Hong Kong Eva
1993; directed by Cheng Kin-Ping

To begin with, it should be noted that this review of Hong Kong Eva is based off of the edited Category IIB version, which has been trimmed by some fifteen minutes from the original Category III cut of the film. Most of the edits seem to be in the T&A department, which frankly would be the only thing that might possibly separate this picture from dozens of similar Triad-themed releases that have come out from Hong Kong over the years.

Also, information from some online sources have this as the prequel to Body Lover, but it is mostly unrelated, besides it reusing the last shot from this film, featuring most of the same cast and crew, and having a similar dependence on showing off the "points" of the female stars to keep the audience's interest. More than likely, this is yet another instance of a low-budget Hong Kong film-maker piggybacking productions on top of each other in order to save a few shekels.

At any rate, the story here concerns Tong (Lau Siu-Gwan), a Triad who wants to go straight after getting out of prison. Working menial jobs to get by, he attracts the attention of Frankie (Alan Ng), a young punk dai lo who wants to make a name for himself with his boys by humiliating Tong. Frankie is also a lecherous perv who has been harassing three roommates (Lily Lee, Ga Ling, and Cecilia Yiu) who work as real estate agents/prostitutes -- only in Hong Kong, I guess -- for sexual favors. Eventually, Tong and the girls get together to extract their revenge on Frankie.

Taken in the truncated version watched for this review, Hong Kong Eva isn't very successful. The first two-thirds of the film is dominated by Category III nudie antics, but when there's (pardon the term) hard cuts any time matters threaten to get steamy, it's hard to rate the proceedings as a whole. To it's credit, the final does feature some decent martial arts and gun play, but so many other Hong Kong movies produced during this period can say the same thing, so there's really no compelling reason to track this particular take of the well-worn tale down.

RATING: 4