MIAO JIE HUANG HOU
(“Queen Of Temple Street”)
Production: Hong Kong, 1977
Director: Kuei Chih-Hung & Sun Chung
English release title: Assault: The Criminals Part IV
Category: Crime/Horror
Film #4 of a violent, exploitational 5-film series from Shaw Brothers, known collectively as The Criminals, which commenced in 1976 with the 3-episode Xiang Gang Qi An (“A Bizarre Case From Hong Kong”). Each film was comprised of two or more shorter films, based on a true Hong Kong crime story, high on sleaze and violence, and directed by one or more of the company’s main pulp film-makers. Miao Jie Huang Hou is the most harrowing of the series, and contains two episodes: Maniac by Chih-Hung Kuei (director of Killer Snakes and other deranged entries), and the title story by Chung Sun, who went on to direct the gory Human Lanterns in 1982. The title character of Maniac is a retarded psycho who kidnaps women for rape and torture; as well as nude bondage and whippings, there is one scene where a victim’s body and orifices are covered in milk and live ants. In Queen Of Temple Street, a man sells his wife into prostitution to cover a huge gambling debt; there are scenes of beatings and rape, and this unremittingly bleak episode ends with the woman’s blood-splattered murder by meat cleaver. Other films in the series were Xiongsha (“Murder”, 1976, also known as Homicides: The Criminals, Part II); Lao Ye Che Zong Huo Mou An (“Vintage Car Fireball Murder Case”, 1977, also known as Arson: The Criminals, Part III); and Jian Mo (“Rape Demon”, 1977, also known as A Teenager’s Nightmare: The Criminals, Part V). The title episode of Jian Mo was also directed by Chih-Hung Kuei, and is perhaps the most extreme in the whole series; it concerns a predatory rapist who directs his rage and violence at young, adolescent girls. The film’s other episode, Gun, is an ultra-violent crime spree recreated by director T. F. Mou Tun-Fei, who went on to produce the notorious Men Behind The Sun.
Posted by Graf Mitternacht
