July 18, 99

CRUEL CHINESE MOVIE

Last night, I watched this unusually cruel Chinese movie on cable that mixed sex and courtroom drama with torture and small-town intrigue. I don't know whether I saw it thru till the end because I was titillated, disgusted or simply shocked.

The story went something like this: a young servant girl named Little Cabbage is fired from the household where she works by the woman of the house, and married off to the town "stud", a guy named Got--- whose penis is said to be as long as his arm. Little Cabbage is treated this way because she sees (accidentally) the wife of the master having an affair with the town pharmacist.

Anyway, the master of the house, Yang, comes home after a long absence and finds Cabbage married off to Got. His disapointment with this decision is apparent when he cruelly whips his wife, her clothes shredding at the merciless lashes.

The wife then conspires with the pharmacist to poison Got, and in turn have Cabbage and Yang framed for the murder. The poison? An aphrodisiac so strong that if no sex is had, will make the male sex organ explode.

Of course, up till now, despite being married, Cabbage is a virgin. Got knows that any woman who has sex with him will die, since his dick is just too frigging long. So when the aphrodisiac hits, and Cabbage offers herself finally, Got knows she is ready to sacrifice herself to ease his pain... but it is too late. As she is trying to manage his enormous member (which is never seen on-camera, I might add), the aforementioned member explodes in a spray of blood that covers Cabbage.

Cabbage is jailed as is Yang, because of evidence planted by the wife and the pharmacist. And here the cruelty starts...

During the courtroom scenes, various contraptions (all made of bamboo, I might add) are utilized to make both Cabbage and Yang confess to their affair... and since the judge seems to have been paid by the wife, the punishments are awful.

(1) There are these wooden restraints for both neck and wrists, where the person must kneel in order to be restrained. When locked in, the interrogator pierces a long thin, sharp strip of bamboo right into the space between fingernail and finger....

(2) There is the neck brace, supported on stilts about 7 feet high. The criminal is "hung" by the neck from the brace, while hands and feet are both tied, so nothing supports criminal except his neck. When criminal refuses to confess, sandbags are tied to his feet to add weight.

(3) A criminal is made to walk on his knees thru a 4-foot long "path" made from broken porcelain... Of course, his knees bleed horridly.

(4) The criminal is suspended in the air by ropes attached to his two thumbs and his ponytailed hair.

(5) In order for the judges to retry the case, they make the one requesting the retrial, roll over a bed of nails in the nude... when they see that the person does this willingly, they realize there must be something in the case worth re-investigating.

Can you blame me now for vegetating in front of the TV set? It was gross, it was cruel, it was ... impossible to turn away from. And I thought they only did these things in unusually cruel animated movies!

Still, can you imagine what kind of subconscious damage stuff like this can do to children?

Scary.

Now does anyone out there know what the hell the title of the movie is? Merely for documentation purposes, of course.

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