Satan Returns (1996)

This weirdo Hong Kong offering is a strange amalgamation of the traditional kung fu movie, the outrageous Chinese horror yarn and the typical 'edgy' dark thriller, so popular in the '90s in the advent of SE7EN and THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. The latter two movies are directly referenced in this mix-up of a movie, which throws in a little bit of all genres to keep things entertaining – the only thing missing is typical Cat III style sex and nudity. Instead, we get a bizarre, barely-makes-sense kind of plot involving an evil cult (or man) named Judas, who's convinced that a female police officer is the daughter of Satan. Lots of chases down rain-washed alleyways and kung-fu action ensue, along with some light gun battles and an over-the-top finale which is worth the wait.Chingamy Yau is the attractive girl who just might be the daughter of Satan, and tends to get caught up in lots of weird visions and sees herself with horns in the mirror. Stealing his scenes is one Donnie Yen as the ultra-cool bespectacled police officer, an extremely violent man who shows off his martial arts skills in a handful of decent fights. Altogether the pacing of this film is slow and it tends to be a case of style over substance, with not much in the way of drama or action unfolding despite the relative excitement that the plot promises. It actually tends to be a low budget kind of movie, with the only big-style action at the end, complete with chainsaws, crucifixions and explosions. It's worth the wait. Something else worth waiting for are the hilariously incorrect English subtitles, which turn many mundane moments into comedy situations.

"Satan Returns" was actually a better movie and a better experience than I had anticipated it to be, as Hong Kong cinema are not really famous for their supernatural thrillers. Much less a supernatural thriller with Donnie Yen on the cast list.The story is about a satanic zealot named Judas (played by Francis Ng) who is killing women in his search to find Satan's daughter. And hot on his trail are the police with Mo Tin Nam (played by Donnie Yen) and Ka-Ming (played by Chi Wah Wong) leading the investigation. And Judas's next target is Chan Shou-Ching (played by Chingmy Yau).I will say that it was nice to see a story like this from the Hong Kong cinema vault, and they actually pulled it off well enough, despite the story being sort of religious rubbish. But still, it is only entertainment, and in that aspect it worked out well enough. Sadly, though, then the movie wasn't particularly thrilling or fascinating, it was downright predictable.The movie had some really good names to the cast list. And it was nice to see Chingmy Yau stand out from that semi-erotic shadow of "Naked Killer" that she have been casting for a long, long time. It was sort of odd actually to see Donnie Yen in a movie of this type, as it is not normally what he makes. And the movie was really carried by Francis Ng's performance, and he really outclassed Donnie Yen acting-wise by miles.If you are fed up with the typical action movies that comes from Hong Kong and enjoy supernatural thrillers, then "Satan Returns" might be right what you are looking for. Just bear in mind that the movie is predictable and sort of fails be build up much excitement and thrills.And as for the title of the movie, "Satan Returns", what was up with that? Where did he return from? Vacationing? But more importantly, he didn't return to make an appearance in this movie.

***Spoilers***It's not often I watch a film that I really can't think of a single positive thing to say about, but this comes pretty damn close.Sadly indicative of the decline that hit Hong Kong cinema in the 90s, Satan Returns is sloppy, generic, badly written, badly filmed (and edited) and just looks cheap as *ahem* hell.The "plot" concerns a crazed man called Judas who is searching for Satans Daughter - a task he completes by finding women born on the 6th June 1966, and cutting their hearts out. If she lives, she's the real thing and the world's in trouble.Up against Judas are the "heroes", who are the worlds worst cops. Seriously, these guys cause more death and destruction than anything Judas does just through their sheer ineptitude.There's so much wrong with this film it's hard to know where to start. The sudden shifts in tone from melodrama to silly comedy (which is common in this sort of HK film, but seems particularly misguided in a film that sometimes tries to ape thrillers like Seven), the baffling plot developments (a priest informs the heroine "oh yes, i did once see 3 sixes on your fathers neck, but I didn't want to say anything"!!!), and an ending so weak it can't even be saved by a belated appearance by Zombies - even if one of them does get it's legs cut off at the knees with a chainsaw.Overall this film is silly, boring, often incoherent, and for viewers in the UK rendered completely pointless by having the final revelation shown as a caption in Chinese that the distributors couldn't be bothered translating.Even for hardened Donnie Yen fans, don't waste your time - it's rubbish!

Ah Lun directed this Wong Jing produced action shocker Devil 666 aka Satan Returns, in 1996. The film stars the incredibly beautiful sweetheart Chingmy Yau, who played the lead part in Clarence Fok's classic erotic action film Naked Killer in 1992. Donnie Yuen plays a tough cop who is with his colleagues (Chingmy included) after a lunatic killer who calls himself Judas and thinks Chingmy is the daughter of the Devil himself. What follows is gun battles, many plot turns, one chainsaw at the end, the usual Hong Kong "humor", gore and different camera styles, but the main interest for the film makers was to make a film which would appeal to the same audience than The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1990) and Se7en (David Fincher, 1995) did; Satan Returns is occasionally almost too obviously ripping these two Hollywood blockbusters off.The film has some genuinely creepy scenes and segments, and the camera styles and drives are again very restless and also imaginable, and there's at least one hyper fast drive through an apartment and its stairs, so I can't say the film isn't visually at least LITTLE interesting. The plot is nonsense and the scenes and characters are too close to those of Lambs' and Se7en's and the characters in this Orient production even mention these two films couple of times! The action is okay, but never "John Woo style" or near that as one writer requested. The gun battles are nothing special here as isn't anything else either. The rainy streets and dark settings could be gorgeous and effective, but since they've been taken straightly from Fincher's film, I cannot appreciate them in this film too much. There's also some bits of gore and fake blood, which looks occasionally very fake. This film is said to be rated CAT 3, but from what I know, that is NOT true and is only some distributor's "clever" effort to get people's attention due to the high rating. The violence isn't too strong, but it is the usual HK standard (i.e. some blood when people are shot and little gore and ripped hearts every now and then..) and what this film lacks unlike the real CAT 3 films, is the nudity and sex, which usually is the reason for high rating so there's no need to be gore and violence for film to get the "third" rating in Hong Kong.Devil 666 aka Satan Returns gets 4/10 just because of the fact that it is more watchable than some/most of these films, and I'm glad there's not too much of the usual stupid humor, but what's left, should have been left out as well. The visuals are occasionally interesting, but since the film is never original or too personal, the 4 rating seems reasonable, but those who have seen many Hong Kong horror and action films should not keep their expectations too high. Still, it could be MUCH worse!