Movielogr

Rating: 7 stars

Tags

Hong Kong triads gangster

All movies seen on 02/10/2019

View on: IMDb | TMDb

Life Is Cheap... But Toilet Paper Is Expensive (1989)

Directed by Wayne Wang

Comedy | Crime

Overview

A man is hired by a group of people he believes to be gangsters to escort a briefcase from America to Hong Kong. When he arrives, however, his contact is nowhere to be found. With no further instructions, he decides to take in the sights of Hong Kong, which consist of him taking part in a great deal of blood, sex and general weirdness, all while wearing a briefcase handcuffed to his arm.

Length 83 minutes

Actors

Victor Wong | Lo Lieh | Lo Wei | Spencer Nakasako | Cora Miao | Allen Fong | Cheng Kwun-Min | Lam Chung | Chan Kim-Wan | John Chan | Ricky Ho | Cinda Hui | Bonnie Ngai | Angela Yu Chien | Dennis Dun

Viewing History (seen 2 times)

Viewing Notes

More Wayne Wang. Had this on my watchlist at IMDb so somewhere along the line I had heard of this and noted it was a must-see. Turns out this movie was rated X at the time and not easy to find bc of that. The rating was likely due to the animal violence, which is extreme (perhaps the most extreme *real* graphic animal violence I’ve seen on film?). Wang shot this in Hong Kong following the story of an Asian American (Spencer) that is courier for the Triads.

The briefcase is full of junk so he doesn’t know why it’s important and along the way gets caught up in a variety of weird situations and meets unusual people. One of these is a butcher so to speak in the markets and he kills fresh animals for food. So given the context it’s somewhat bearable but still uncomfortable bc these are long shots of animals being slaughtered. The kind of stuff that PETA uses.

The movie itself isn’t great but very watchable bc it is so weird. The DVD i have includes a commentary track which I started and want to finish before I return this to the library.

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