Agent 999 is sent to a remote island to capture a wanted criminal named Rolex. Once there, Agent 999 figures that something's not right with the island, and he soon discovers that it's inhabited by blood-thristy cannibals, led by the islands police chief who's a very deranged man. His search of finding the criminal leads to that he constantly has to fight hordes of man-eating islanders, and at the same time, Rolex has had enough and wants to leave the island.
We're Going to Eat You is a pretty crazy (to say the least) film by HK director Tsui Hark, who has done some great flicks in the past. This movie offers extreme amounts of fight scenes, and the other title 'Kung Fu Cannibals' makes just as much sense as 'We're Going to Eat You' does for sure. Except for tons of fight scenes, the movie also offers a lot of gore, and on top of that a whole lotta slapstick humour. The horror theme is of course that the islanders are all blood-thristy cannibals, but the main focus of the movie is on the comedy, and of course on the kung fu as well. One thing that makes the fight scenes great is not just the nice choreography and the very speed of the fights, but also the sound effects added to them. Every time someone hit someone else, there's a pretty loud noise, over-the-top loud, but it definitely makes the fights a lot more entertaining (and hilarious) to watch. And that's a really good thing, because there are so many of them throughout the whole movie.
Hark's movie kicks off at full speed right from the start, featuring a gory opening sequence. The horror is in focus, but it switches over to slapstick mode just shortly after, and basically stays that way till the end. This is both good and bad I guess, because the movie works well like that, but at the same time, it sure could've had some more horror and tension in it. Suspense is really nowhere to be found, since basically everything in the movie has a comical touch to it, and even when there are fights that leads to gruesome death scenes, they don't really come of as very horror-ish since it's all done with a lot of humour. Speaking of humour, some of it works totally ok, but in some scenes the humour is just a bit too ridiculous. If you've seen a lot of HK flicks, you probably know exactly what I mean when talking about the comical side of things.
 
The most horrible thing We're Going to Eat You has to offer may not be the cannibalism itself, but instead a huge woman who tries to rape men every now and then. The character is played by some man in drag and it really looks like a transvestite, much bigger (and stronger) than anyone else on the island. That character provides a few good laughs, but at the same time she'll gross you out as well. The cannibals themselves doesn't look very frightening, but more like ordinary Chinese villagers, or farmers if you like. They wear masks when they're hunting for flesh, and this makes it feel a bit better and makes them come off as bit more raw than if they would've just looked the way they normally do.
There's a lot of spooky music and sounds turning up every now and then in the movie, and this sure adds to the horror feeling and creates a certain kind of atmosphere. Every time something is about to happen we get to hear it, and since there are things happening at all times, we get to hear a lot of it, some would say too much. The acting is ok, very over-the-top at times, but when it comes to HK movies, it's nothing new and infact you kinda expect a movie like this to have some over-the-top acting. Agent 999 sure delivers the best performance, always looking confident and never seems to say no to a fight. It may have some stuff in common with Ricky Lau's Mr. Vampire since they both mix horror, kung fu and comedy into one piece, but personally I think Mr. Vampire had much more humour that worked wonders while it at the same time managed to be a bit creepy. This one does not manage to combine everything and make it work as good, but it's still a very fun and fast-paced ride.
We're Going to Eat is a gory and entertaining piece of film that delivers tons of cool fight sequences. The way it was shot made it looked a bit raw and dirty which added to the horror feel, dealing with cannibals and all. Unfortunately a lot of the humour didn't really work that great, but it sure still had some very funny moments to offer. If you want to see something completely different from the good old 80's, this would be an excellent pick.
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ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Hell Has No Gates, Kung Fu Cannibals, No Door to Hell
MOVIE YEAR: 1980
DIRECTOR: Tsui Hark
WRITING CREDITS: Roy Szeto
GENRE: Comedy, Horror
CAST: Norman Chu, Eddy Ko, Melvin Wong
COUNTRY: Hong Kong
RUNTIME: 90 min
RATING: 8/10
We're Going to Eat You Website/IMDB Click here
We're Going to Eat You Trailer Click here
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