In the 90s, Hong Kong's film industry was overly prosperous, and many actresses sought transformation in order to make breakthroughs in their careers.
Among them, the initiator was Ye Yuqing, the goddess of the film industry at that time.
She entered the industry as the third runner-up of the Asian sister beauty pageant and quickly signed with Asian TV to become a television actress.
However, due to the unsmooth development during the TV period, Xingtu has been tepid, which made Ye Yuqing transform in order to seek a career breakthrough.
In 1991, she launched three films in one go, known as the "Ye Yuqing Trilogy", namely: "Can't Help It" directed by Cha Chuanyi, "I'm Mad for Qing" directed by He Fan and "Qing Ben Beauty" directed by Yang Zhijian.
Three movies were released at the end of the year, and the result was more than 30 million at the box office, and Ye Yuqing became famous since then.
Ye Yuqing's successful transformation experience inspired many actresses whose acting paths were in a bottleneck period at that time, and at the same time drove the beauty pageant represented by Sister Asia and Sister Hong Kong to transform into a movie-making atmosphere, such as Chen Baolian, Weng Hong, Peng Dan and other actresses later did so.
But such a blockbuster case as Ye Yuqing is a minority after all, and in the Hong Kong film industry at that time, there was probably only the "Chung Shuhui Trilogy" that could compete with Ye Yuqing's trilogy.
Zhong Shuhui and Ye Yuqing's development path is very similar, also from a beauty pageant, is the winner of the Miss Universe 1987 beauty pageant, and was later signed by TVB as an artist, both an actor and a host, but has not developed smoothly and lacks famous masterpieces.
Since 1993, Zhong Shuhui has transformed into a number of strange case movies, which has opened the road of transformation, among which the three more influential films are: "The Sin Murder of the Gate Massacre", "The Murder of Brother for Skywalk" and "Weak Killing".
After their release at that time, these three films also successively achieved a box office of tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars (13.27 million, 9.47 million, and 9.48 million respectively), with a total of more than 30 million Hong Kong dollars, and the box office achievements were not inferior to the predecessor Ye Yuqing.
Not only that, this trilogy is also an important work in the history of Hong Kong strange case films, but at that time, the value and influence of the work were greatly underestimated. In this issue, the first thing to sort out is "Weak Killing", one of the trilogies.
This issue of "Forgotten Hong Kong Films" revisits this movie from 29 years ago -
"Weak Kill"
Red to Kill
The film was released in 1994 and produced by Martini Pictures in Hong Kong.
Director Deng Yancheng is a representative figure of Hong Kong strange case movies in the 90s, he came from a beautiful TV, as a TV director for many years, in the late 80s began to officially become a movie, the first famous director film "Bloody Angel", with a vivid and realistic violent plot and shock.
After this film, Deng Yancheng directed the American crime film "Dragon in the World", which not only promoted the only screen cooperation between the two superstars Stephen Chow and Jet Li, but also matched the marriage of Jet Li and Li Zhi.
In the early 90s, strange case movies swept Hong Kong and Taiwan, and Deng Yancheng returned to ATV at this time to direct a set of hit dramas "Hong Kong Odd Case". Therefore, compared with later Qiu Litao, Li Jiming, Cha Chuanyi and others, Deng Yancai is fully qualified to be known as the real "pioneer" of crime films in the 90s.
In 1993, Deng Yancheng joined Jin'an Pictures, founded by the famous businessman Sun Jing'an, and was later reorganized into Martini Film Company, specializing in directing strange case films, and successively filmed "Secret Files of the Mouse", "Killing Brother for Skywalk" and "Weak Killing" from 1993 to 1994.
All three films are known for their bizarre stories, thriller scenes, and strong "exploitation" colors, and although they are all low-cost productions, they have exceeded expectations at the box office, thus establishing Deng Yancheng's status as a "Hong Kong cult film director".
Back to this "Weak Kill", like "Killing Brother", it is also the biggest selling point for the audience with actress Zhong Shuhui as the biggest selling point for attracting the audience, Sun Jingan as the producer and producer, and screenwriter Huang Haohua is now the most famous masterpiece is the "Anti-Corruption Storm" series starring Koo Tianle.
Another heroine of the film, Lu Minyi, is a female artist from TVB, she later married the producer Sun Jingan, so she appeared in the films produced by Sun Jingyi with a very high rate, including the "Zhong Shuhui Trilogy", but compared to Zhong Shuhui who often plays the image of a vulnerable woman who is bullied in the film, Lu Minyi's role is much more positive, mostly as a policewoman, lawyer or social worker.
The villain of this film is ATV-born actor Wu Yijiang, who later switched to TVB but his development was blocked, so he entered the film industry, but he could only play some villain type roles. "Weak Kill" is his masterpiece in this type of film, interpreting the image of a demon who looks Sven on the outside and hides on the inside.
Speaking of the story, the title of this film indicates that the story is adapted from a real case, aiming to awaken the public's attention to marginalized people represented by mentally handicapped people.
In those years, a young girl with mental disabilities was assaulted by gangsters. However, because the girl had a congenital intellectual defect, the confession was not recognized by the court, and the gangster was eventually acquitted, and director Deng Yancheng made the movie "Weak Killing" based on this.
Although the director pointed out the social significance of the film at the beginning of the film, as a strange case movie, the film is still inevitably exploitative and curious, and the story revolves around the murder of a girl in red in a public house.
The opening scene of the film is extremely exciting, and the director uses two parallel clips to tell the story of two murders that occurred in a public housing house in Hong Kong. Public housing is a frequent scene in Hong Kong movies, because the complex number of occupants and the poor security measures often become a hotbed of crime.
