The film starts with a Mah-Jong game being played by 2 men, one of whom is Wong Chi Hang. He wins the game and tells the other man he owes him a large sum of money; this leads to a big argument. The man accuses him of cheating which sets Hang off and he attacks the man then sets him on fire. He then leaves Hong Kong and goes to Macau, as a matter of fact, the opening credits are him getting a new I.D. card with a new look.

When we see him again, he’s running a restaurant but something is wrong, he keeps trying to convince the law that the owner has signed over the restaurant to him but he doesn’t have the proper papers and the owner has gone abroad. This frustrates him but there’s nothing he can do. The waitress notices that he tosses all mail addressed to the owner but he has the same answer when she questions him about it and that is the owner has gone abroad.

Meanwhile there’s been a grisly discovery at the shore-a load of human remains: hands and feet have washed ashore and it’s up to the police to figure out who they belong to. This is where the film broke down for me-this film was a straight crime thriller and would’ve worked well as such but then they introduce the most moronic cops EVER!

There’s the Captain, played by The Killer’s Danny Lee (who also co-directed the film) he seems to be a good cop but that’s brushed aside by the fact that whenever he shows up at the station, he’s accompanied by a new femme fatale. The other 3 male members drool uncontrollably at the women with their captain then leave most of the serious work to be done by the lone female on the squad, Bo (Emily Kwan) who also has a big crush on the captain.

They receive letters from a Hong Kong citizen who’s looking for his brother but they ignore them until it’s revealed that the person missing is the restaurant owner. They go there but nothing seems amiss until they visit the living quarters above the eatery and most of the family’s stuff is still there. But Hang insists they’ve all gone for a visit abroad and offers the police hot meat buns, which they happily accept then devour at the station. Bo finally traces a fingerprint from one of the hands to the mother of the restaurant owner and they go back to question Hang again. Slowly the story comes together and we are left with a truly horrific climax.

There are quite a few horrific scenes in this film-ones that resonate long after the movie is over. I’ve gone to user comments on IMDb and see that some see this film as exploitative-they may have a point, seeing as there’s no real method to Hang’s madness but then again, maybe with some insane people, there simply ISN’T a reason.

The murder scenes were quite grisly but the police scenes were quite disturbing too. Though it could be argued, especially after Hang’s monstrous crimes, his treatment at the hands of the police (& the hospital staff) were wrong too. He was beaten & tortured and his confessions were coerced by cruel treatment. If this were done today, no doubt heads would roll.

There was a rape scene too that was one of the most disturbing I’d ever seen-for once, it wasn’t done with titillation, it was animal and inhumane. I cringed quite a bit through this movie-that’s how intense Anthony Wong was. But like I said before, the only misstep was the comic portrayal of the police. I guess the filmmakers felt that the horrible premise of the story needed some comic relief but it just didn’t fit.

I do recommend this movie, mostly for Anthony Wong’s performance but be warned, it’s quite disturbing and only for the strong of stomach.