If you missed the Blu-ray, “The Cat” Standard Edition is Available!
Storytelling author Wisely recounts one of his more fantastical pieces originating from more truth than fiction. The writer reminisces investigating the mysterious occurrences surrounding a black cat and a young woman involved in a museum heist of an ancient, unknown artifact and, previously, in a strange encountering with Wisely’s friend Li Tung involving strange hammering noises and strewn about cat guts in an adjacent apartment. Wisely soon discovers he’s bitten off more than he can chew becoming mixed up in extraterrestrial battle between the gentile but fierce fighting space cat and the young woman from another world versus a vicious and imposing orange alien blob that can inhabit dead humans and slip through tight confining spaces, leaving a burn trail of electrified bodies in its wake. Wisely and his girlfriend, Pai so, decide to help the girl retrieve a second piece of the artifact that be used as a weapon against the relentless alien aggressor before the cat and girl can return to their home planet.
A strange science fiction thriller hailing from Hong Kong, “The Cat,” or “Lo mau,” is the 1991 filmic adaptation of author Ni Kuang’s “Old Cat” from a part of the Wisely adventure series of novels. Written by frequent collaborating screenwriters Hing-Ka Chan and Gordon Chan (“Cat and Mouse,” “Behind the Yellow Line”) as well as numerous team-ups of Hing-Ka penning Gordon director helmed works (“Beast Cops,” “Thunderbolt”) and directed by “Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky” director Ngai Choi Lam, “The Cat’s” bizarrely unraveled as it is unrivaled but evokes a commingling of Hong Kong mysticism, science fiction, horror, and creature personification that’s hard to find not entertaining in its converging Daoism with creature feature movies! Golden Harvest and Paragon Films, in association with Japan’s Nippon Television Network as a Hong Kong-Japanese alliance, are the companies behind the picture production with Chan Tung Chow (“Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky”) and Seiji Okuda (“Pulse”) as producers.
Hong Kong beauty Gloria Yip (“Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky,” “The Blue Jean Monster”) took Hong Kong cinema by storm in the early 90s before quietly taking a step back from acting to focus on building a family when newly married in 1995. Since her divorce, Yip has been active in the last decade and half but to experience her best, early work, “The Cat” is a good start to behold her natural girl-next-door charisma and attractive attributes as an alien inside a human body. Where she obtains this human form is unknown and her species social status, her name or how she became trapped on Earth is also vague, but Yip’s character can float waltz and is seemingly the caretaker of the Cat, who is a general of sorts in the alien race. Her alien sidekick, Errol (Siu-Ming Lau, “Shaolin vs Evil Dead: Ultimate Power,” “A Chinese Ghost Story”), too has an equivocal backstory as they search for weaponry relics and evade the caustic and electrically charged blob monster that threatens their world. The story falls in more in tune with the three friends buried by the extraterrestrial struggle for survival and dominance with “A Chinse Ghost Story II and III’s” Waise Lee as principal lead character Wisely, a humble story writer living off the riches of girlfriend Pai So (Christine Ng, “Crime Story”), at least based on their dialogue of her owning a big house, playing tennis, and providing. It’s an oddly laid out relationship that shows no quarrel or being tested when up against alien beings. Li Tung (Lawrence Lau, “3-D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy”) is Wisely’s first friend to encounter the girl and cat as noisy above neighbors but it’s their cop friend, Wang Chieh-Mei (Philip Kwok, “Hard Boiled”) who takes the unfortunate brunt being inhabited by the alien blob and becoming a Rambo-arsenal assassin. The last piece to “The Cat’s” cast is actually the “Old Cat” author Ni Kuang having a cameo appearance as a warrior dog handler, Processor Yu.
