Kit (Juno Mak) is a heinous serial killer. He ceaselessly murders pregnant women, removing the baby from the stomach and brutally tortures their spouses before killing them. The woman is then left for dead. Despite this by the end of Revenge: A Love Story you will find it hard to not feel for Kit's plight.
How a film can perform such an extreme
reversal lies in its story telling. This film is broken up into chapters, each
one has an ominous saying preceding it, chapter one opens up with "he who is on the shortest path to hell"
for instance. As he murders the camera stays intensely focused on his deed,
drawing it out is almost torture for the audience, but we watch transfixed,
unsure why he is doing this. The actor playing Kit devised the original story
as well, and this comes as a great benefit as he really invests a lot into this
complex character, without actually saying much at all.
The nightmarish lingering gives way to some intense chase
scenes. A trio of policemen hell bent on taking him down eventually track him,
some impressive slow motion scenes capture his anguish as he is caught and taken
into a back room, beaten and tortured. Serves
you right you maniac! That's what you are thinking at this point but that
will all change soon.
The Dream Home
production company 852 Films headed
by the enigmatic Josie Ho were also
behind Revenge: A Love Story and it
is easy to see why. The extremely gory albeit innovative murder scenes are
sparks of sick genius and are definitely to be savoured if you are a gore hound.
The same gritty and saturated aesthetics from their previous productions come
through here as well and enhance the darkened and sombre mood, matched up by
music that is equally as ominous.
As the chapters progress the story becomes more fleshed out.
Kit is a bun seller in love with an innocent and mentally handicapped school
girl Wing (played by mega famous Japanese AV actress Sola Aoi), she does not say much but it is not long before tragedy
strikes and Kit falls for her. One fateful night they wind up in a police
station to report a crime, from this point on everything goes completely awry
and Kit's present murderous intent becomes clear.
Revenge: A Love Story
is a slow burning mystery asking why and who, while it does build a
relationship between Kit and Wing, there is a constant tension waiting for the
explanation to explain why it all went so wrong. The depravity inherent in
humanity is revealed here and there is no looking away. The ending in
particular is a masterstroke akin to the conclusion of Old Boy or Kill Bill. It
is an unexpected revelation that even ties up the ominous phrases about god and
the devil preceding each chapter. Only god judges, through the eyes of his
lambs the vicious cycle of an eye for an eye ends.
On the DVD is a four part making-of, although each section
is short it offers a lighter look at behind the scenes preproduction,
choreography, casting Sola Aoi and
most importantly the special effects and make-up.
If you can get past the baby murder, violence and rape then Revenge: A Love Story proves to be less
exploitative and pointless as one may assume and an intelligent genre-horror
piece.
Revenge: A Love story is out now on DVD from Madman Entertainment