I don't know how many times I've seen A CHINESE TORTURE CHAMBER STORY, but each time I can't help but giggle in awe of the complete insane brilliance of it all. I honestly love this movie.
A CHINESE TORTURE CHAMBER STORY opens with various examples of torture used in China back in the day. The one where the guy is in so much pain he literally jumps out of his own skin was pretty surprising! After that, the police are called to the home of Little Cabbage, whose husband just died of "penis explosion". Holy shit! They find a prescription for a high-powered aphrodisiac and piece together that she was working with the owner of the drug store to kill her husband. She claims that she's innocent (she is, she's been framed), but the crooked judge is determined to get her (and the drug store owner) to confess and he'll use every act of torture available to get them to confess to murder.
That story sounds serious, and I guess it is, but all of the cringe-worthy torture scenes are offset by the non-torture scenes which are completely wacky and often pretty funny. Example: there are two "heroes" who live in the forest and do nothing but kung-fu fuck nonstop. They knock over trees and fly through the air jackhammer fucking like psychopaths. Finally, the dude busts a nut and his geyser of jizz starts a fire!!! There's also a flashback scene where an invisible rapist tries to rape Little Cabbage, but ends up raping her husband's mouth instead!
ACTCS is not for everybody, but if you enjoy the crazier side of Cinema then you must check it out. There's a fair amount of nudity and the main actress Yvonne Yung Hung is gorgeous! I have no idea how somebody as pretty as her even got hooked up in a crazy movie like this, but I'm glad she did, because she's a joy to watch.
Some of the atrocities shown: bare chested male tied to a burning oven; dick sliced off and replaced with feather; buried in dirt then scalp sliced open and a boiling liquid poured in; fingers crushed; fingernails ripped out; guillotined in half; wood under fingernails; suspended by head and weights added to waist; placed on wooden donkey and then violated with a giant wooden dildo while being paraded around town; raped with dildo; tits crushed; calves crushed; made to walk on knees across broken pottery; made to roll nude across giant bed of pins and so forth.
Part 2 - A Chinese Torture Chamber Story 2 (1998)
