The Untold Story: Herman Yau

There's a scene in Park Chan-wook's Sympathy for Lady Vengeance where a group of parents watch video recordings of a madman killing their children. It's a horrific and disturbing scene, but it plays a vital part to the story. It fits the entire tone of the film: a moody revenge thriller. The film is strengthened by this scene. Herman Yau's The Untold Story also has a scene where young children are brutally murdered. Except in this film, it is offensive and despicable. Let me explain. The Untold Story is about a psychopath who runs a restaurant where he periodically kills his employees and uses their bodies to make barbeque pork dumplings. The problem with this story is that the first third of the film follows the cops investigating the murders. And these scenes are played as a black comedy. The cops fart around, insult each other, make sexist jokes towards their only female co-worker, etc, etc. And then the film suddenly changes its mind about what it wants to be. So we are then treated to scenes where he violently rapes a woman and kills her through vaginal mutilation. By the end of the film we learn that he gained the restaurant after killing the previous owner's family over a game of mah jong. And this is where the child killing comes in. We see five small children brutally decapitated, chopped up into pieces, and thrown into the garbage. And they show all of this in lurid detail. I have no problem with films being offensively violent...as long as there is a purpose behind it. But The Untold Story shows such despicable scenes because it honestly believes that such things are fun and entertaining. So that's why I'm giving this film a zero out of ten. From a technical standpoint, it's a well made film with an amazing central performance by Wong Chi Hang as the killer. But I protest to its belief that child killing is fun and entertaining. Herman Yau isn't trying to make a political or sociological statement, he isn't trying to make a piece of fine (or campy) art, he isn't trying to be overly dramatic. Herman Yau simply thinks that brutalizing young children makes for good entertainment. And that, my friends, is something that I can't support.

0/10