DVD Review: Tsui Hark's 'We're Going To Eat You' R1

Agent 999’ is sent to a rural Chinese village to arrest a bandit called ‘Rolex’, who sports a tattoo of a fist on his chest. Upon arriving, Agent 999 begins to suspect that something is wrong, and it soon transpires that cannibals, addicted to the flesh of strangers, populate the village. Agent 999 and an unlikely bunch of good guys decide that they must overthrow the evil Chief of the village and escape.

We’re Going To Eat You was only the second film into Tsui Hark’s directing career. It is a muddled mash of horror, comedy and kung-fu cinema; a film that spirals nearly out of control yet somehow manages to find its way to the end, through the mire, and be a tad entertaining. It’s good to know that early in his career that he displayed his disregard for narrative flow and logical story telling. It isn’t something that has happened with age, he’s nothing if consistent. WGTEY skips, jumps and skirts all over the place making children with ADHD look passive.

The horror elements of WGTEY are indeed horrific. There is a terrific amount of bloodletting in the first scene, so much that it was almost startling. But there is enough flesh-eating, limb chopping and blood to keep any horror fan happy as a pig in blood.

The fight choreography was handled by Corey Yuen. While there is nothing very inventive with the fighting in this film the one thing that everyone seems to go back to is the cigarette rolling on the forehead of a cannibal during a fight. That’s the only bright spot in the fighting. Other than that the fights are standard fare and nothing to get excited about.

The comedy is where I think most western viewers are going to miss out. This is a case of getting lost in translation. There is a fair bit of typical Chinese slapstick/keystone cop-like humor but for the most part a lot of it just doesn’t click. And that’s fine. I can’t claim to be a victim of cultural ignorance or not. I think I have watched enough Chinese movies in my life to know what’s going on. It’s funny. Just not Ha-Ha funny.

The quality of the film copy is average. The film hasn’t been restored and bares the scars of many years of abuse. Scratches on the print are obvious and it is clear that many prints were used to make a complete reel as colors and tints change throughout. However, considering the film is over 25 years old I can’t find any reference to this being available on any R1 format other than VCD until now. So huge props to Tokyo Shock for bringing this out from oblivion to a suitable format.

How you feel about We’re Going To Eat You is going to be hit or miss. You’re going to like it a lot. Or you won’t. I don’t know if it depends on if you’re a Tsui Hark fan or not. I haven’t been the most outspoken fan of his work but I don’t think that’s the case here. We’re Going To Eat You is a mess and just barely gets by as entertainment no matter who was involved in it. However, for what I can tell is its first time on R1 DVD it is a must for anyone looking for back catalogue material from one of the most well-known Chinese directors of our time.

Cast: Norman Chu, Kwok-choi Han, Eddy Ko, Melvin Wong, David Wu
Format: Color, Subtitled, NTSC
Language: Cantonese w/ English Subtitles
Region: Region 1
Number of discs: 1
Studio: Tokyo Shock
Run Time: 87 minutes

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