Bizarre, wild, funny and macabre Cat III offering that uses the distance from the golden era of the rating's filmmaking to deliver something akin to fresh. Far from the graphic and offensive nature of movies like Daughter Of Darkness (among many others), director Stephen Yip actually gives us a character driven story made to work by the performances of Wong Hei and Hilary Tsui. Utilizing a simple starting off point of a harsh childhood as almost always seen in these films, he constructs a story between Dee and May that succeeds mostly in its outlandish ways but also manages to be affecting. Yip isn't out to rival any of the great character dramas obviously but out to make a mark in a genre where it's usually ok to not put in effort. Even his portrayal of the cops as fairly smart and intuitive is original for a Cat III slasher thriller. With only some unfortunate animal cruelty and overly repetitive cinematography choices to drag the grade down, Mad Stylist surprises, amuses, probably disgusts to a degree and affects. Kind of hard to believe and admit.

Watch out for the on-screen duet between Michael Wong and Kent Cheng, performing "Diana". Yes, it's that kind of movie where everything halts to concentrate on that!