On lok jin cheung

When this narrowly distributed flick was made, Eric Tsang was playing soprano-voiced goofballs in piles of average Hong Kong forgettables. Now, he's matured beautifully and he's playing crime bosses in accomplished dramas like "Infernal Affairs". In other words, he's come a long way, baby! "Fatal Vacation" is one of the few features Tsang has directed, and it's a keeper.

Simple set-up for maximum bloodshed: A bus load of holiday makers are taken hostage by brutal, unreasonable revolutionaries. They do what they can to survive and end up dead for their efforts. Most do, anyway.

Being a child of late Eighties Hong Kong cinema, this is a graphic, unapologetic, mean-spirited exploitationer with close to a dozen jaw-dropping displays of vicious mayhem. It moves like a bullet train and is efficiently directed by Tsang. The rural setting is pictorially interesting and acts as a stark counterpoint to the deliciously gory violence, some of which is admirably shocking.