Dei yuk mo moon

Of the Hong Kong directors who have been most highly regarded by critics and punters, I find Tsui Hark to be the most overrated. Even "Chinese Ghost Story", which has often been credited to Hark and is a very effective and surreal horror pic, was not directed by Hark, but was directed by "Naked Weapon's" Ching Siu-Tung.

"We Are Going To Eat You" has all the flaws of (most) subsequent and previous Hark movies. It is chaotic, repetitive and confusing. The characters are all exaggerated to the point of irritation and the so-called comedy is forced and shrill. There is a gratuitous overuse of wide, low angle compositions and much of the music is inappropriately loud -- one of the main cues, from Argento's "Suspiria" (by Goblin), is an often repeated offender.

Hark leaves his audience no time to breathe or take in the atmosphere in this odd piece of "horror fu" which is a pity because the island location that hero Norman Tsui (Agent 999) lands on to search for a legendary thief, is suitably creepy and hostile.

Unfortunately, every scene is attacked with a sledgehammer and every actor overreacts to everything. What you end up with is a film with no shading and no contrast, a loud blob of sound and picture serving no purpose but to assault the senses like an infant screaming into your face for ninety minutes.

For gore hounds there is a bit of limb-lopping and copious blood is spilled, but there is zero suspense and endless martial arts fights that come across like low rent Jackie Chan. And speaking of Chan, many viewers will recognize the familiar "Project A" sets on display.

Hark's debut feature "The Butterfly Murders" bored me silly and his follow-up "Dangerous Encounters" (aka "Don't Play With Fire") didn't impress either with its confused politics and sledgehammer style. His "The Lovers", however, made almost two decades later, is his finest achievement so far, a simple romantic drama directed with admirable restraint and style.

This film's mix of cannibalism, broad physical comedy and kung fu comes across as misdirected and awkward. I'd only recommend this to die-hard Hark or cannibal cinema completists. The rest should look elsewhere for their entertainment.

The second directorial effort for the celebrated Hark Tsui, "We're Going to Eat You" is a gloriously insane combination of martial arts mayhem, slapstick comedy, and the splatter genre. Norman Chu stars as Agent 999, an operative for the "Central Surveillance Agency", who ventures deep into the jungle to find and apprehend a bandit known as - ha, ha - "Rolex" (Melvin Wong). He does find his quarry, but he also finds an entire village full of bloodthirsty - and energetic - cannibals.

Often extremely amusing and never boring, this film seems determined to never let you catch your breath for long. It reaches a fever pitch early on and actually maintains it, generating a lot of appreciative guffaws from the viewer. Truth be told, it does come off as maybe TOO much at times, but at least one never has to wait long for more choice moments. The performances are, by and large, VERY hammy, and dialogue is delivered in a priceless sing-song style. The characters are over-the-top from beginning to end. Tsui populates the cast with some very distinctive and unhandsome faces. The comedy is uproarious, and the filmmakers never skimp on the gore. Effective pacing results in a reasonably tight run time of just under an hour and a half.

"We're Going to Eat You" is certain to delight lovers of cinematic nuttiness. If you've always enjoyed Italian jungle / cannibal exploitation cinema, but thought that it could use more comedy and action, then THIS is the movie for you.

Highly recommended.

Seven out of 10.

Aug 21

One of director Tsui Harks early films and a very good one too.

Its a really mix of comedy and martial arts with some pretty gory scenes thrown in and the story does involves cannibalism. This is quite different and well worth checking out.

On the whole i do still prefer Tsui Harks earlier film "The Butterfly Murders".

7.5 out of 10.

With a crazy over-the-top title like "We're Going to Eat You!", you should already know not to expect a cannibal film with nail-biting suspense and/or disturbing shock sequences, but more of a deranged black comedy with absurd situations and a light-headed ambiance. It all depends on your personal sense of humor, of course, but I thought this was a truly relaxing and imaginative Hong Kong cult film! There's not much of a storyline, but the gazillion Kung-Fu fighting sequences are masterfully choreographed and indescribably spectacular. On more than one occasion during these grotesque fights, I wondered how the hell it was possible for certain people to be so ingeniously pliant! The story's hero is Special Agent 999 who, in his quest to arrest the wanted criminal Rolex (I guess he steals watches) travels to an island inhabited by a strange community of cannibalistic weirdos. Agent 999 teams up with an eccentric loner and the only vegetarian girl in town to battle his way off the island again. The script limits itself to showing how 999 & C° get captured by the cannibals and how they subsequently fight their way out of the bubbling cauldrons again, so you really shouldn't consider watching this HK-splatter flick for its intelligent dialogs or slowly oozing suspense. The fights are funny and creative, with the roller-skating sequence as the absolute highlight, and also quite gory, since many of 999's opponents meet their death on sharp cooking objects like meat cleavers and butcher knives. The acting skills of the performers are modest, but they're artists of a different breed! Norman Chu, Eddy Ko and Melvin Wong know copious amounts of exhilarating Kung Fu moves and these definitely compensate for the lack of competent plotting. "We're Going To Eat You" is honestly one of the most entertaining & unpretentious horror-comedy hybrids I ever had the pleasure of seeing. Warmly recommended to watch with a bunch of friends on a lazy Saturday evening.

i don't know how anybody could like this boring movie.but judging from some other reviews on IMDb there are other people who like this .i guess they must have been drunk.despite the title not one person is seen getting eaten.most of the gore is off screen and that is a rip off.the fight scenes are really bad and boring.i bought this on vcd for only 3 dollars and what a waste of 3 dollars that is.and to make matters worse the subtitles were at the very bottom of the sen so i could only read part of them.hardly any gore and some of the worst fights i have ever seen.these guys can barely kick higher than their waist.stay far away from this garbage.