One night, a woman in red entered a public housing building, only to be suddenly attacked by a mysterious murderer, who assaulted and killed her.
In another period of time and space, in a disabled family in a public housing, a mother often felt great pressure and discrimination from the people around her because her child was mentally handicapped, and finally overwhelmed and chose to commit suicide by jumping off the building with her child.
This tragic scene happened to be witnessed by Ah Le (played by Lu Minyi), a young female social worker who rushed to persuade the mother and son.
These two scenes from different times and spaces are edited together in parallel, leading to two core conflicts in the story: the appearance of murderers in public housing who specifically assault young women in red; Discrimination and unfair treatment of people with disabilities in front of the public.
The other protagonist of the story, Ming Ming (played by Zhong Shuhui), is a mildly mentally handicapped girl with birth defects, and his parents suddenly suffered an accident, leaving Ming Ming unable to live alone.
Ah Lok, a female social worker, took Ming Ming with her to settle into a shelter for the disabled in the community, which had recently moved to a public housing building. Local residents complain about this, believing that the recent repeated murders in public housing are related to these people with disabilities who are not welcomed by society.
Ah Le will obviously entrust the staff of the shelter Chen Yawei (played by Wu Yijiang) to help take care of him, with a polite appearance, and takes good care of many disabled people in the shelter.
When the mentally immature Ming encountered molestation by someone with bad intentions, Chen Yawei also came forward to protect Ming Ming.
But no one expected that Chen Yawei, who acted righteously in front of outsiders, was the murderer of the murder of a woman in public housing.
It turned out that Chen Yawei had witnessed his mother cheating with others when he was a child, and murdered his father together, and then his mother died tragically because of an accident, and he happened to be wearing a red dress when he died.
As a result, Chen Yawei deeply hated young women in red clothes in his heart, so he committed many murders.
And living in the shelter, Ming Ming began to learn to dance under the careful care of the staff, often wearing red skirts, which led to the evil thoughts in Chen Yawei's heart, and finally Chen Yawei's bestial seizure would obviously violate it.
When the female social worker Ah Le found out that she had been violated, she asked about her and persuaded Zhiming to take Chen Yawei to court.
However, she obviously had a mental defect and could not answer questions normally, coupled with the shame in her heart, she did not dare to return to the aggressive questions of the opposing lawyer, so that Ming Ming eventually lost the case, and Chen Yawei escaped the punishment of the law.
Obviously more hit by this, in order to help Ming Ming take revenge, Ah Le decided to take advantage of Chen Yawei's weakness and took the initiative to wear a red dress to seduce and tease the other party, wanting to stimulate the other party's bestial desires and take the opportunity to take the evidence, but Chen Yawei did not take the bait.
Unexpectedly, when Ah Le took Ming Ming to leave and return to his residence, he met Chen Yawei, who fell into a state of madness.
Two weak women face the physically fit, uncontrolled murderer, and the two sides start a fierce fight. In the end, Ah Le relied on outwitting Chen Yawei to a lathe and executed the murderer with a chainsaw.
This is the end of the story of the movie.
"Weak Killing" has the usual elements of Hong Kong strange case movies in the 90s, with shocking plots, raw and bold stories, terrifying atmosphere, critical social issues, and extreme exploitation of female characters and heavy violent scenes.
In this film, director Deng Yancheng's ambition is not small, trying to use a bizarre case to show social issues, and the film's display of various discrimination encountered by marginalized people with disabilities in society is indeed thought-provoking. A lot of space is devoted to describing the misunderstanding and prejudice of ordinary people against people with IQ deficiencies, believing them to be unstable factors in society.
Hong Kong strange case films are keen to place characters in a number of extreme environments, emphasizing the suppression and distortion of human nature by the external environment. Perhaps every viewer can see things from God's vision, but in real life, who does not shy away from people with disabilities? And this is precisely the most realistic part of this film.
Another impressive thing about this film is the tragic battle at the end of the film, which is not inferior to Qiu Litao's movie. The villain murderer played by Wu Yi is very prominent, and his perverse and violent temperament is not inferior to Huang Qiusheng and Ren Dahua. From the honest Sven social worker who wore gold wire glasses at the beginning to the murderer who was crazy and out of control and shaved his hair in the second half, he performed the twisted sickness and heartlessness of the abuser Ah Wei, which can be called the acting responsibility of the whole film.
However, the problem of "Weak Killing" is still the common problem of such movies, there are too many exploitative violent plots, the narrative is rough and sloppy, such as the courtroom scene in the movie and the trial process are relatively child's play, Chen Yawei and the defense lawyer were released on the spot almost effortlessly, and the story turns too quickly and seems illogical.
But overall, "Weak Killing" is an underrated work in the field of Hong Kong strange case films in the 90s.
After this film, the heroine Lu Minyi married producer Sun Jingan, and director Deng Yancheng gradually bid farewell to the strange case movie genre and turned to shooting gangster crime films, launching works such as "Black Hell Broken Intestine Song", "Ciyun Mountain Thirteen Taibao" and "Hao Jiang Fengyun".
After the millennium, Deng Yancheng also chose to go north like many Hong Kong directors, and his most well-known works are a series of TV movies shot for CCTV Movie Channel, including "The Legend of Lu Xiaofeng", "Dart in the World", "Chasing the Murderer in the Line of Fire", etc., which have now become classics in the memories of many young audiences.
On July 1, 2020, Deng Yancheng passed away in Hong Kong at the age of 69, and a generation of strange case movie heroes became a thing of the past.
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