Her Vengeance — Her Vengeance (Blu Ray)
From the late 80s, Her Vengeance was one of the first films to receive Hong Kong's Category III rating, which indicated graphic or disturbing content. As the film's title may suggest, it’s a rape revenge thriller, taking in more than a few extreme scenes such as sexualized violence, brutal scissor slicing, a fair few gory facial attacks, and bloody pole damage. It also features a believable lead, a decent selection of nasty characters, and some neat wheelchair-based fighting. Here from 88 Films is a new Blu-ray of the picture- it features two versions of the film, a standard more seen version, and a more extreme unrated version, and a commentary track.
Her Vengeance (aka Huet Mui Gwai, Bloody Rose) is from the year 1988. It was directed by Ngai Choi Lam, between the early 80s and early 90s, he had eleven other features to his name. These went from gritty and violent crime thriller Men From The Gutter (1983), haunted house parody The Ghost Snatchers (1986), and ultra-violent/ gory prison film Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky(1991).
The film opens with a gang of drunk reprobates trawling through the city- they are led up by the towering & chuckling Long Fellow- played by prolific Hong Kong actor Shing Fui-On, who has two hundred and forty credits to his name. They end up in a can-can joint, pushing into the front row- first a steward asks them to leave, and she gets pushed aside. Then one of the managers, Kit-Ying(Siu-Fung Wong) comes in, and once again she is pushed away. The men are soon thrown out by the security, though they glare at Kit-Ying.
After finishing work, Kit-Yit walks through the nighttime city- the gang catches up with her, dragging her into a graveyard. Here, they rip off her clothes, and gang rapping her, with the religious stone statues staring on silently.
After a visit to a sexual disease clinic, and chatting with her blind sister, Kit-Yit decides she is going to take revenge- going to help at the club of her wheelchair bound brother in law.
There are two versions of the film on the Blu-ray. I initially played the longer of the two versions, ‘CAT IIb’- which plays at ninety-three minutes, presuming this would be the most extreme of the two. But no, it’s actually the shorter by ten or so minutes ‘Category III’ which has all the nasty stuff. Firstly, the rape is more prolonged/ cruel. After this, we have a prolonged strangulation & ear-cutting scene, a half-lit softcore porn shoot, an acid face attack, several other facial damage scenes, and gory metal pole attacks.
Her Vengeance is a decent enough rape revenge film, with some nicely brutal scenes, believable characters, and some rather neat wheelchair-bound martial arts footage.
The 2k scan on both versions of the film looks great, it’s full of bold colours, and general wonderful picture clarity. The only extras on the disc, aside from trailer & gallery, is a commentary track from East Asian film expert Frank Djeng. He opens by talking about how the film was influenced by the classic rape revenge/ video nasty I Spit On Your Grave (1978), and how it possibly influenced both Home Alone & Kill Bill. We find out the directly translated title is Blood Rose, and as we go through, he points out moments of the colour red in the film. He gives us stats on the film- it played in Hong Kong between 7th & 11th October 1988, making 1.87 million HK $’s, and charted 102 in the year's box office. He points out locations and gives short bios of the gang of thugs. We find out that there is a total of four cuts of the film; the other two not featured here are even more cut. We find out that in reality, the film is a remake of the 1973 Shaw Bros film The Kiss Of Death. He talks about how the film was released just before the Cat III cert, so as a result is not that well known. We get bios of the actresses who play the sisters. Later on, he comments on the very 80s-looking hairdos and clothes. He talks about the porn shoot in the film and how it was initially cut from the Cat III version. And he gives a bio of the director, and more. All in all, it’s a well-researched/ informative track, with Djeng's sly humour shining through from time to time.
The finished release comes with a forty-page booklet- featuring new writing from Frasher Elliot, Mathew Edwards, and C.J. Lines
As I’m a fan of both Cat III films and rape/revenge films in general, it’s great to see this reissue of Her Vengeance. This, 88 Films features a classy/ clean scan, and a most worthy commentary track.