Title: Run And Kill

Year: 1993

Director: Billy Tang

Reviewed By: Colin Odel and Mitch Le Blanc

Our hero, Fatty (everyone calls him that name, as you can guess he is a man of stature), catches his wife in flagrante with someone less rotund. Instead of coming up with an excuse she just tells him to push off! Dejected, he seeks solace in drink and becomes involved with a gang of unsavouries. His gutter-delivered drunken mumblings are misunderstood, and the next day our porky pal arrives home to find wifey and boogie boy together, and the Triad nutzoids about to fulfil the contract. The amorous duo are killed despite his protestations. Naturally the gang are miffed at his interference and want their dough, but our bumbling hero can't/won't cough up, so he leaves town. Staying at his secret pad are a band of fruitcakes led by prime headcase Simon Yam. Fatty persuades Simon�s demented brother to beat up the first (marginally less) psycho gang. Five billion chaotic twists and sub-plots later, the results is that everyone's out to get Fatty, particularly Simon who now has his brother�s funeral to contend with. The film then moves from yuppie nightmare into a whole new ball field of unpleasantness. Simon gets down to some very nasty revenge that is so deranged they haven�t found words for it yet. Needless to say the psychological effect on Fatty, forced to watch these events in gruesome detail while simultaneously contending with Simon�s outrageously poor puns, is immense. The stage is set for a Terminator style showdown of catastrophic proportions.

Billy Tang has a reputation for producing films that are a little �on the edge� even by Hong Kong standards. The plot summary alone of Red To Kill is enough to make most people blanch. But Run and Kill contains so many scenes of delirious insanity that even its tasteless sibling must take a bow. This is a sick little bunny of a film - initially fairly conventional, it quickly spirals into gore drenched madness. Simon Yam gives the performance of his life enacting revenge on Fatty for the death of his brother - despite the fact he didn�t have too much to do with it anyway. What makes this enjoyable though, apart from the diligent enthusiasm of all involved, is that it is so funny. Not in a belly laugh way but, as events escalate, the absurdity reaches such hysterical levels that the whole thing seems like Scorsese�s After Hours, only with more corpses and unimaginable violence. Add to that the plethora of Vietnam flashbacks, sinister hoodlums, real estate deals and a huge gang fight in a porno cinema and you have a delirious cocktail of a film - far better than its budget or reputation would lead you to expect. However, don't watch on a full stomach and don�t show this to elderly relatives...

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