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The Cat: Limited Edition
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - 88 Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (18th September 2025). |
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The Film
 Successful fantasy novelist Wisely (A Better Tomorrow's Waise Lee) finds inspiration for his next novel when friend Li Tung (Bullet in the Head's Lawrence Lau) tells him about a mysterious incident involving his upstairs neighbors – an old man (Re-Cycle's Lau Siu-Ming), a girl (Saviour of the Soul's Gloria Yip), and her black cat – who moved out the morning after he confronted them about strange noises. Investigating the apartment, Li Tung discovered bloody entrails and called friend Inspector Wong (Hard Boiled's Phillip Kwok) who invited Wisely along only to make Li Tung the butt of jokes when it was discovered that the intestines belonged to a cat. When Wong invites Wisley along to the museum where a strange octagonal artifact of unknown origin has been stolen with the assailants leaving behind two dead and mutilated security guards and traces of intense burning, Wisley discovers among the ashes some cat hair and makes the intuitive leap that the man, the girl, and the cat are actually extraterrestrial visitors. He traces their whereabouts through the moving company and is nearly killed by the cat and knocked out by the old man Errol only to be spared by the girl known as Princess. Learning of an identical octagonal artifact in another gallery, Wisely and Wong hire fierce hunting dog Lao Bu to foil the anticipated robbery. The cat fights with and overcomes the dog but loses his tail in a struggle with Wisely; whereupon Princess and Errol must reveal their true purpose on Earth and warn him that the killings were the work of alien assassins pursuing them who have already taken over the body of Wong who has no compunction about who he kills in order to get to Princess and her knights. Disney already did a film about an extraterrestrial cat with The Cat from Outer Space, but the resemblance pretty much ends at the title. Based on "Old Cat" which part of the hugely popular thirty-odd year run of serialized novels by Ni Kuang – who has a special appearance as eccentric dog trainer Old Chen – under the name "Wisley" which was also the name of his protogonist previously played by Chow Yun-Fat in The Seventh Curse (directed by this film's director Lam Nai-Choi) and Samuel Hui in The Legend of Wisely. The Cat has a seemingly light premise of an alien princess and her knights who are trying to defeat an alien threat and get back to their home planet; however, the execution is definitely what one would expect from the director of Devil Fetus. The alien assassin is a combination between The Thing and The Blob remake, gorily absorbing human victims and burning through others, reanimating corpses, and producing deadly clones of those it absorbs like Kwok's Inspector Wong who gets Hulk green eyes, negotiates with gun dealers for weapons and then blasts them all away, and finally reincorporates into the mass for a large scale attack on a building for the rooftop climax. Narrated by the voice actor dubbing the actor playing Wisely, the plotting is rudimentary with just enough exposition to tie together set-pieces. Lee is relatively engaging but the camera is in love with Yip while treating Christine Ng (Crime Story) as Wisley's girlfriend Pak So as a sex object – the novel character has also been played by Joey Wang (A Chinese Ghost Story) and Sibelle Hu (The Inspector Wears Skirts) – introducing her in slow motion and then creating an entire montage of close-ups of her sweaty body and see-through clothing when she joins Wisely after a workout (and then he tosses her into the pool wearing only his white undershirt). The film was a co-production between Golden Harvest's exploitation maverick Chua Lam (Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky) and Japanese company Tokuma Shoten allowing for the production to hire Japanese effects technicians including Kazuo Sagawa (The Return of Ultraman) not only enhancing the film's production values but also giving the alien menace more of a Japanese gooey, sexualized tentacle quality that makes up for the mangy fur puppet and stop motion effects used for the film's main set-piece battle between the cat and the dog in which it is very possible both animals – or however many black cats were employed – were injured and traumatized in the live action bits. Silly and uneven but fabulously gory, The Cat would be the last film to date of director Lam Nai-Choi which is unfortunate given that Hong Kong was starting to ramp up their exploitation with the institution of the Category III rating. 
Video
Unreleased theatrically in the U.S. and the U.K., The Cat had a VHS release stateside via Tai Seng Marketing – presumably ported from the Hong Kong laserdisc which was mastered from a theatrical print with burnt-in English and Chinese subtitles – and comes to Blu-ray in both territories in a Region A/B-coded 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen encode from the original camera negative. The transfer boasts deep backs, cool blues, and vibrant reds with only the blue screen composites looking a tad coarser in grain and obvious in outlines. Close-ups are particularly evocative when it comes to Yip's mesererizing gaze, Ng's sweat-beaded skin, and the film's gooey latex effects work. The BBFC had some concerns about possible (likely) animal violence so the British version runs eight seconds shorter. Since this is a dual-region Blu-ray, watching the film on a Region A-locked or switchable player will play the uncut version while a Region B-locked or switchable player will play the shorter version. 
