It’s been an interesting week on the Blu-ray announcement front. Well-done to 88 Films for pulling off the miraculous and somehow getting Ebola Syndrome through the BBFC, which has to be one of the most unexpected releases EVER passed by our “classifiers” uncut. It’s about time Maniac also got an uncut UK pass after just 42 years too. Many aware of these films already have them on import via Vinegar Syndrome and Blue Underground but there is obviously still a UK market for them. There is talk that Ruggero Deodata’s classic House On The Edge Of The Park may be about to get a UK uncut certificate, which I will believe when I see it confirmed due to scenes of sexual violence. Also, Cannibal Holocaust is also about to get its first 4K release here minus one cruel scene against a muskrat being tortured and crushed by a snake which is rightfully considered “disgusting and exploitative.” For the record I don’t agree with any form of animal abuse in films but it seems a case of unnecessary suffering is applied by the BBFC which gives a pass to a turtle being hacked up for the camera in the same film and live frogs as part of the cooking process in Ebola Syndrome. Of-course one should also consider Apocalypse Now, a quick clean kill is considered quite acceptable.
But seeing as it apparently deemed fit for UK distribution let’s consider The Ebola Syndrome in more detail and prior to the 88 Films release my review is based on the 4K UHD Vinegar Syndrome print. One would expect them to simply port this title over and this is standard practice for buying the rights to films for other territories. However, it would seem that it is just the standard Blu-Ray that is due for release here and there are not plans to include it on 4K UHD, which is a great shame for those that want the film in its best available transfer.
To put things in context we must look back to the mid 80’s when films were becoming increasingly more violent and gory. This was certainly the case in Hong Kong where in 1988 they introduced a new certificate known as category III. A slew of hyper-violent films were emerging from there and they needed this to incorporate titles that contained “brutal, gory violence with cries of pain, depictions of drug taking, strong sexual scenes, or pervasive/aggressive coarse language.” Many of these films naturally became infamous both in HK and overseas. Here for instance most of the titles had no chance of getting certified by the BBFC and were traded the normal way on bootleg video cassette.
One of the 1st examples was T.F. Mou’s harrowing war film depicting the medical experiments conducted by the Japanese on Chinese prisoners in Unit 731. The Man Behind The Sun really was a nasty piece of work, far and above anything the Italians had released and spurred several sequels. It’s one of the few films that I personally would never own due to incredibly realistic cruelty to both humans and animals. Following this the floodgates opened and there were a slew of films gaining the category from relatively harmless softcore erotica to grizzly serial killer and violent crime procedural films. Some can be taken in the spirit of fun such as the over- the- top ultraviolence of prison actioner Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991 Lam Nai-choi) to the more ghastly Dr Lamb (1992 Danny Lee Billy Tang) Red To Kill (1994 Billy Tang Hin-Shing) and The Untold Story aka Bunman (1993 Herman Yau).
Yau is a prolific filmmaker with over 75 films directed to date and still going strong. Put him together with the equally prolific actor Anthony Wong in The Untold Story though and the sparks really flew due to the zealous splatter, callous storyline and demented performance of Wong. It’s a savage and brutal film make no mistake and much of the storyline is similar to Ebola Syndrome which saw the pair together again in 1996. Those interested in seeing this can pick it up on Blu Ray on import via US label Unearthed Films who have also just released Dr Lamb. I guess Ebola Syndrome can be looked at as the even crazier sibling of Untold Story as adding a deadly and highly contagious disease to the mix made it even more over the top and crazy.
Wong plays Ah Kai a belittled worker at odds with his boss and in the very first scene he is caught in-flagrante with the boss’s wife. Obviously not happy and with his henchman at his side and young daughter observing Ah Kai is beaten to a pulp and has the ignominy of having his former, now traitorous lover piss in his face. He is then told to cut his cock off, cue much silly humour with Ah Kai saying “what this little thing, it’s not worth it.” Conning his boss into handing over the blade for a spot of self-emasculation it’s a case of bad move and excessively bloody slaughter. The young daughter survives. Ten years later we catch up with Ah Kai in South Africa where he is working in a Chinese restaurant at odds with another boss and his volatile wife. You wouldn’t want to eat there, Ah Kai has some rather unsavoury habits which include listening to his boss and wife screwing whilst relieving himself in a slab of raw meat. You wouldn’t want to complain and send your food back to the kitchen either as guess what you could be served up with?
There are so many memorable and remarkable scenes in this film. The boss takes his employee into the scrubs in order to get cheap meat from the local Zulu tribe. After they are attacked by a leopard (and no stock footage here) they arrive and find all is not well in the place and bodies litter the ground with a tribal witchdoctor biting the heads off chickens and spraying blood all over the village. A deal is cheated out of the tribal chief but it’s obvious the meat is hardly fit for human consumption so who has the last laugh? Side-tracked by elephants Ah Kai wanders off spying a native girl and despite her obviously not being well takes advantage. Going into convulsions and spitting white foam all over him as he is stuck inside her, Ah Kai struggles to extract his now infected self but manages in the most heinous way, returning back with a very nasty gift to spread liberally around.
