Disturbing. If any of the following would make you ill, please avoid this film.
- A young child being decapitated.
- An extremely violent and graphic rape scene.
- The butchering of a human body (complete with a loving tap with a cleaver on the blood- soaked buttocks of the corpse.)
- Cannibalism, cannibalism, cannibalism, cannibalism…
- A couple of messy, messy suicide attempts (this is where I closed my eyes, by the way.)
Have you made it this far? How about numbers six through nine then…
- Would seeing a bowl of "ground human" disturb you?
- How about a little piss drinking?
- How about a bunch of little kids screaming while their parents are brutally slaughtered, only to be slaughtered themselves moments later?
- Did I mention lots and lots of cannibalism?
If you’ve safely made it to this point, then feel free to go and rent "The Untold Story." My friend Eric referred to this movie as "Two hours of the wood chipper scene from Fargo." Eric didn’t exaggerate. Think about Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer minus the dark humor. Add more gore than you can stand and you’ve got a pretty good picture of The Untold Story.
Don’t get me wrong, this was a well made film. It’s really only made watchable, however, by Anthony Wong’s performance. It’s nothing short of brilliant. He plays the "Bunman" (which is the alternate title by the way), Wong Chi Hai. Wong is about as twisted a character as you’ve ever seen. He is utterly despicable and Anthony Wong plays the role with remarkable skill. I’ve seen this guy in plenty of movies and five minutes into this one I had completely forgotten there was an actor playing the part. Anthony Wong was gone and all I was left with was the ghoulish Wong Chi Hai.
The plot? Well, it seems that Wong Chi Hai killed this family in Macau, took over their restaurant and proceeded to feed their bodies to unsuspecting patrons (including the bumbling police force investigating the crimes.) That’s really all you need to know. (Oh, did I mention that this was based on a true story? I’m not sure you need to KNOW that but, hey, I’m all about sharing…) The film basically splits it’s time pretty evenly between the cops and the madness that is "The Bunman."
The cops are easily the worst part of this movie. Danny Lee (The Killer) is impressive as the co- director. The problem is, he mails in his performance as the lead investigator. All this goofball does is wander in (at about the same beat in every scene by the way), straighten out his idiot underlings and then wander back out, hooker in tow. Hookers, you ask? Yes, for some reason he is constantly escorted by a trashy hooker. Why this is, I don’t know. I do know it’s really distracting.
Well, like I said earlier, if you can handle the incredible amount of gore that is present in this movie then it is recommended. If you can’t, well, there’s always Army of Darkness.
Originally published on DrunkenFist.com in 1999.