Fatal Love does suffer from a rather generic Cat III storyline, and the first half of the film is frustratingly uneventful, but fans of the genre should be more than satisfied with the movie as a whole, the latter half providing plenty of sleaze and mean-spirited violence.
The gorgeous Ellen Chan stars as rookie cop Debbie Fung, who goes undercover to investigate a handsome millionaire businessman (Michael Wong) who is suspected of drug dealing and the murder of eight girls. Predictably, Debbie (posing as MaryAnne) falls for the dashing man, who declares his love for her, despite having rumbled her mission. Is Debbie's new beau as wonderful as he seems, or is there a cold, calculating psychopath behind the suave facade? Let's be honest, this wouldn't be much of a Cat III movie if there wasn't...
The charmer reveals his true colours (to the viewer, not Debbie) during a drug deal, repeatedly stabbing a criminal in the stomach before dragging the dead man's girlfriend into a garage to sexually assault her. Afterwards, he leaves one of his men to deal with the girl, the lackey stupidly letting her go free after she pleasures him orally. Later, the woman watches as several men, armed with baseball bats, ambush her assailant, but the revenge attack doesn't go as planned, the businessman dishing out more pain than he receives. After giving the gang a thorough beating, he calls up some of his men, and, in a scene that definitely justifies the Cat III rating, makes the woman pay for her mistake and then punishes the subordinate who let her live.
Having sorted out that problem, he returns his attention to Debbie, taking her hunting, during which she suffers an injury. In a romantic gesture, he carries her back to his home, tends to her wound and cooks her breakfast - and then has his way with her, a steamy scene in which Debbie and the psycho bump and grind their way through several pages of the Kama Sutra (with the central heating set too high, 'cos they sure get super sweaty in a hurry).
Debbie realises her severe lack of judgement when she wakes up tied to a chair and her new lover tells her that nothing excites him more than seeing someone you love die; the psycho then forces a cocktail of booze and pills down her neck, after which she froths at the mouth like a rabid dog and slips into a coma. In hospital, the barmy businessman acts distraught as Debbie flat-lines - an incredibly downbeat ending, even for a Cat III movie.
6.5/10. It's a slow start, but it delivers the goods in the end.
