The Cat (1992)

August 22, 2024 7:42 AM

[TRAILER] Okay, imagine a remake of the 1978 Disney movie The Cat From Outer Space, only it's from Hong Kong exploitation company Golden Harvest, it's directed by Lam Ngai Kai (Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky), and it's filled with ultraviolence, goopy body horror VFX, a monstrous alien that seems to be made of tongues, and a fight between the strongest dog in the world and an alien cat named The General.

Starring Waise Lee, Christine Ng, Gloria Yip.

Directed by Lam Ngai Kai. Screenplay by Chan Hing-ka, Gordon Chan. Based on the novel Old Cat by Ni Kuang. Produced by Chua Lam, Michael Lai for Golden Harvest. Cinematography by Mak Hoi-man. Edited by Keung Chuen-tak, Peter Cheung. Music by Philip Chan.

Not streaming in the US via conventional services, but someone did upload a slightly ropy but watchable copy, with English subs, to Daily Motion. JustWatch listing, if you want to try your country.

This obviously didn't make yesterday's list of cat films, both because it's bonkers, and because even if you don't take any of the violence seriously, and even if you accept their word that they didn't harm any cats, it does feel like they would have had to make some cats miserable to get some of these shots.

posted by DirtyOldTown (6 comments total)

I watched this recently (it was on the Criterion Channel of all places - they had a cat themed film series a couple months ago and the print was beautiful). Yeah maybe Cat from Outer Space might be a connection but really it has more in common with the larger budget late 80s horror films the Blob or maybe the Hidden. Ultraviolent, lots of practical effects done on the cheap and largely eschews narrative coherence. The fight between the Cat and the Dog though? Incredible and is easily the highlight of the movie. Based on an adventure novel that is part of a series of such novels with a character named Wisely or Wesley, a wealthy adventurer who encounters the paranormal.

Director Ngai Choi Lam is real guilty pleasure for me - his films are not really good but they are endlessly inventive and enthusiastic. I recommend his Seventh Curse (Chow Yun-Fat plays the Wesley character in this one), utterly insane.
posted by Ashwagandha at 11:10 AM on August 22 [5 favorites]

Is that a preferred way to list the director's name? I went with what Wikipedia had, but it's not like they're never wrong.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:44 AM on August 22

Lam Ngai Kai, I believe, is correct but he's also credited as Nam Lai Choi, Nam Nai Choi, and Simon Nam (to add to the confusion). Ngai Choi Lam is how he's credited on IMDB (which is what I used).
posted by Ashwagandha at 2:39 PM on August 22 [1 favorite]

That Darn Cat.

Seriously, why am I only finding out about this now?
posted by Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon at 3:55 PM on August 22 [1 favorite]

The fight between the Cat and the Dog though? Incredible yt

This. This is the part that hooked me. I was happy to let these insular tryhards have their fun without me, but now...now I have to watch.
posted by rhizome at 1:43 AM on August 24

We watched this on my movie stream awhile back. Totally bonkers, especially the mentioned fight scene.

If you're patient you can download it from Rarelust (which is a goldmine for this sort of thing).

Is that a preferred way to list the director's name?

For HK films I usually defer to the HKMDB. IMDB has a lot of errors and omissions for the more obscure ones.
posted by neckro23 at 3:40 PM on August 26 [1 favorite]