The Cat
directed by Ngai Choi Lam
starring Gloria Yip, Waise Lee, Christine Ng
88 Films
The early 1990s was an absolutely wild era in Hong Kong cinema, so it takes a lot for a film to stand out as particularly strange. Ngai Choi Lam’s science fiction action flick, The Cat, melds a variety of genres and tones to stand out as an utterly insane bit of cinema. With an unholy blend of The Terminator, The Cat from Outer Space, and the cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft, The Cat delivers 90 minutes of zany fun punctuated by healthy doses of hyper-violence and practical special effects.
Adventure novelist Wisely and his girlfriend, Pai So, encounter a strange young woman and her majestic black and silver floof, who harbor a secret: both the girl and the cat are aliens on the hunt for another alien dubbed “The Star Killer,” whom they must defeat to save the galaxy and return home. The clock is ticking, as there is a limited time window during which they can be beamed home. Complicating matters, The Star Killer has the power to possess people, turning them into well-armed, Terminator-style killers. As the deadline to return home approaches, the fur and bullets fly, and the cat, who is actually an alien general, must get his tail reattached, recover a pair of ancient artifacts, and have a final showdown with The Star Killer, an oozing monstrosity that resembles a mix of The Blob and Cthulhu by way of The Evil Dead. Taking inspiration from 1950s American science fiction, Japanese Kaiju, and 1980s action movies, The Cat skillfully balances its tone, taking its characters and story seriously without ever taking itself too seriously, letting everyone in on the fun. The best sequence in the film sees our alien cat hero facing off against a large dog in a junkyard, in a fight that plays like a Looney Tunes cartoon in live action, mixing real animals, stop-motion, and puppets without much concern for whether any of it actually looks real. The result is an exciting, albeit silly, scene that may elicit laughs, but still retains stakes. The real-life tragedy of this scene is that it actually led to the special effects supervisor being fired during filming due to animal safety concerns. The dodgy effects and galactic-sized plot holes all add to the midnight movie charm.
With a new 2K transfer made from the original camera negative, The Cat slinks onto a new Blu-ray from 88 Films with a commentary from Frank Djeng and an interview with writer Gordon Chan. The Cat is a wonderfully odd film that is certain to delight, and it makes a great late-night watch with friends.
