Step right up, ladies and gentlemen! We've got rape, we've got gore and we've got obnoxious misplaced comedy. Iiiiitt's Ivan Lai's Daughter Of Darkness, obviously rated Cat III if anyone was ever doubting. Have I got your attention now, readers? This version, if my understanding is correct, reinstates a fair amount of footage, previously unavailable on dvd, into the cut Hong Kong censors felt satisfied with.

Captain Lui (Anthony Wong) finally gets a case in the small village where he's stationed. It's a crime involving the brutal slaughter of a family and with his new assistant (Money Lo from Red To Kill), they begin to untangle what led up to this grisly act of violence. Their investigations leads them to questioning Fong (Lily Chung, also in Red To Kill), the only surviving member of the dead family. She claims she has an alibi but when her boyfriend Kin (Ng Do Yung from Jiang Hu - "The Triad Zone") is arrested, suspected of the killing, Fong finally admits and sits down to reveal the true story...

In many respects, Daughter Of Darkness II is a straight remake of this first installment, even down to the execution of certain shots. This fact means that the reviews for the films will bear the same traits and quality wise, the films are pretty equal. Again, Ivan Lai has done a film for the male audiences primarily (with features such as softcore sex, silly comedy and gore) but I have to give him credit again for managing to inject a nice dark atmosphere into the piece where needed. The opening frames clearly showcases that with it's stillness and the effective reveal of the prison cell. Cut to....Anthony Wong's cop character goofing around! As usual, mixing the dark and comedic elements doesn't really work but it was apparently a staple of Cat III cinema that didn't need fixing. Only Billy Tang's Run And Kill managed to be genuinely funny, in a very dark sense.

The fact that we have Anthony in a main role does help in the pacing department somewhat. He has fun and projects that with his energetic performance. It's all rather tasteless humour overall but at least there was 3 laughs on record in Daughter Of Darkness. Compare that to the sequel that only had one! I did like that Wong's character, while being very outrageous, seems to know what he's doing and has good instincts about solving crime. His methods may be unconventional at first glance, immoral even (he fondles a corpse to determine how long ago she died!), but in the end he has made several important steps forward in the investigation via his way. It has to be said though, despite Wong's starpower and sense of fun, the trip towards the real meat of the story is a long one. Dialogue is tiresome even with this simple plot and the funniest bits comes only physically from Wong. When talking, most of the time, he is as boring as anyone else on screen. Finally around the 40 minute mark, the push in on Lily Chung's face leads us into the flashback scenes of Daughter Of Darkness. The scenes telling the story we've been waiting quite impatiently for. The story with rapes, erotic scenes, melodrama and gore.

Here we can begin talking about actors performances and I think Ivan had a spot on instinct when casting Lily Chung. Oh no, she's not a particularly great actress and can't rival the fierceness of Cheng Yim Lai in the sequel but her sweet, innocent look really compliments the bullied character of Fong. A girl with dreams about to come true with the help of boyfriend Kin but shattered at the hands of the bullying family of hers, for a reason totally unfair. Unfair is the feeling the viewer will be left with after finishing Daughter Of Darkness also. Ivan gives Kin and Fong enough development and attention for us to feel for them. We're hoping for something better for her in particular but ultimately she's given very little of what she deserves. That 'little thing' is the comeuppance of her bullies. In a way, for me, the most disturbing scenes are those with verbal abuse of Fong by the mother (she nowhere near redeems herself when she objects to the rape of Fong by the father, played suitably over the top evil by William Ho), sister and brother even if the two rape scenes stand out more in actuality.

Herman Yau, director of The Untold Story, once talked about the inclusion of rape scenes in Cat III movies as a commercial aspect. Asian audiences apparently liked watching humiliating scenes like this and it's truly a sad comment to hear. That comment applies more to this era than it does nowadays however. If you're going to feature rape in this film, letting us watch Fong being degraded like this, there better be consequences for the man, in this case her father. Comeuppance was the word I used and while violence isn't the legal solution. Fong's been driven to that point where there's no other way than to punish hard. If the rape scenes excite you, that's your thing (General Kwan will deal with you...) but they aren't made as entertainment in my opinion, which the comment by Herman Yau sounded like.

By the time we reach the climax, the final 20 minutes or so, this genre piece finally reaches it's keeper status. Ivan delivers a decent finale in terms of gore (censor cuts still exists in this version) and because we do feel sympathy for Chung's character, it's rather sad to see her fate play out in the final frames. Ivan shows decent skill for lower key melodrama here and does end the story on a strong note. Comedy hasn't completely left the film and Anthony sneeks in a final good gag towards the end (falls asleep in the court room).

Why do we like these Category III rated flicks? Sick humour, sex and gore are commonly featured aspects and while rarely really good films, there is something unashamedly watchable about entries like Daughter Of Darkness. If you're curious about the genre, I always suggest starting with Dr.Lamb or The Untold Story before exploring any further. As a final note FOR fans, I personally give the edge to Daughter Of Darkness II because of the better finale and female lead.

Daughter of Darkness is disgusting and filled to the brim with gratuitous sex and violence. It's also quite funny and parts and quite chilling -- one of those few movies that is truly unique and a one-of-a-kind viewing experience, though only viewers with strong stomachs and twisted senses of humor will be able to enjoy it fully, if at all.

The movie follows the template of the "true crime" genre, in that we know about a horrible crime (and who committed it) from the beginning and then we piece together the story through flashback. Like many films of the genre, there is a good amount of dopey comedy featured here. In fact, the first half is very much played for laughs as Anthony Wong plays a bumbling and sleazy cop investigating a grisly murder. If you don't like the manic Hong Kong-style comedy, then most likely you'll be holding your head in disgust, but I found the stuff here pretty funny, mostly due to Anthony Wong's performance. Believe it or not, there was a time when he actually cared about his work (even in low-budget fare such as this) and he brings a nice bit of depth to a stock character.

As Anthony puts the puzzle together and brings his main suspect (Lily Chung) in, Daughter of Darkness switches into exploitation mode as Lily relates her story of abuse at the hands of her family -- which means we get to see a lot of the lovely Ms. Chung. Of course, many of the scenes in this part are brutal in nature and quite unsettling, but there are a couple of parts which are nicely erotic. Normally, sex-filled movies are quite boring to me (once you've seen a boob, you've seen them all), but the film-makers did a good job of balancing eroticism and exposition... and hey, Lily Chung does look awfully good naked.

The last part of Daughter of Darkness switches into full-on slasher mode, which is the one area where it falls a bit short. Sure, it's violent and there are oodles of blood and guts, but it's really not all that inventive. People get shot, people get stabbed, people get strangled, but there's nothing like, say, the bear trap in the face from the sequel. I would have liked the movie to take up the climax a notch to match the rest of the movie, and the Friday the 13th-esque antics just didn't cut it.

Overall, though Daughter of Darkness is a alternatively brutal, sexy and funny movie that's well worth your while if you want to explore the darker side of Hong Kong cinema.