Daughter of Darkness (1993)

Anthony Wong Chau-Sang, Lily Chung, Hugo Ng, William Ho

This mean-spirited category III thriller from Hong Kong filmmaker Ivan Lai was a smash-hit at the box office and spawned two sequels, despite (or perhaps because of) its offbeat mixture of bathroom co... read more medy and brutal sexual violence. Lily Chung stars as Mak Wei-fong, the sole survivor of the Mak family's vicious murder. Gruff police Captain Lui (Anthony Wong) believes that Wei-fong's boyfriend Kin (Hugo Ng) is responsible for the crimes, but Wei-fong insistently claims culpability herself. It doesn't take Lui long to rule out Kin and accept Wei-fong's version of events, which is borne out in an extended and gruesome flashback detailing the violent sexual abuse she underwent at the hands of her insane stepfather (William Ho), and the silent complicity of her other relatives. The distasteful events are exacerbated rather than leavened by Lui's crass attempts at humor, and the entire thing has the air of one of the more extreme Japanese Nikkatsu "roughies" transplanted to Hong Kong. Nevertheless, it was quite successful with audiences, leading most of the surviving cast to return for Brother of Darkness, which in turn led to Daughter of Darkness II. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi