The story concerns a family of extremely fat Hong Kong pork butchers, father and two sons, a young pimp who is trying to set up an internet call girl service and a beautiful young prostitute who blackmails the first two for a rich man we never meet. Along the way we are treated to escaped pigs being chased through narrow alleys, people being chased through narrow alleys, pigs being chopped up, people's hands being chopped off (and stitched back on to the wrong arms, sex, blackmail and general confusion.
This is not an art house movie. There is no pretence at art. The film is not character driven because none of the characters are on screen long enough for their personalities to be developed and consequently we can feel no sympathy for their plight. The social commentary is crude and obvious, the poor people do over the pigs while the rich people do over the poor people and take their money to boot and just to emphasise the point there are lots of shots contrasting the corrugated iron hovels of shanty town with posh apartment buildings soaring towards the sky.
This is the first Fruit Chan movie I've seen and it will almost certainly be the last. Unfortunately it is not quite bad enough to be one of those movies like 'Plan 9 from Outer Space' that keep you watching in awed fascination just to see what new depths it can plumb, this movie is just common or garden bad; bad with no distinguishing features.
This is not an art house movie. There is no pretence at art. The film is not character driven because none of the characters are on screen long enough for their personalities to be developed and consequently we can feel no sympathy for their plight. The social commentary is crude and obvious, the poor people do over the pigs while the rich people do over the poor people and take their money to boot and just to emphasise the point there are lots of shots contrasting the corrugated iron hovels of shanty town with posh apartment buildings soaring towards the sky.
This is the first Fruit Chan movie I've seen and it will almost certainly be the last. Unfortunately it is not quite bad enough to be one of those movies like 'Plan 9 from Outer Space' that keep you watching in awed fascination just to see what new depths it can plumb, this movie is just common or garden bad; bad with no distinguishing features.