The Untold Story (1993) - A Review

One of the more infamous Category III films. You are not prepared for this one!

 The Untold Story is a crime thriller movie released in Hong Kong in 1993, and stars Anthony Wong, Danny Lee, Emily Kwan, Eric Kei, King Kong Lam, Parkman Wong, Julie Lee Wa-Yuet, and Shing Fui-On. This movie was directed by Herman Yau, and is one of the most infamous Category III  exploitation films ever made.

Anthony Wong plays a MONSTER in this movie.

 In The Untold Story, Anthony Wong plays Wong Chi-hang, an extremely disturbed and determined man who runs The Eight Immortals Restaurant in Macau. He wants to transfer ownership of the restaurant to himself, but his lawyers will not help him without the signature of the previous owner, Cheng Lam. One day, kids find severed limbs on the beach, and the police are called to investigate it. While the cops are goofing off at work, they receive a message from a man seeking help in finding his missing brother...Cheng Lam. They ignore it at first, but after the identity of one of the severed arms is discovered, they become interested in Wong Chi-hang and the restaurant.

 The cops question Wong Chi-hang and Pearl (played by Julie Lee Wa-Yuet), his cashier. Wong is cooperative, and gives the cops fresh pork buns. Pearl is cooperative as well, but a little too cooperative to Wong's liking. The cops voraciously eat the pork buns at the police station, and that night Wong makes Pearl pay for being truthful with the cops in horrific fashion...

The bumbling cops on the case. They provide the comedy in this dark and grim movie.

 The cops put Wong under surveillance, and they catch him getting rid of evidence. They arrest him, but Wong does everything he can to escape the cops and being charged with murder. Basically, the lead officer (played by Danny Lee) gets his team to torture Wong to get him to finally confess. What he confesses to is... absolutely appalling...

 The Untold Story is based on a true story. Knowing that makes this movie that much harder to watch. This movie is brutal. It is definitely a Category III film (Category III films in Hong Kong would be classified as Rated X or NC-17 in America). This is a warning: there is an absolutely brutal rape in this, and some brutal, ruthless killing. This is not a movie to watch when children are around...

 Despite that, there is comedy in this. The bumbling cops are always joking with each other, and they are especially rude to Bo (played by Emily Kwan), the only woman on their team. The jokes are sexual and sexist, so be prepared for that! Their lead officer, Lee is also constantly bringing his dates to work...which is pretty weird. Despite being a womanizer, he is a good detective. Which is a good thing, because Wong is quite the elusive suspect.

The violence is extreme, bordering on offensive.

 Anthony Wong. His performance in this. Incredible. He plays one of the creepiest, sickest, most disturbing bastards I've ever seen in movies. I actually hate him in this! What makes his performance great is that you kind of have a little sympathy for him when he's getting tortured by the police. That's just the sympathetic/empathetic side to me, I guess. Then I remember what he did to get tortured, and my sympathy goes out the window. Anthony Wong is a monster in The Untold Story, plain and simple. He actually won the Best Actor award for his performance in this movie, and I have to say, it is well deserved.

 Should you see The Untold Story? Even though it is a classic Hong Kong movie, I can't fully recommend it. If you like cult classics, exploitation films, horror movies, or just extreme cinema, then you'll love this one. For everyone else, give it a try if you are very curious, but don't say I didn't warn you. You need to see Anthony Wong's performance at the very least. He is amazingly disturbed in this. As for myself, I just had to watch this at least once, after reading about it in a book on Hong Kong cinema. Decades after reading about it, I finally watched it, and I was actually hesitant to see it. Curiosity overpowered me, and you know what they say about curiosity: it killed the cat.

(The cat being my innocent soul in this case.)

 

 

 

 

Reviewed by David Williams