Just what is Cat III? Shotgun Messiah Second Coming RARE. James looks at the notorious Hong Kong film classification in the first of a two-part feature Hong Kong has long played a key role in the spread of Asian cinema to the west, action and fantasy horror films by the likes of John Woo, Tsui Hark, Ringo Lam and others having spearheaded a wave from the east in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Although HK cinema has of late been in the doldrums, most directors being in held in thrall by the Mainland market and censors, these post-New Wave years still represent for many fans a golden era, and one which not only raised the profile of Asian cinema worldwide but which proved that the territory was capable of far more than just martial arts films. The Killer, Hardboiled, City on Fire, A Chinese Ghost Story and others are still held up as classics today, and it’s them and their brethren that most aficionados or academics refer to when they speak fondly of the wildly creative heyday of the Hong Kong film industry. Visual Boy Advance Emulator With Link Free Download here. However, while these masterpieces were finding new audiences around the world, back in Hong Kong another, considerably less respectable cinematic form was making its presence felt, namely exploitation films with the Category III rating. Serial Online Indian Destine Implinite. Although not strictly a genre, these films shared a common goal – to shock, thrill and titillate through extreme sleaze, sex and violence, with good taste or cinematic morality being left firmly at the door. Their content going far beyond what was then (and still is in many cases) acceptable in the west, including rape, cannibalism, torture, sexual violence and pretty much every perversion imaginable, these films rarely earned global releases, and as such have remained largely ignored by mainstream Asian cinema commentators and have slipped under the radar of genre fans outside Hong Kong – these are the films which never get optioned for remakes, and which are usually spoken of only when being condemned or at best dismissed. Nevertheless, category III films and the boom they enjoyed in the late 1980s and early 1990s form an integral part of modern Hong Kong cinema, and are worthy of rediscovery – at least for those with strong stomachs. Although Hong Kong had been making category III films or their equivalent for many years – as seen in grotesque Shaw Brothers productions such as Ho Meng Hua’s 1975 Black Magic, Chuan Yang’s 1983, and others – the form first really came to the attention of western exploitation fans with the infamous Men Behind the Sun (a.k.a.