Red to Kill (1994)

This movie represent one of my favorite movie. I enjoy the movie from the beginning and get tense to the end, I also laugh many times looking some idiots (mentally-retarded) face and action. The story is well plotted with a linear-increasing intensity of horror and gore. What I like most of this movie is all of the main actors (the protagonist and antagonist) are really good at acting. Ming-ming, the-mentally-retarded girl, really did her job as she should be. I watched with detail every action she did, and she really has the talent and look. Two thumbs up! She is also pretty and her smile also resemble the idiot smile which is rare to find such. Perfect role! Mr Cheng and Big Sister also do his action very well in the movie especially in the last intense and gory part of the movie. I also consider this movie different than usual movie I saw. Why? Because I saw the bad side (antagonist) is not easy to beat down. The fighting choreography is good, and almost realistic. There are no such thing as superhero, the hero (protagonist) here are just mere human that are both weak and easy to be wounded as in reality. See the end of the story and you will know why I does not say this is an ordinary fairy-tale movie with happy ending.This movie is worthy to be watched for you who like gory, realistic movies with funny, rape and nude scenes. Those who want a real-lifelike movie may enjoy this movie.

I'm just recovering from seeing one of the strangest category III releases I've yet clapped eyes on. Red To Kill is an unusual film about a man who rapes a girl from the retarded children home that he runs. Apparently the colour red sets him off and one night, when she comes to his room wearing red after a dance competition, he finally cracks and rapes her in the work area among the toy footballs. Later on he becomes slowly more insane, attempting to rape another co-worker and becomes stronger against the forces that try to smother him like some maddened shaven-headed hulk. He finally meets his demise at the hands of his co-worker while the retarded girl is left with a brain haemorrhage and eventually dies.Red To Kill really is a strange piece of work. The storyline is unrelentingly bleak and the film's pessimistic conclusion with Ming Ming lying dead on her hospital bed actually had me laughing through disbelief. This film start scarily, climaxes through a grim and gory fight scene and ends on an extremely depressing note. I have to hand it to the director for not pulling any punches with this one.It really needs some work on a couple of points though - firstly the soundtrack, which is dreadful. The film is filled with pseudo-poignant Asian songs which seem to go down a treat over there but here in Europe come across as awfully naff. Some of these sound so dated and out of place that it's almost impossible to take the 'sad' scenes seriously. As well as that, something must have gone wrong on the transcription from master tape to DVD since the music drops pitch occasionally, which sounds like someone messing about with an old record player, and it really is very amusing.The second point that needs work it the 'retard' acting which is similarly risible in places. Some of Ming Ming's friends - also retarded - are just bad actors flailing their arms about and making silly faces. Especially in the final scene when Ming Ming dies I noticed one attacking a hospital screen out of grief - retard grief apparently. It really is quite silly.Overall Red To Kill is a good piece of exploitation though miles below other rape films like Irreversible. If you think the first hour is bad then stick with it - the last 20 mins are definitely worth waiting for. If you're a fan of these kind of films I'd certainly recommend taking a look at this, even though you may not be able to keep a straight face all the way through.

"Red To Kill" is a controversial Cat III film from Hong Kong's "Billy" Tang ("Run and Kill", "Dr. Lamb"). It's uncompromising stuff - the treatment of its subject matter is bordering on being extremely tasteless but I found the director managed to keep the film on the right tracks thanks to moving and realistic performances by the main actors.Briefly, the movie tells the tale of a psychopathic rapist who just happens to be a doctor in a home for people with learning difficulties, and a girl, Ming-Ming, who is living in the home. The sight of the colour red sends the mad doc' into a murderous, sex-crazed rampage and the results are pretty strong and not for those of a nervous disposition."Red To Kill" isn't a "feel good" movie and you may indeed feel like a hot shower after viewing it. I felt more than a little dirty that I had enjoyed the film...be warned - it doesn't pull its punches....Worth checking out if you're a fan of the harder-edged HK productions.

(POSSIBLE SPOILERS) Ruo Sha ("Red to Kill" in America and Europe) is a very successful splatter/exploitation comedy (albeit a very, very black one) in which a musclebound serial killer rapist stalks a dilapitated tenement that houses, among the "normal" working class men and women, a collective of the city's mentally ill. The director of the aforementioned home for the disabled is a kindly, bespectacled giant with some seriously repressed childhood trauma, a man very soon revealed to be the dreaded local predator. Fixating his hatred-fueled sexual violence on women clad in red garments (since they remind him of his nihilistic, red-covered mother who, when caught in an act of infidelity, attempted to slaughter the [very] young future killer, as she did his father and brother moments before), he soon becomes inflamed by the most recent addition to the simple yet happy family. Her name is Ming-Ming, and, though she has the mind of a ten year old, possesses the body and sexuality (albeit unconsciously) of an adult woman. When, after finally (inevitably) raping this defenseless creature, our hero(?) realizes that he is "in love" with this latest addition to his blood drenched tally, and would like to start a family with her. That is when the film gets really interesting, and begins veering off into the realm of over the top gore and absurdity, when, previously, the film had been a very well made piece of disturbing suspense cinema. When the themes of the film become too uncomfortable and tragic (an apathetic and inept legal system places the near-catatonic Ming-Ming back in the killer's custody, while her only friend and social worker is physically and legally unable to defend her "little sister"), the film shifts from one of unrelenting darkness and chilling atmosphere and becomes a splatterpunk revenge/slasher comedy. When one deals with a film like this, the director must somehow soften the blows (and in this film there are PLENTY) so that his product might remain watchable. He does this and does this well with his careful inclusion of black comedy, spoof and absurdity, in the right places. The almost ridiculously depressing ending, when in his hands, left most of the audience laughing uproariously, even though the horror of what occurs is firmly emblazoned in the mind of every viewer. It takes great amounts of talent to make a film that is both extremely disturbing and heavily comic, and Tang succeeds without his product feeling unfocused. This is the ultimate exploitation achievement (accomplished only by one other film I've seen; fellow Category III opus "The Untold Story"), and Billy Tang has my undying respect for having pulled it off. Rent/buy this film if you want something unique and unclassifiable that entertains and pleases (as well as sickens and disturbs) its audience. Some scenes (shower, opening, the "Love" scene, the manniquin, climax, the ending) will never leave you because of their power, just like the film in general.