Review: Category III is a sub-genre of Asian movies that scares and disgusts some people but also delights others. “Run And Kill” is another entry into the genre of these infamous Hong Kong gruesome movies. Directed by Billy Tang, a master of the genre (Dr. Lamb, Brother Of Darkness), this particular CatIII revolves around the bad luck of a simple ordinary man. How can the universe of such a nice family man turn into total nightmare?

One of the main inspirations for CatIII is usually an event that really happened. Serial killers or terrible murders seem to fascinate people and usually in Hong Kong it doesn’t take too long before a terrible event is turned into a motion picture. However, Run And Kill is an original and doesn’t fall in that sensational news event category.

The script is probably the deepest aspect of the movie, as the chain of events are unexpected and easy to follow, but none the less sometime painful to watch for the displayed violence. The movie starts slowly by showing us how good a person Cheung is. How he cares about others, how much he loves his family and how good he is with his employees. Of course this is just a technique from the director to make us feel bad for Cheung when he will be caught in his nightmare.

The movie also includes a good line up of actors, even if Category III looks like the bottom of the barrel kind of movie, it’s always surprising to see how serious the actors play their role. Kent Cheng plays the main character and fit the role of the ordinary and kind man very well. There are also two very familiar faces in the movie: Simon Yam, Danny Lee. Both are well known for similar major role in other CatIII productions. Again Danny plays the role of a cop, this time his job is to investigate Cheung’s wife’s murder. His role is very minor but still noticeable. As for Simon Yam, no big change either as he plays the psychopath Fung. His character appears around the middle of the movie but his arrival doesn’t pass unnoticed, as his character is behind most of the gruesome acts in the whole movie.

Mindless violence, yes there is plenty, but I’m surprised that movie is not as shocking as I expected it to be, well if you compare it to some other well known CatIII movies such as Dr. Lamb or Untold Story. In fact, except 2 specific scenes I don’t recall being shocked or surprised by what was happening. The violence is much more psychological too; in fact it is not the actual violence that is shocking but the situations where and how it happens. You really feel pity for what is happening to Cheung as he will loose a lot because of the initial mistake. Most of the physical violence consists of knife stabbing, throat cut, gun battles, people falling from a 5-story building or burned alive and probably the worst of them all, violence on kids.