Gong Tau (2007)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Surprisingly incoherent and boring

People are voting emotionally.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

In my regions it was never released but I came across this flick a few times when I attended horror conventions and finally after years it was available for a few bucks. The only problem it had was that it had German subs but even if you aren't that deep into the German language you will understood the subs easily. The only reason I picked this up was for his director Herman Yau, known for the CAT III flicks The Ebola Syndrome (1996) and The Untold Story (1993). It started with a rather surprise for me, full frontal nudity without blurred private parts. From there we move to a killing and yes, a throwback to the old black magic stories with centipedes. And by saying that you know that this isn't for everybody although it do has a few rather gory shots. The baby at the beginning and the dissection of a corpse is as gory as it can get. Still it's not a pure horror flick, it's more a police story about catching a killer with some weird things going on. Don't expect a flick like Yau's other horror movies. There's a bit of bad CGI here and there but the centipedes are the real stuff here. Only for the lovers of old school black magic stories.Gore 1,5/5 Nudity 1/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 0/5

Nasty category three (adults only) horror film about a cop who's life is complicated by some killings that have ties to black magic and which are very much directed at ruining his life. Bloody, unpleasant and creepy this is one of the better Hong Kong horror films I've seen in the last few months. Give it a couple of extra points for not being about a ghost with long dark hair.It also feels more like a police procedural rather than a horror film for a good portion of it. This is a film that takes the Black Magic films of the 1970's and 80's with centipedes and floating heads and updates them for the current sensibilities. Then again many of the black magic films were often good and gross, so why mess with them? It doesn't. I was on edge for a good portion of the film, how can you not be with the nastiness that befalls an infant? Clearly anything is possible. I won't over sell the film by insinuating that its perfect, its not, some of the talking scenes are a bit draggy and the final sequence, which at times is gruesome, maybe goes on a bit too long. Still there is something about the film that makes you sit bolt upright and watch dreading the next nasty turn. If you like your horror bloody and full of bugs give this film a shot.

Gong Tau The news of a new HK Cat 3 movie directed by Cat 3 legend director Herman Yau was big news for me. Even though I have a stack of that genre I haven't even watched yet, I still get excited when a new one is announced. This is all about Chinese Black Magic, and a curse being put on a policeman's family killing their baby with hundreds of needle holes, and inflicting his wife with severe pain. Also, other cops are dying for no reason and no cause of death, so the suspicion is GONG TAU. In the case of the baby Needle Gong Tau, but what is the most feared Gong Tau of all, yes, you got it, Flying Head Gong Tau. And when you see the guy sending out these Gong Tau spells, and his head and everything attached to it, you know you are in Cat 3 territory. The main theme of the movie, is the detective trying to find someone that can purge Gong Tau from his Wife, and then find out who and why somebody is casting these nasty curses. This is actually a pretty good movie, I enjoyed it immensely, and even though the nastiness is not quite as nasty as previous Cat 3 movies I've seen, this one still delivers the blood and gore in buckets. The ending is a little funny I thought, but still effective. This is still my favorite Asian genre, and this one does not disappoint. It's better than the last recent Cat 3 movie I bought, "Dog Bite Dog" released in 2006, but then again, I still liked that one too. For fans of extreme Asian Cinema, you definitely want your dose of GONG TAU.

This Category III effort from Herman Yau, the director of "The Ebola Syndrome" and "The Untold Story", is not a terrible movie, but it isn't a great movie, either. "Gong Tau" is a type of voodoo which is visited upon the wife of a cop (Mark Cheng) who betrayed a woman in Thailand. Cheng and the dependable Suet Lam spend much of the movie on the trail of a criminal who is sending bad voodoo curses to Cheng's wife and making her life unpleasant. Director Yau is expected to deliver grisly violence and messy gore in his Cat III work, so the presence of crawling centipedes, a baby stabbing, blood vomiting, and brutal beatings is not surprising or unwelcome. The film is beautifully shot, but it is dramatically schizophrenic and unfocused. It is more of a police procedural than a horror film, with too much time devoted to people standing in offices talking. Yau always manages to push a few buttons and up the shock value in his movies, but he doesn't go quite far enough in "Gong Tau", so the audience loses.