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An EVIL Alien Blob Storms Earth in Search for Space Feline! “The Cat” reviewed! (88 Films / Limited Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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!

If you missed the Blu-ray, “The Cat” Standard Edition is Available!

Three Million and Staying One Step Head of the Cops is EVIL’s Masterplan! “The Cat” reviewed! (Radiance Films / Limited Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Cat” Limited-Edition Blu-ray From Radiance Films Now Available!

Two ex-cons hold up a Düsseldorf bank for 3 million German marks.  Armed with handguns and brazen with their daytime theft, the two men hold hostage a handful of alarmed employees, rounded up before the bank opens for business, including the bank manager.  Going into the heist with a money figure in mind, the vault is discovered with only 200,000 inside, but that was to be expected as the arrival of the police surround the building adjacent to the towering Nikko Hotel where a third man, the mastermind, spies down from one of the upper floors, instructing the two armed men inside of his plan as well as spying on the police activity aimed to thwart the robbery.  Always one step ahead, police, bank employees, and even the bank manager’s wife are all a part of the organized crime for the riches, and maybe even exact a little retaliation in the process too. 

The 1988 released, German crime-thriller “Die Katze,” or “The Cat,” is an intense ruse engrained with deception, affairs, and a saturated with emotional weight.  Helmed by directed Dominik Graf (“The Invincibles”) put the Munich-born, drama-comedy filmmaker to the test with the Christoph Fromm script, adapted from the 1984 novel Uwe Erichsen, entitled Das Leben Einer Katze, aka The Life of a Cat.  “The Cat” would be Graf and Fromm’s second feature together who, four years previously, collaborated on the slice of life for carefree, bike friends suddenly finding themselves in the unemployment lane of “Treffer” and who would then go to after “The Cat” with the gambling comedy “Spieler” two years later.  “The Cat” is a production of Bavaria Film and Zweites Deutsches Fernshehen and is produced by George Feil and Günter Rohrbach (“Das Boot”), shot on location at the Hotel Nikko in Düsseldorf as well as in studios in Munich.

“The Cat” contains a hierarchy amongst the thieves with Britz (Ralf Richter, “Das Boot,” “Sky Sharks”) being at the bottom as a hot-headed hired gun, Jungheim (Heinz Hoenig, “Das Boot,” “Antibodies”) is next step up as the managerial ex-con looking to score big with reprisal, untamed purpose, and, lastly, the only man who can keep Jungheim from spiraling out of control and the spying eye from the tower radioing orders is the mastermind behind the heist plan with a calm as a cucumber demeanor and a cool cat, or katze, finesse and his name is Probek (Götz George, “The Blood of Fu Manchu,” “Scene of the Crime: A Tooth for a Tooth “).  But, as we all know and as the old proverb goes, there is no honor amongst thieves, yet Graf’s filmic adaptation does instill some counterbalance against that adage by keeping a sliver of diligence within their circle but there is an underlining truth well-hidden under-the-table, only informing those down the ladder what they need to know, when they need to know.  As tension ebb and flow from each personality type, throw into the mix an equivocal loyal woman (Gudrun Landgrebe, “Rosinni”), an intelligent officer in charge of hostage operation (Joachim Kemmer, “The Vampire Happening”), and a stubborn and quick to catch-on bank manager (Ulrich Gebauer) and the ensembles ensues an edge of your seat volatility elevated by the steadfast performances with the actors unhinged and let loose to exact their roles.  With lots of moving pieces to the characters’ actions, supporting parts are key to the success, adding flavor to their persona types and unravelling more about who they are and how audiences are supposed to perceive them as either friend or foe.  Sbine Kaack, Heinrich Schafmeister, Claus-Dieter Reents, Iris Disse, Water Gontermann, Bernd Hoffman, Uli Krohm, and Klaus Maas co-star. 

Hardboiled in a game of pursuit and evasion, Dominik Graf finds without difficulty the essence of Uwe Erichsen’s thrilling crime novel staying mostly in one location, evolving the story as the police try every trick in the book to thwart who they believe to be ordinary bank robbers and as the confidence, and perhaps a little brazen cockiness, slowly builds self-assured success. This constant stream of checks and balances between the hard focused, unobservant antitheft division of Germany’s finest and the cooperative crooks consisting of brawns following instructions of the brain keeping ahead of a fate less fortunate never lets down, never idles, and never diverts attention. “The Cat,” in a way, feels very much like 1988’s “Die Hard” from director John McTiernan, a steady source of one-upping the good guys peppered with moments of unvarnished, graphic violence and dark, unforeseen levity, minus a lone wolf John McClane hero behind enemy lines. The very opening scenes of Götz George and Gudrun Landgrebe engaged sexually are raw, sensuous, and sweaty but are under top a jaunty soundtrack that mismatch the heat of the moment in its cheerful, breezy Eric Burden and the Animal’s tune “Good Times,” a track with lyrics that speak of regrets of negating better moments with unsavory choices finds more of a potent meaning at the gun blazing finale where facing death is an inevitable outcome for one’s poor decisions.

UK label Radiance Films releases “The Cat” in the North American market for the first time with English subtitles in a limited-edition Blu-ray with a Dominic Graf approved high-definition transfer, newly graded by Radiance Film, onto an AVC encoded, 1080p, BD50. While the heist concept may be familiar conceptually to “Die Hard,” the look of the film also has that natural grading of “Die Hard” as well with Radiance infused punctuations on skin tones with a natural hardness. The print used was a digitized file, likely already spruced from an extracted print used by Euro Video in 2017, but Radiance retains the organic grittiness as well as the grain in their own sprucing up that sees a muted hues appear more intense. Presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio, I’m curious to know if “Die Katze” was cropped in post to avoid nudity in the love scenes between George and Landgrebe that appear stretched with more pixelation and are oddly framed, as if portions were sliced off and positioning did not change. The German audio mixes include lossless DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and a stereo 2.0. The surround mix lets loose and gives way to all to all of “The Cat’s” range in securing side and rear channels with ambient police activity, fireball explosion crackling, and the echoing of cavernous settings juxtaposed against more intimate and cozy locations. Dialogue renders clear, robust, and prominent with a seemingly errorfree, newly translated English subtitle synchronicity albeit the pacing being a little rapid. No signs of compression issues nor any print damage or unpleasant hissing or crackling. Special features include new German-languaged, English subtitled interviews with Dominik Graf, screenwriter Christoph Fromm, and producer George Feil, a scene-select commentary with Graf, and the film’s trailer. Like the rest of Radiance’s catalogue, “The Cat” comes with a clear Amaray with an OBI strip overtop the reversible cover art. The reverse side displays the original home video and poster art. A 19-page color picture booklet features an essay by freelance culture writer and film critic Brandon Streussnig All the Good Times That’s Been Wasted, plus cast and crew credits and transfer information and acknowledgements. The region A/B encoded playback release has a runtime 118 minutes, is not rated, and is limited to only 3000 copies.

Last Rite: A masterful crime thriller, “The Cat” claws away the fuss to unsheathe realism and Radiance Films delivers the Germanic, harrowing heister in all its glory with a Hi-Def release.

“The Cat” Limited-Edition Blu-ray From Radiance Films Now Available!