Audio
The sole audio option is a Cantonese LPCM 2.0 mono track in which almost everyone is post-dubbed quite clearly – Ni Kuang's scenes are sync-sound but sound generally clean under some ambient noise – while foley effects have punch and the synth score remains stable at the high ends. Optional English subtitles are provided and free of any obvious errors. 
Extras
The film is accompanied by an audio commentary by Frank Djeng, New York Asian Film Festival who discusses how big Ni Kuang and his Wisely series are in Hong Kong, the popularity particularly of "Old Cat" which previously had a seventies radio adaptation and an eighties adaptation that was the first Hong Kong radio play in stereo. Djeng discusses the differences between the novel and the adaptation by Gordon Chan (The Medallion) – who took over when his regular writing partner Chan Hing-Kai walked off the project – and the additions of Lam Nai-Choi. He also discusses the depictions on film of Wisely and Pak So, noting that in the novels she is Wisely's intellectual equal and even solves some of the cases compared to her more decorative role here and Wisely's more pronounced horniness. Djeng also discusses the Japanese co-production, noting that the Japanese company wanted a separate version mid-way through the shoot and direction of those scenes went to Mio Hani whose script was vastly different from the Hong Kong version (more on that below). The Japanese version featured Yip but replaced many of the cast members and Djeng points out the use of the actor who replaced Lau Siu-Ming for a single quick shot.  The Japanese cut (97:00) is included in its entirety from a standard definition master – a Japanese rental VHS by all appearances given the inclusion of the opening and closing warning screens – and there are a few reasons why this option can best be described as "just watchable." The VHS source is slightly stretched and windowboxed while the handheld camerawork does not hold up well with the analogue detail and smeary motion – it almost looks like a test run for the step-printing running scenes in Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express. This version is interesting for all of the alternate footage but as an entertainment it is drearily, dreadfully boring. Boxer Hidekazu Akai (Knockout) in an early role is wooden and his character never puts pen to paper so it is odd why the replacement actor for Inspector Wong brings him along during the investigation. Presumably the Inspector Wong character was replaced because an actor was needed who was bilingual to communicate with Akai – the film is in Japanese and Cantonese with burnt-in Japanese subtitles for the Cantonese dialogue and optional English subtitles for all of the dialogue – while Kwok is recast as the sinister bodyguard to Wisely's wealthy girlfriend Sonia who gallery is the one that is robbed of the octagonal artifact (co-owned with a flaming caricature as her cousin). While the Hong Kong version's Wisely was suspicious of the intent of the cat and the girl, here he thinks she is innocent and the source of tension is between him and Wong who feels pressured to arrest the girl because Sonia's wealthy and corrupt family are making waves. The additional scenes between Wisely and Wong are incredibly dull but do provide a different backstory that suggests the old man – a different actor here – the princess, and the cat have been on Earth in there current form for over thirty years. A gory highlight of Kwok's takeover by the blob is gone along with his gun rampages and attack on Wisely's home while the building rooftop climax is re-edited to fit the replacement actors and includes some additional visual effects not included in the Hong Kong cut (it is hard to tell how good these are supposed to look as in this SD video master they look like cheap video graphics). Watch this one after the Hong Kong version and be prepared to fast-forward a lot. Also informative is an interview with screenwriter Gordon Chan (21:47) who recalls being a fan of the Wisely novels and was eager to adapt "Old Cat" when approached by producer Chua Lam when it was to be directed by Alex Cheung for whose earlier Shaw production Twinkle Twinkle Little Star Chan had created visual effects with his animation company. Working with regular partners Chan Hing-Kai and Kwong-Kim Yip (Fist of Legend), they found the project a disaster with the cool imagery from the book difficult to adapt to film. Chan and Yip would eventually give up and Chan took over only for Cheung to also walk off when Chua Lam put his foot down on the constant rewrite demands. Chan was not on the set but notes that Ni Kuang was not the type to care about the changes made to his work in adaptation and also that he knows next to nothing about Lam Nai-Choi's changes or the Japanese version of the film (having assumed that Hani was present to smooth the transition between Cheung and Lam). The disc also includes an image gallery (1:58) and the Hong Kong theatrical trailer (4:23). 
Packaging
The limited edition first pressing - already sold out stateside with a standard edition coming in November - includes rigid slipcase in a slipcover, a premium art card, and a 40-page perfect-bound book in which Paul Bramhall discusses the career of director Lam Nai-Choi and the three major Wisely film adaptations, while Matthew Edwards focuses on the body horror and gory aspects of the director's filmography.
Overall
Silly and uneven but fabulously gory, The Cat would be the last film to date of director Lam Nai-Choi which is unfortunate given that Hong Kong was starting to ramp up their exploitation with the institution of the Category III rating.
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