision felt in bad taste even for a hardened Cat III aficionado like myself. By the time it immediately segues into another scene of Chung in the shower using a straight razor to unintentionally self-mutilate, there’s a distinct feeling that Red to Kill is being needlessly cruel for the sake of it, making it an invariably punishing watch. 

Similar to Simon Yam in Run and Kill, Tang crafts a finale which sees a sledgehammer wielding Ng become an unstoppable terminator like force of destruction, as Lo and Chung (naked except for a gown) attempt to take him down. There’s a gratuitous amount of painful looking falls as Ng throws them around like ragdolls, as everything from irons to smashed fluorescent light tubes to circular saws are utilised to finally bring his reign of terror to an end, and things get bloody. Very bloody. It’s a typically Tang-esque final showdown which packs in liberal amounts of collateral damage, and offers up a satisfying demise to one of the vilest characters to roam the world of Cat III shockers.

What can’t be argued is that Tang has put together a piece of work that gets under your skin, and will make most feel like they need to take a shower once the credits roll. The whole cast puts in committed performances, and unusually for a 90’s HK movie, the mentally disabled characters are never made the brunt of any jokes, even if they are played a little broad. The use of shadow and light is used effectively throughout, with the darkened stairwell and corridors bathed in blue hues establishing a foreboding atmosphere of dread and unease. The question really is if content alone is enough to constitute calling a movie ‘bad’? Red to Kill is basically about a violent rapist doing exactly that to a mentally disabled character, which I challenge anyone to not call out as offensive and morally repugnant.

Perhaps it’s because of this that Tang decided to shoot the story straight rather than indulging in the usual Cat III over the top bravado, and there are times in Red to Kill where he seems to have something legitimate to say about the way society treats the disabled. However whenever such moments appear they’re quickly smothered by the relentless nastiness that’s never far away, perhaps a sign of a director who wanted to go in a different direction (he’d never make another Cat III shocker after Red to Kill), but thought he should see out the genre that’d made him popular with a bang. It maybe speculation, but if that was the case then he certainly achieved his goal with aplomb. Red to Kill isn’t a movie I’m likely to revisit, but as a 90-minute endurance test of human degradation and sleaze, it certainly delivers.

Paul Bramhall’s Rating: 7/10