Did I mention already that “The Cat” is beyond bizarre? The campy story suffers from connective tissue deficiency syndrome, meaning there’s not enough exposition or explanation in the subdued, mild-manner interactions to really bring together and segue the really cool action and creature sequences that involve, but not limited to, pyrotechnics, forced perception effects, stop-motion, blood squibs, prosthetics and makeup, and high-flying wire acts involving not only people but cats and dogs! The cat versus dog fight is a rough-and-tumble showstopper. The special effects and choreographic teams of Hong Kong’s special makeup effects artist Chi-Wai Cheung (“Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky”) and stunt coordinator Philip Kwok taking their cogs and working into the grand effects design along with Japan’s f/x crew from visual effects artist Takashi Kawabata (“Dark Water”) and special effects Shinji Higuchi (“Gamera, the Guardian of the Universe”) is a masterful amalgamation of two cultures and two styles into one, blending high-flying acrobatics with the strange, bold stop-motion and visual effects that incorporate puppets and molds is optical buffet aimed stimulate and confound. Nearly experimental in its narrative and effects while bordering being derivative, such as from the 1988 “The Blob” remake, “The Cat’ prowls, growls, and meows as a welcoming hot mess of feline phantasmagoria.
On a new limited-edition Blu-ray set with exclusive, new artwork by graphic artist Sean Langmore, “The Cat” purrs with a fully-loaded, out of this world high definition release from UK label 88 Films and distributed by MVDVisual in the North American market. A new 2K restoration of the original 35mm negative is encoded on a AVC encoded BD50 with a 1080p resolution in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 widescreen. Image presentation has the stellar glow of regular Hong Kong film stock, a stock that doesn’t dilute the defining particulars but only softens them slight. The original negative has withstood the test of time and any improper handling providing the restoration effort with a focus-driven goal of grading and detail. The other side of that coin is that all the rubbery and irregular textures are now more in the spotlight instead of being lost in the lower resolution and more opaque video qualities. Brilliant gel lighting and a comprehensive range of primary reds and blues coupled with an electric orange and blood red of the antagonistic monster seduces contrastingly inside a dark atmosphere with a story mostly told during the nighttime hours. Remastered with a Cantonese DTS-HD mono track, the compositional track is about as good as it’s going to get but that’s not saying the audio is bad at all. Clean and clear in ADR dialogue and distinct in the ambience and action, “The Cat’s” remastering is mighty without being punchy with broad-range, consistent audio that doesn’t have any holes poked into it and has an epic, original score by Phillip Chan (“Her Vengeance”). Newly translated English subtitles are burned onto the only video file feature. The encoded special features include an audio commentary by Asian film expert Frank Djeng of the NY Asian Film Festivial, a new interview with writer Gordon Chan in Cantonese with an English introduction, the Japanese cut of the film in standard definition, an image gallery, and theatrical trailer. All of the encoded features will be available on the limited-edition and standard release sets. Langmore’s artwork graces the LE O-ring slipcover and rigid slipbox with a crazy illustrative arrangement that details how bonkers “The Cat” gets. Inside the slipbox, a full-bodied colored and detailed booklet with more original Langmore artwork, one sheets, stills, and other contents that include cast and crew acknowledgements, a Paul Bramhall retrospective essay on director Ngai Choi Lam That Cat is Dangerous, a second essay in regard to Nai-Choi’s niche cinematic credits by Matthew Edwards entitled Body Horror, and a special thanks roundup and more acknowledgements in the making of the Blu-ray release. There’s also a collectible art card stuffed in between the clear Amaray case and the booklet. The reversible cover art’s secondary slip-shell is of an original poster art, a good alternative to an already overused Langmore illustration that’s on the O-Ring and slipbox. While not a numbered limited-edition release, news of the set already being or nearly sold out at most retailers is circulating, but there will be a standard edition slated for release late November ICYMI! The not rated release has a 89-minute runtime and is encoded region A and B for playback.
Last Rites: Ngai Choi Lam’s science fiction, body horror, and creature feature inundated “The Cat” has all the weirdness and practical prosthetics, including deeply bizarre force perception visuals, that’s beyond our galaxy and capacity for understanding, landing with great precision onto a well-deserved, highly anticipated, and must own 88 Films’ limited-edition boxset!
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