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Tomie
TOMIE is a film based on the super popular manga by the same name written by Junji Ito, and just from hearing what the awesome manga contain you'd think it would be one helluva film... well unfortunately, like so many times before, the movie does not even compare to the book. The flick came out in 1999, one year after the brilliant RINGU, and has spawned a number of sequels to date. All of you reading this and who are used to watching Asian horror knows that Asian films often have a tendency to "take their time" before delivering the goods. And that's of course fine just as long as we do get the goods at the end, and that's the major problem with TOMIE; we get nothing except for...
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Movie Review: Dr. Lamb

Story
An abnormal taxi driver starts killing women that he picks up night after night in his taxi. He lust for blood every time it rains, and kills them in his car, and then takes them home to take pictures of them, and to cut them up. But eventually he gets caught by the police, and after a while they make him confess to everything.

Comments
Personally I consider Dr. Lamb to be one of those movies that really stands out when it comes to HK Category III movies. The film, like most other Cat III films, has some humour in it, but even if Dr. Lamb features some humour, it's a genuine dark film that might even be very disturbing for some. There are a few scenes that contains very graphic and disturbing images, and even if you're used to this type of movies, Dr. Lamb might still be able to get to you. But most of all, the movie portayes a disturbed serial killer in an excellent way. Graphical or not, the overall story is quite interesting and the movie is well done. Danny Lee is always a good actor, and Simon Yam sure seems to know what it's like to kill women and drive a taxi.

Dr. Lamb begins with that the police capture the killer, and takes him and his relatives downtown for questioning. They interview his dad, his sister, brother-in-law or whatever and beat Dr. Lamb A LOT for about half an hour or so. Then the killer obviously can't take it anymore, or he's just sick of the whole thing and starts to confess to the police. After that for the rest of the movie, the viewer get to follow Dr. Lamb's doings by flashbacks while the killer's confessing to the police. So everything the viewer get to see has already happened, and it's an interesting way to tell his story.

Dr. Lamb Dr. Lamb

The first two of his victims were girls who were drunk and who called him names, while the third one was an innocent girl who wanted to be a school teacher. With the first two girls, it's easy to tell that the man couldn't care less, and that he felt hate for them. But the third one was different, and we get to see a new side of the killer, the more gentle side, something that adds a little something extra to the overall experience. So it's not your normal horror were some psychopat goes around and butchers people left to right, and that's a good thing and something that makes you take the film more seriously.

It's not extremely gory, but there are some scenes where breasts are cut off which are somewhat horrible to sit and watch. But this makes for the Cat III elements, and people who's into that sort of stuff will not be left unsatisfied watching Dr. Lamb. Another thing that takes Dr. Lamb to a new level of horror is that it features one scene that deals with necrophilia. Now, don't get me wrong here and send me angry emails. Personally I think necrophilia is a sick thing that I would never practise or encourage others to practise. BUT, in this movie it's great and makes it even more horrifying.

I wish that more horror flicks would dare to take things to a more extreme level sometimes, everything is often the same and you've seen it all before, and since this is a Cat III movie, it's very welcome to see stuff like this. Even though you never get to see actual penetration, it's still graphical enough for one to very well know what's going on. So a lot of credit to the makers for taking things up a notch.

Final Comments
A lot of these type of HK flicks always has a big amount of humour were, at best, half of it works well. Dr. Lamb features just a small amount of humour, but all of it works quite well, and brings some light to the otherwise somewhat depressing tale of a psychopatic killer. But for most of the time, the movie is quite dark, and features quite a few disturbing things and scenes. But it's not just gore and horror, as it has a story that is easy to get into, and that remains interesting from beginning till the very end. Simply put, Dr. Lamb is a very good Cat III movie.

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Dr. Lamb

ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Gou yeung yi sang
MOVIE YEAR: 1992
DIRECTOR: Danny Lee, Billy Tang
WRITING CREDITS: Law Kam Fai
GENRE: Horror, Cat III
CAST: Danny Lee, Simon Yam, Kent Cheng
COUNTRY: Hong Kong
RUNTIME: 89 min

RATING: 8/10

Dr. Lamb Website/IMDB Click here
Dr. Lamb Trailer Click here

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