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ExTrEmE HongKong
History of Category III &
Instructions on how to make a Category III film. |
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There is A word to characterise most of the
'Category III' movies, and this word is INSULTING. Let's have a look at the definition
from the dictionary: all that undermines the honour or the dignity of a person.
Chinese directors might be laughing a lot whilst reading this definition. |
WARNING: If you are not over 18 years old click here
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Some Chinese directors always try to go further, never wondering about
the moral and its limits, and some like it like that...
History of Category III
Category III corresponds to a rating in HK
that forbid a movie for people under 18 years old because of its graphic sex and violence
content. However, no censorship is generally undertaken on a movie once rated 'category3'.
The origin of the category III is apparently to be searched back to the seventies. At this
time, appearance of Italian thrash productions, i.e. The Mondo Cane, mixed reality
shows with morbid films showing real images of tortures or deaths... Then a wave of
Italian gory productions were produced such as Cannibal Holocaust by Ruggero
Deodato or Anthropophagous, in which a man ends up eating his own intestines. HK
producers saw in such productions that a lot of profit could be made with very little
money.
The Shaw Brothers film company, the company that produced Chang Cheh features, started a
few erotic and gory movies like Blood Thirsty Dead by Sun Chung or Spirit of the
Raped. Chang Cheh former assistant Kuei Chih-Hung made violent and disgusting movies,
e.g. The Killer Snakes. Then, some Chinese producers proposed a kind of 'snuff
movie': Shocking Asia. But the film Camp 731 in 1990 was the real starting
point for category III. Camp 731 (aka Man Behind The Sun) is a movie between
documentary and fiction that proposed what we had never seen on screen: rapes, tortures,
gore, autopsy.
 The objective was clearly to make the most shocking movie in the
history of the cinema.
This was pretty successful, and the HK producers would not stop there. Indeed, they made
more and more money with chain-produced 'psychokillers' and broke the last taboos (e.g.
don't kill women, animals or children).
Such films can be easily recognizable with titles using one or several of the following
words: sex, naked, kill, darkness, red, blood... (e.g. Red to Kill, Naked Killer!).
Instructions
on how to make a category III film
The HK cinema goes far beyond limits for the pleasure of fans of category III in search of
strong sensations. It is the last place in the world where one can find a degenerated and
censorship-less cinema. The Category III cinema is generally built on the following model:
1 / Choose the right director
and the right actors. It is usually the same guys: Herman Yau, Bosco Lam or Billy Tang for
the directors, Anthony Wong or Simon Yam for the actors, Amy Ip or Lolleta Lee or Diana
Pang for the actresses, plus many anonymous actresses who are there to show bottom and
tits and scream or cry.
2 / It is always necessary to
show more than the other movies. You have to be the most original: rapes on mentally
handicapped persons (Red To Kill), burning children (Run and Kill),
beheading (Ebola Syndrome) or enucleations or other things always more gooooore (Ricky
Ho). The more the better!
3 / Directors shouldn't miss
some elements appreciated by aficionados. When the audience enjoy a particular stuff, give
it to them more and more. For instance, scenes depicting cannibalism were a trend in
'psychokillers' after the success of Bunman, The Untold Story, one of Anthony Wong
worst deeds.
 4 / The rapist scene is a classic
and is essential. In all the cases the girls must be naked because the majority of the
viewers are male. Turned over, cut out, eaten, slave: that's the way Chinese women are
treated in Category III (e.g. An Erotic Ghost Story, A Chinese Torture Chamber, Sex And
Zen).
5 / A Category III movie
should last 90 min. maximum. Such movie is generally quickly shot (8 days!). Even if the
HK film industry is known for its anarchistic shootings, (with a day to day script writing
and subsequently no storyboarding), light, pace and editing are of first importance. The
film is generally divided into three parts: a shocking introduction, then a long
development of non-sensical comedy and little eroticism, and an ending where violated are
avenged and killers killed.
So forget Brain Dead or
Evil Dead, they are jokes! You don't have to think to appreciate these films.
Definitively irresponsible, disgusting, stupid, inadmissible but as said in the Wes
Craven-first-feature prologue, i.e. The Last house On The Left, it is only cinema!
To illustrate this
introduction, I choose to talk about two very different films: Rikki O aka Story Of Ricky (fun, flesh and blood) and Sex And Zen (period eroticism and sexy comedy).
Two films, two approaches on
category III...
Written by Master Cyco, June 2000.
Freely translated by Thomas.
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