Satan Returns (1996)

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Load of rubbish!!

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

"Satan Returns" was actually a better movie and a better experience than I had anticipated it to be, as Hong Kong cinema are not really famous for their supernatural thrillers. Much less a supernatural thriller with Donnie Yen on the cast list.The story is about a satanic zealot named Judas (played by Francis Ng) who is killing women in his search to find Satan's daughter. And hot on his trail are the police with Mo Tin Nam (played by Donnie Yen) and Ka-Ming (played by Chi Wah Wong) leading the investigation. And Judas's next target is Chan Shou-Ching (played by Chingmy Yau).I will say that it was nice to see a story like this from the Hong Kong cinema vault, and they actually pulled it off well enough, despite the story being sort of religious rubbish. But still, it is only entertainment, and in that aspect it worked out well enough. Sadly, though, then the movie wasn't particularly thrilling or fascinating, it was downright predictable.The movie had some really good names to the cast list. And it was nice to see Chingmy Yau stand out from that semi-erotic shadow of "Naked Killer" that she have been casting for a long, long time. It was sort of odd actually to see Donnie Yen in a movie of this type, as it is not normally what he makes. And the movie was really carried by Francis Ng's performance, and he really outclassed Donnie Yen acting-wise by miles.If you are fed up with the typical action movies that comes from Hong Kong and enjoy supernatural thrillers, then "Satan Returns" might be right what you are looking for. Just bear in mind that the movie is predictable and sort of fails be build up much excitement and thrills.And as for the title of the movie, "Satan Returns", what was up with that? Where did he return from? Vacationing? But more importantly, he didn't return to make an appearance in this movie.

Now Hong Kong action movies are my one true cinematic blind spot, so I approached 'Satan Returns' with trepidation. I thought I would give it a look as it seemed it might be a slightly offbeat mix of Woo/Lam style cops'n'chops with a supernatural thriller theme. While I ended up hating this movie a lot less than I expected I still found it to be silly in the extreme, and pretty tiresome overall. The plot is incoherent nonsense about a religious nut called Judas attempting to find the Devil's daughter, and makes no real sense whatsoever. The only thing that kept me watching this to the very end was the the lovely Chingmy Yau of 'Naked Killer' fame, and some of the unintentionally funny sub-titles. Apart from that there isn't all that much to recommend this movie, and beware, the 'Se7en' comparisons are way off base, and extremely misleading.

Ah Lun directed this Wong Jing produced action shocker Devil 666 aka Satan Returns, in 1996. The film stars the incredibly beautiful sweetheart Chingmy Yau, who played the lead part in Clarence Fok's classic erotic action film Naked Killer in 1992. Donnie Yuen plays a tough cop who is with his colleagues (Chingmy included) after a lunatic killer who calls himself Judas and thinks Chingmy is the daughter of the Devil himself. What follows is gun battles, many plot turns, one chainsaw at the end, the usual Hong Kong "humor", gore and different camera styles, but the main interest for the film makers was to make a film which would appeal to the same audience than The Silence of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme, 1990) and Se7en (David Fincher, 1995) did; Satan Returns is occasionally almost too obviously ripping these two Hollywood blockbusters off.The film has some genuinely creepy scenes and segments, and the camera styles and drives are again very restless and also imaginable, and there's at least one hyper fast drive through an apartment and its stairs, so I can't say the film isn't visually at least LITTLE interesting. The plot is nonsense and the scenes and characters are too close to those of Lambs' and Se7en's and the characters in this Orient production even mention these two films couple of times! The action is okay, but never "John Woo style" or near that as one writer requested. The gun battles are nothing special here as isn't anything else either. The rainy streets and dark settings could be gorgeous and effective, but since they've been taken straightly from Fincher's film, I cannot appreciate them in this film too much. There's also some bits of gore and fake blood, which looks occasionally very fake. This film is said to be rated CAT 3, but from what I know, that is NOT true and is only some distributor's "clever" effort to get people's attention due to the high rating. The violence isn't too strong, but it is the usual HK standard (i.e. some blood when people are shot and little gore and ripped hearts every now and then..) and what this film lacks unlike the real CAT 3 films, is the nudity and sex, which usually is the reason for high rating so there's no need to be gore and violence for film to get the "third" rating in Hong Kong.Devil 666 aka Satan Returns gets 4/10 just because of the fact that it is more watchable than some/most of these films, and I'm glad there's not too much of the usual stupid humor, but what's left, should have been left out as well. The visuals are occasionally interesting, but since the film is never original or too personal, the 4 rating seems reasonable, but those who have seen many Hong Kong horror and action films should not keep their expectations too high. Still, it could be MUCH worse!

Hyped as China's "answer" to Fincher's SEVEN; there's a scene where The Law run down a rain-soaked alley, a killer making use of a Biblical Motive and - well, that's about where the "connection" ends. Occult Scholar (??) seeks series of women with 6/6/69 birthdates in order to remove their hearts - any victim who survives the surgery, proves herself to be The Devil's Daughter. Usual HK buffet: martial arts (snore...), slapstick, noxious women, and, when all else fails, throw in some genital humour. It must be said, that zombie cops cut apart via chainsaw & a nailgun crucifixion are a tad more exciting than Paltrow's head in a box. Plus, a bonus "shock" ending. Basically, a feature length indictment of Chinese Law Enforcement. As one subtitled villain quips "Damn It! Go Eat S***!" Translation: rent a Cat III title instead.