Census Bloodbath: Just Wait Till You Meet The Baker

Note: I do not have access to translated credits for this Cantonese-language slasher, so I am unfortunately unable to accurately credit who played which characters.

Year:
1985
Director:
Kuo-Jen Chung
Cast:
Chiang Huang, Ko-Ai Chiang, Kam-Cheong Cheng
Run Time:
1 hour 30 minutes

Plot: Hong Kong Butcher (AKA Xiang Gang tu fu) follows taxi driver Min, who is also a serial killer. He stalks, kills, and dismembers four female victims. That's it. That's the movie.

Analysis: Hong Kong Butcher is based on the real-life serial killer Lam Kor-wan, who killed four women in the area in 1982. While his murder spree made international headlines at the time, the first of at least two movies to adapt his exploits (the other major adaptation was Dr. Lamb in 1992) failed to garner the same kind of audience as the true story.

I can't say I'm shocked. Hong Kong Butcher was a tough sit for me. Sure, maybe it's the fact that this is the third Hong Kong movie in a row that I've watched which follows an impotent killer targeting sex workers. That would wear on just about anyone, I imagine. But the movie is also totally useless at being a sordid exploration of the underbelly of a major city.

While the contemplative opening credits (which largely follow unhoused people in Hong Kong and the ways that people react to them) seem to imply that there is some sort of reason that the filmmakers chose to tell this story, any pretense of thematic heft is dropped more or less immediately.

Instead, we are treated to endless, droning scenes of Min stalking various women, larded up with more than the recommended daily allowance of scenes where women hail cabs. While Hong Kong Butcher keeps threatening to flesh out the interesting side characters who randomly pop up around the killer, they inevitably wriggle free of the film's grasp after one or two scenes, never to be seen again. 

While some killer-focused movies can thrive by diving deep into the psyche of the central character, Hong Kong Butcher is uniquely disinterested in doing anything of the kind. It just seeks to titillate the audience with brief shots of dead naked women and goreless, underlit kills that defy the laws of physics, biology, and whatever other scientific disciplines happen to be available at the moment.

There is no interiority to this killer, and while that can be scary in and of itself (as in the one effective scene that implies Min has thoughts in his head, when he sits and stares at the ocean while waiting for night to fall), in this case it's just flat. 

There is simply no engine in Hong Kong Butcher. There is no texture to the killer, there is no thrust to the story (Min stalks two different women who he doesn't even kill, and who eventually wander off, presumably to call their agents), and it lacks the chaotic blend of genres that typically marks the Hong Kong slasher (though there is at least one genuinely funny moment where a bored sex worker is counting the minutes until she can be rid of a john).

Killer: Min

Final Girl: N/A

Best Kill: The final kill, of an unnamed student, is a little funny, I guess. Min puts his hand in the general area of her neck and chin, which isn't an action that I would really call "strangling," but she dies from it, so what do I know.

Sign of the Times: One of the victims' sisters wears shiny gold pants when she visits the police station to identify the body.

Scariest Moment: When stalking a potential victim, Ms. Kang, Min sits outside her door, preventing her from leaving.

Weirdest Moment: Min stops to bow at a shrine when he's breaking into a nightclub singer's house.

Champion Dialogue: “Go take a shower, you're stink."

Body Count: 4

1. Hsia is garroted, maybe with a seatbelt.
2. Maggie is killed offscreen.
3. Sleepy Sex Worker is slapped to death.
4. Student is strangled or something.

TL;DR: Hong Kong Butcher is a tedious slasher that disinterestedly follows a serial killer without much going on internally or externally.

Rating: 3/10