Dr Lamb — Dr Lamb(Blu Ray)
Here from Unearthed Films, those resurrectors of worldwide extreme fare is a Blu-ray release of Dr Lamb. The 1990's Hong Kong production/ Cat III film focuses on a mentally disturbed ‘n’ deranged taxi driver- who picks up, kills and dismembers a series of women. The films a blend of police procedural drama, candy-coloured neon post-noir, and demented psycho drama- topped with moments of inappropriate/ awkward humour, and brutal sexualized gore. The Blu-Ray takes in a new commentary track, and a nice selection of other extras.
Dr Lamb (aka Goh yeung yee sang, Kitchen of Human Meat in Hong Kong) was made in the year 1992. It was co-directed by Danny Lee and Billy Hin-Shing Tang. Lee has twelve directing credits to his name including Cat III classic The Untold Story- he also has an impressive one hundred and forty-six acting credits, which includes this film. And Tang has twenty-six feature-lengths to his name, these took in the likes of rape-revenge thriller Vengeance Is Mine (1988), psychopathic rapist-focused horror Red to Kill (1994), comedy horror Haunted Karaoke (1997), and curse-focused horror Dial D For Demons (2000).
The film opens with a flashback of two little boys- one says he'll pay the other to pull down his younger sister's pants, he tries to but is told off by his mother, while his father just shrugs it off. We next see mother and father making the beast with two backs- as the same young boy watches on.
The credits run and afterwards, the decidedly stern and serious inspector Lee (Danny Lee) goes to Kodak's head offices- after some rather suspicious photos have been put in for development in one of their shops. They seemingly show a dead and posed woman. So Lee, and his quirky band of officers, taking in comedic big guy Fat Bing (Kent Cheng), a panicking at-anything female officer, and a sweaty ‘n’ slick muscle T-shirt-wearing male cop.
The cop gang arrives at the photoshop, and swoops on the seemingly calm and cool Lam Gor-Yu (Simon Yam)- a taxi driver who claims he was paid by someone to pick up the photos. After some waiting about in their car it’s clear he’s lying. And as we move on the cops find out where Mr Gor-Yu lives- a decidedly cramped apartment, which we saw in the film's flashback, and he is the peeping boy now grown up. Lam shares a bunk bedded bedroom with his brother- and the cops break into a locked cardboard in the room- finding more photos of dead women, and later on even a severed human breast in a glass jar.
Lam is dragged with the evidence to the station- and he gets rough-up and beaten by the cops, this is done in an often awkwardly comic manner- as office Fat Bing makes lurid gestures & the female cop panics/ throws up. But Lam won't break- next they bring in his family- at first, his father keeps denying anything is wrong with his son, but we find out that Lam has also been taking pictures of his five or six-year-old niece, who also lives in the flat. So, they go and give him a comic-tipped, later tearful beating.
The murder/more extreme side of things doesn’t really appear until around the forty-minute mark- when we get flashbacks of Lam’s late-night pick-ups. His first victim is strangled- then he hides her in a bedding chest for a few days. Before pulling out the body and cutting its clothes off- he first macabrely ropes up the limbs, jerking them up and down. He then tries to hack off her arm with an Axe- and he imagines her eyes jerk open, so he covers her eyes with duct tape. He then heads out to get a circular saw- and starts cutting up the body, with gore and blood spraying/ flying around the room. On the gore/ unsettling side of things, as we move on, we get manic breast stabbings, breast decapitation, and a rather troubling having sex in a chair with a dead woman scene.
Acting wise Simon Yam is most effective as taxi driver Lam- moving from cool, and sisterly controlled. Though to manic and deranged, with at points, his smart side parted hair dripping with sweat, and a leering smile on his face. The rest of the cast is all fairly good, though the more comedic elements do at times feel rather odd, but I guess that’s one of the charms of the film.
On the whole, it’s a very nicely captured production- with a blend of atmospheric candy colour neon in the night rain shots, sweaty and tense interior shots, and of course, well-captured/ realistic slaughter ‘n’ deviance. I guess the lack of nastiness in the first half of the film may disappoint some- but I think the film plays just right as it is. All in all, Dr Lamb is a most satisfying blend of police drama/ thriller, post-noir, and sleazy ‘n’ gore-up psycho action. Oh, and we get a great score too, which features long stretches of soft-focus smoky jazz, as well as darts into other genres.
Moving onto this region A Blu Ray, and it features a new fully uncut 2K scan of the film. The scan looks largely good and well-defined, save for some slight peppering of grain/ marking. Moving onto the extras, and we get a nice selection. First off, we get a commentary track from extreme film/ horror experts Art Ettinger (Ultra-Violent) And Bruce Holecheck (Cinema Arcana)- I’ve heard a few of their tracks now, and once again this is very good mix of informed and entertaining chat-ness with some great research/ facts. They begin by talking about the film's flashback, and how it comments on the overcrowded in Hong Kong city- which during the filming was the most densely populated city in the world. They move on to commenting on the opening credits and let us know that the film is actually based on a real serial killer- Lam Kor-wan, who during the early 1980s killed/ dismembered four women in the city. They move on talk about Cat III films in detail, first discussing what they are seen as in the west. Moving on to discuss the history of censorship in Hong Kong- including the introduction of the rating system & what it meant, and present-day issues with Hong Kong censorship. They talk about getting hold of Cat III in the states in the 1990s through to the early 2000s, with the switch between VHS and VCD. Later on, we get bios of the film's two directors, and a bio of one of the film's actresses/ victims Julie Lee, who turned up in a few Cat III films. And of course, much, much more- a must-play track. Otherwise, on the extras side we get- Lamb To The Slaughter- An interview with Filmmaker Gilbert Po Who Initiated The Dr Lamb Film Project (20.27). Three Times The Fear: film critic James Mudge On The Golden Era Of Category III, with a focus on the film to hand/ the film-makers/ lead actors (20.33). Cut And Run: film Academic Sean Tierney Aka The Silver Spleen talks about Dr Lamb (16.09).
The Blu-ray comes presented in a card slip, and inside we have an eight-page glossy booklet- this features a four-page article about the film by genre academic/ author Calum Waddell. As well as stills/ poster artwork from the film too- so a nicely presented release, with great extras on the disc itself.
It certainly is marvellous to see this new release of Dr Lamb on Unearthed Films- and here's very much looking forward to the next Cat III release from the label. Really if you have any interest in extreme world film/ serial killer-focused genre fare, this Blu-Ray truly is a no-brainer/must-buy release!.