Wicked City (1992)

Wicked City. Directed by Peter Mak Tai-Kit (1992). 

This is the live action version of the anime from the 87. It starts off at warp speed and just gets more into Yokai Monster territory as it blurrrrs along in a frenetic pace. A boxer’s BBQ’d corpse shows up. The death is attributed to happiness a new street drug. No, it’s not original “Stummys” the drug from KITH: Brain Candy that makes you happy because like Bruce’s character yells on stage “Fuck Happy”! 

The main character gets a hunch there may be monsters (or REPTOIDS) and we’re off into “Monster land”. It’s a mix of The Hidden (1987) and a heavy dose of film noir severed up psychedelic style. 

The two monster hunting agents are played by Jackie Cheung Hok-Yau (Ken) and Leon Lai Ming (Taki). Cheung was also in two insanely great HK flicks worth seeking out, Bullet in the Head and Haunted Cop Shop 2 (which we reviewed here).

Shock the Macaque monkey

The bros battle giant tentacles that claw their way through flesh. One monster looked like vagina face from Breeders (1984, T. Kincaid). Some of the style and lighting reminds me of The Hunger (1983), very MTV influenced. There’s an unhinged kitchen fight with one of the shapeshifters. A character busts out with neon blue lightning squiggling everywhere even on his eyebrows. It ramps up even further a half hour in as spouts of blue blood pours out of neck stumps. One handsome fellow whom I thought was gonna be the breakout star ends up losing his arms, head and then vomits. Ok so a few mins later he’s back! And just before he was rolling around a power plant in the gentle rain with Gaye, a sexy monster lady who’s involved with one of the Special Monster Squad dudes (the HK one not the Fred Dekker one)! 

you have a date with death

Reptoids are a snobby upscaled Alien race Nakadai Tatsuya plays their leader. One female character who wears the same metal bikini as Princess Lea gets into an epic battle that extends to the parking garage. The power plant is where they get their real jollies off at. Two naked characters party hard and shed limbs like Reptoids totally should and do in their natural habitat! I dunno either, just go with it, this movie assumes you’ve already read the comics and can figure out what’s going on. It somehow doesn’t hinder your enjoyment, which is rad! 

There’s so much action, pretty much non-stop. Oh Yeah, there’s a bizarre scene where a guy fucks a pinball machine. The VHS tape of this one came through the record store that I currently work at and it remains unsold. 

the pinball machine FUCKS!

If you love frenetically paced HK hi-jinx with mucho butt kicking and an all-around monster mash, seek this shit out. The anime is easily available to find on blu/dvd but this live action one is not. I watched it on one of the free Tubi style streamers and it's on archive.org in Eng. dubbed form.