Released in our theaters on July 6, “The Sadness” is inspired in particular by Category III films, a classification reserved, in Hong Kong, for feature films deemed particularly extreme.
The director is Canadian. Taiwanese film. And he is inspired by works produced… in Hong Kong. Released on July 6 in our cinemas, after a passage noticed by various festivals (Locarno, Gérardmer…), The Sadness is considered as one of the most violent feature films recently seen on the big screen, with scenes that go very far without for as much to fall into complacency that they graze on several occasions.
It must be said that Robert Jabbaz, the director, was not looking for realism: “I purposely went beyond the limits, and entered a kind of hyper-reality”, he says in the press kit. And he was particularly inspired by Category III films, a classification set up in 1988 in Hong Kong, which stipulates: “No one under the age of 18 is permitted to rent, purchase or watch this film in theaters.” The two previous categories designate works for all audiences and then those prohibited for children. And in France, the feature films in question are generally prohibited for those under 16.
A restriction that applies to films produced in Hong Kong as well as abroad. A little sex, a lot of violence, a political statement against the communist regime and/or questionable morality are necessary to be part of what has become a genre in its own right on the spot, and has participated in the revival of local cinema. Category III is not reserved for horror, since filmmakers such as Johnnie To (Election and its sequel) or Wong Kar-Wai (Happy Together) were entitled to it.
In the case of The Sadness, it was gore and transgression that obviously influenced Robert Jabbaz: “In a lot of Category III films, there’s a kind of strange tone, something almost childlike comedy (…) I thought it would be interesting to make a film like that, but without the humor. Or at least, without making gags, leaving only tiny touches of irony.”
While the result is still visible in our theaters, here are some horrific examples from Hong Kong, where films of the genre experienced their golden age between 1988 and 1997, before becoming rarer thereafter. But we find them at the heart of a documentary released in 2018, Category III: The Untold Story of Hong Kong Exploitation Cinema.
Camp 731 of Tun Fei Mou (1988)
DR
The shock scene – Camp 731 does not go with the back of the spoon to show the abuse of all kinds suffered by the prisoners it depicts. But two sequences particularly mark the spirits: when a cat is devoured by rats, before the latter are set on fire, a passage whose complacency has earned him comparisons with Cannibal Holocaust.
And especially this vivisection of a child (seen in the process of sympathizing with his future executioners a few minutes earlier), carried out thanks to images of a real autopsy whose family of the deceased agreed to give up the images. Even without these unbearable images, the feature film deserved its place in Category III. These scenes only support it.
Herman Yau’s The Untold Story (1993)
DR
The shock scene – Urophilia, rape, infanticide… The Untold Story refuses nothing, in case its inclusion among the films of Category III was not immediately assured. The Hong Kong director stops at nothing when it comes to human meat and, above all, murder. And in particular that, very graphic, of a family, including beheadings of children. Suggestion enthusiasts, go your way.
Herman Yau’s Ebola Syndrome (1996)
DR
The shock scene – Quasi-remake of Untold Story, by the same director, Ebola Syndrome shows a little more second degree without sacrificing any of its intensity. Or his desire to go after things. Infanticide, racism, autopsy, contamination, rape, sex, scatology, rudeness… Everything is good for shocking, without trying to deliver a message, and its ultra-violence makes it one of the flagship works of Category III. Especially when he adds an ounce of cannibalism to his already loaded cocktail, through the burgers Kai serves to his customers.
Daughter of Darkness by Yvan Lai (1993)
DR
The shock scene – Starting point of a saga in which we find a sequel and a male version (Brother of Darkness), Daughter of Darkness is not the most difficult of Category III films to watch. But its mixture of violence, rape and incest makes its key scene particularly shocking, and it also owes its classification to the sequences with its libidinous policeman which aim, in hollow, to criticize the abuses of power of the authorities of the Chinese communist system.
Devil Fetus (1983) by Hung-Chuen Lau
DR
The shock scene – Black magic and ghosts are on the program of this Devil Fetus, which is not the Hong Kong parody of The Exorcist that the synopsis might suggest. And it is difficult to determine the most horrific sequence, between that of the fetus which swells, bursts and lets the monster spring from the body of its mother. Or that moment in which a man rips the skin off his face and reveals the swarming maggots underneath.
Horrible High Heels by Wei-An Chen, Cheng Chow & Tsiang-Pang Mao (1996)
DR
The shock scene – We saw the burgers made with human meat. Make way for shoes made with their skin. So it won’t take you long to figure out what Horrible High Heels has that’s most horrible: these home-made scalpel or bevel skinning which, if not as extreme as one might have feared, makes you squeak a few teeth and reminiscent of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Also note a scene a little olé olé involving a goose.
Intruder by Tsan Kan-Cheung (1997)
DR
The shock scene – Sex and violence are aspects that can lead to a film being placed in Category III. But morality plays a role, especially in the case of this Intruder produced by Johnnie To. If the director will be entitled to this classification with Election and his afterthat was not necessarily the goal, unlike Intruder, where the heroes are the villains.
According to several analyses, the schizophrenic side of heroin can be seen as a metaphor for the loss of identity felt by Hong Kong at the dawn of its handover to China. And it is, as often, when it goes to extremes, that the film makes an impression. When he attacks the elderly and/or children, like here with little Yin Yin, whose fate did not fail to shock.
Fruit Chan’s New Kitchen (2004)
Pan European Edition
The shock scene – One of the few Category III horror feature films to make it to our theaters. First as the dirtiest segment in the aptly named sketch film 3 Extremes, released in 2005. Then in this extended version, which hit our screens on February 1, 2006. To talk about abortion, social pressure or of the bourgeoisie ready to do anything to keep their desires intact, Nouvelle cuisine mixes dark humor and cannibalism.
Embryos are eaten there to keep sexual activity alive. Four-month-old fetuses are cut there with a mincer. And we gobble up funny ravioli, with bones that crackle under the tooth. Lovers of Top Chef type cooking shows are likely to turn pale before this trashy, violent and disturbing opus, but not meaningless.