After surviving a rampant fever and hearing that there are plans to dispatch him our anti-hero decides to rape the boss’s wife. The boss walks in and mayhem ensues, eyeballs are speared by toothpicks and one is literally sucked out the socket and a head “just pops off.” A cousin turns up and meets his end too but Ah Kai is not worried about the corpses, after all he is in a restaurant with power tools, hungry customers and perhaps the knowledge of seeing some HG Lewis movies. Before you can blink there is a new addition to the menu. But somehow by pure co-incidence a visiting diner is that former child who escaped Ah Kai’s clutches earlier and she smells something up. Having engaged the SA Police into her wild story, bad acting ensues but so do wild convulsions and deaths in the local community. You would think things can’t get any grosser but wait till the very grizzly autopsy scene. The SFX are really vile and guaranteed to put you off going anywhere you could catch Ebola with liquefied organs pulled out and a gruesome face-peeling scene.
As the net closes the by now determined super-spreader with new found wealth at his disposal returns to Hong Kong where things get even wilder. Prostitutes, junkies, masses more deaths and repatriation with a former lover and her young daughter all leave the viewer mouth agape until the final reel in all its spitting Ebola spreading glory leaves you picking your jaw off the floor wondering just what madness you have witnessed over the last 100-minutes. Yep, this one is one hell of a wild ride and they simply don’t make them like this anymore, I suspect shocked viewers will consider they never should have in the first place; but they did!
The 4K print looks wonderful and whilst some films with such clarity mean that the SFX does not stand up to scrutiny, here it does. The central cast are quite convincing although some lesser characters suffer from both aping lines and poor dubbing. Ma Chun-hung’s score is exemplary and utterly chilling in tone complete with a choral chant of the damned over the top of the main theme. Like the film it will come back to haunt you and is very hard to shift. Ebola Syndrome could be considered a film that can enjoyed / endured again and again due to so much craziness going on. Due to its “worse-case scenario” aspects and parallels with Covid the DVD was the first thing I picked up once we went into 1st lockdown. Thankfully eateries were closed down and any local Anthony Wong had been forced to go to ground.
There are two audio commentaries, one with Yau and Wong (2007), another with film historian Samm Deighan newly conducted in 2021. Yau also is on hand for a new 22-minute interview as well as an archive one with a subdued Wong. Yau also talks about the translation and a crash course in Cantonese. I am guessing the specs for the 88 Films edition will be the same although I can’t find an announcement yet.
Needless to say, it is quite a shock to see the BBFC giving a film like this a full uncut certificate. They admit to it having extreme sexual violence, pornographic language, extreme gore, urination & racism (I didn’t even touch on that side of things) and all manner of atrocities but somehow, they gave it a pass. James Ferman must be spinning in his grave and Mary Whitehouse must be doing cartwheels of indignation in hers. Times are a changing? 88 took a risk especially considering they recently had one film, Cesare Canevari’s Gestapo’s Last Orgy (1977) completely banned by the BBFC. As this had not been released in the USA they managed to recoup sales for that one there but they would not have been able to do so with Ebola Syndrome.
Don’t forget that the BBFC is essentially a money-making business, they charge approximately £8 a minute for viewing packaged media and films have to be watched in their entirety. A cinema feature costs up to £1600. Detractors watching a film like Ebola Syndrome may well on viewing it say they are not fit for purpose anymore? If there were not so many problems elsewhere you can only imagine those “ban this sick filth” headlines from the gutter press which plagued us, bringing on the Bright Bill and the video nasty witch hunts. But it’s good for those of us who like depraved movies right? I am not disputing in the slightest that the BBFC does not act as an excellent resource giving parental guidance over what is suitable viewing for children but what about adults and what’s next? Is the XXX market ever going to get a pass in our censorious kingdom? That’s another story and again completely different in the USA where, Vinegar Syndrome must take the (dis)credit for most of these titles. Considering the amount of places people can pick these films up from it’s surely time for a rethink on just what we can and can’t watch in the comfort of our own homes anyway?
I guess Ebola Syndrome has provided plenty of “food for thought” (pun intended)!
88 Films edition of Ebola Syndrome is scheduled for release on October 24th
One final thing, if this has stirred your interest into picking up imported films posted out quickly and reliably from the UK check out the bottom two links. Both are excellent, have a wide variety of stock and cut out the minefield of customs fees and items going AWOL cross borders.
(Pete Woods)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Hong_Kong_Category_III_films
https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/ebola-syndrome-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0xmdaymdkz
https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/frontpage/products/ebola-syndrome
https://88-films.myshopify.com
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