Dr Lamb

After photos of a dead woman are discovered in a film sent for processing, the police, led by Inspector Li (Danny Lee) bring Lin Gwao Yam (Simon Yam) and his family in for questioning.

A search of their cramped three-room apartment reveals many more similar photographs and a selection of body parts in specimen jars.

At first the police believe that they have unearthed a family of serial killers but, almost as incredible as Hong Kong’s answer to the West’s – it’s hard to resist the urge to suggest the East’s – it then transpires that Lin Gwao Yam was operating alone. Somehow the night-shift taxi driver was able to bring the bodies of murdered prostitutes back to the apartment and dismember and play with them without his father or half-brother and sister noticing…

This Hong Kong Category III nasty claims to be a work of fiction but clearly draws inspiration from the real life case of Lam Go-wan, Hong Kong’s premier serial killer.

Stylistically and thematically co-directors Danny Lee (perhaps best known as Chow Yun Fat’s rival assassin in The Killer) and Billy Tang evince an odd combination of influences, as police procedural clashes with black comedy – one high spot, or low spot, depending on how deviant ones tastes are, is a skit involving a severed breast – and Taxi Driver neo-expressionist/surrealist city after dark meets Dario Argento-esque production number murders.

Yet, severed breast gag aside, it works.

Throw in a daringly out there yet totally controlled performance from Simon Yam, the De Niro of Hong Kong sleaze, and you’ve got a film that, while certainly not to everyone’s tastes, is a winner within its own genre terms.

Winson Entertainment’s Region 3 DVD of Dr Lamb presents the film in a choice of 2.0 and 5.1 Mandarin and Cantonese soundtracks, so English speaking viewers will have to watch with subtitles. Unfortunately these are very poorly translated, imparting much unintentional humour to the proceedings.

Image quality on the disc is poor. The colours are okay, but there is a lot of grain, artefacting and damage, with the last 15 or so minutes being particularly scratchy.

There are no extras on the disc – not even a trailer.

A caveat emptor, then, for both Dr Lamb itself and Winson’s DVD presentation.