Qing ben jia ren

At the beginning of the 1990s there was a deluge of Cat III movies in Hong Kong as the producers tried to satisfy the public's insatiable appetite for these movies. The queen of the Cat III potboilers was Veronica Yip, riding a wave of sexploitation titles and this was her most famous effort.

The movie begins with every office worker's fantasy: the woman working naked at her desk. And that it what it is. Our perverted villain has visions of a colleague naked at her desk but we the viewer see it for the fantasy that it is. Having been aroused by her alleged provocative behaviour, he rapes her and she is killed in the ensuing struggle. Later that evening at a hostess bar (which is a mandatory scene in most Hong Kong movies) he is amazed to see the dead woman's look-a-like and he plots a scheme to explain her absence by having Minmin (Veronica Yip) submit a letter of resignation in her place. Things do not go according to plan when Minmin recognises her saviour, from an attempted assault of the previous night, to be the boss's son and changes her mind and accepts the job. Some action is provided by a rival firm attempting to sabotage our hero's firm by robbery and kidnapping. After many trials and tribulations and the legendary ten minute shower scene, our Cinderella is united with her prince.

To summarise: there are lashings of nudity and sex, if that is what you interested in. As well, the movie has a certain innocence in that there are cardboard baddies and the hero easily disposes of them in formulaic kung-fu fights, and in a shoot-out between the police and the gangsters there is much shooting and like children playing cops and robbers they are shot without much blood or being hurt. This is a perfect example of a Cat III movie.There is gratuitous nudity and the plot is slight, seeming only to hang the sex scenes on to and in the end it is a pleasant way to spend 90 minutes.

In 1991 HK flick Pretty Woman, the very sexy Veronica Yip plays Mimin, a nightclub hostess (ie. a prostitute) who finds romance with successful businessman Lin Cha-Sin (Alex Fong); in that way, it is similar to the inexplicably popular Hollywood movie of the same name. Everything else couldn't be further removed.

The film starts off in sleazy Cat III mode: a man returns to work after hours where he sees an attractive young woman, Lo Yin-Hsin (Yip), busy typing. He spies on her, imagining her naked. Excited, he grabs her and forces himself upon her, but in doing so, she hits her head and dies. The man disposes of the body by putting it in her car and setting it on fire. So far, so mean-spirited.

Then, in a preposterous turn of events, the man visits a nightclub where he is amazed to find that one of the hostesses, Mimin (Yip again), is the EXACT double of the dead woman. With his nosy co-workers wondering where Lo Yin-Hsin is, he sees an opportunity to allay suspicion, and hires Mimin to deliver a letter of resignation to the office.

As she leaves the club, Mimin is assaulted by a group of men, but is rescued by a handsome stranger, who sees off the thugs with some nifty kung fu moves.

The next day, the hostess arrives at the office with the letter, but after delivering it, changes her mind and decides to stay. By coincidence, she finds that her handsome saviour from the night before is the boss's son. What are the odds? Cue romance, softcore sex (with full frontal nudity), inter-business rivalry, non-PC comedy, and more kung fu, with a couple of bloody shoot outs for good measure. Erotic highlights include a steamy sex scene in a squash court and Veronica Yip's now legendary shower/bath/swimming pool dream sequence. With all that, who needs Julia Roberts?

Quirky, soft core semi-comedic category III sexploitation flick about a bar hostess who impersonates an office worker is Veronica Yip's best known (thanks to a now infamous shower scene) and probably best film. The film is essentially a sit-com. Everybody in the film has a cartoonish simplicity. The male office workers are porn obsessed louts who harass the female workers. The frigid female office supervisor is a volcano of suppressed lust. The wealthy boss's son turns out to be a chop socky hero type (every well run office should have one). But everything is not all fun and nude games. The baddies scheme and intrigue to ruin the company, and one of the office louts turns out to be a murderous sexual predator. But the odd mix works, mostly because the plot is a flimsy affair intended simply to move things along to the next nude scene.

One night,an office worker in a rubber raincoat rapes a pretty secretary(Veronica Yip),then accidentally kills her on a memo spike.Later that week,he goes to a hostess bar and sees the girl's lookalike named Minmin,and offers her a pile of cash to show up for work the next morning and tender her resignation.This would have worked if Yip hadn't been rescued from an abduction and rape by a kung fu businessman-who coincidentally happens to be the dead woman's business associate!Veronica's more capable than any of the men,so she decides to take the dead girl's place,which means the rapist-killer has only one option.Not to be confused with the American politically correct piece of garbage starring Julia Roberts,this "Pretty Woman" features incredibly hot Veronica Yip plus plenty of sleaze.Veronica's ten minutes long shower sequence is truly arousing.There is also a little bit of bloody violence and some great martial arts action scenes,so I'm not complaining.Give this sleazy film a look.6 out of 10.