CAT III..The Dark Side of Hong Kong Cinema Options

[password8431]

Couldn't find any thing on CAT III here, hence posting a topic here after some research on the net. For the benefit of others who does not know what CATIII means. YOur comments are welcomed.

Category III films are for adults: no one under 18 is admitted. This rating works as both warning and selling point. In South East Asia where VCD and DVD piracy is rampant, you have got VCD-peddlers trying to sucker you into buying these sort of films and other hard-core stuff. "I have got some good CAT III titles. latest in the market, you interested" is usually the selling line.

CAT III films means the film contains either violence, indecent language, soft-porn. or all three. Alot are misguided by the fact that CAT III is purely soft-porn. This is not the case. Some titles portray gruelsome violence acts that will make you vomit. Hard-core sex films are banned in Hong Kong. Porn films are CAt III, but not all CAT III is porn. CATIII is marked out as the "other", not suitable for children; and yet, it is stigmatised, segregated, or shunned by the mainstream audiences. It is well establisehed, institutionalised Hong Kong film breed, and its transgressice offensive qualities mark it as "come-on" and serve to integrate in to the market.

Cat III is intertextual reworking of stles and genres found in Hong Kong film as a whole ( which itself often reworks Hollywood film). Its reworking involves a promise of transgression; certain kinds of violence, sex, indecent language, blasphemy, brutality, and terror that are restrcited to viewers over the age of 18. But it is not and underground or furtive production/reception practice, which gives CAT III a broad range of possibilities within its restrcited classification. It is therefore difficult to pin down CatIII according to its content, paterns and structure. However based on criteria set up in Hong Kong censorship regulations, it is sublimely divide into three different groups: -
-quasi-pornographic
-genre films
-pornoviolence - or what some would put it "morally provoking"

CAT III is such an important facet of Hong Kong Film industry in culminating new actors/actresses, it is also one that is keeping the industry alive and well. For the past fifteen years, CAT III productions in Hong Kong has and still is accouting for around 50% (estimate) of the entire Hong Kong film produce. The sheer number is illustrated in Video Shops (Blockbuster, KPS, others) where CAT III amkes up a large proportion of the titles on the shelves.Imagine...Sex and Zen III is right there on the same shelf as Jackie's Chan Mr Nice Guy. The point is that there is no segragation in the theaters or on the video shelves between these and non -restricted material.

Note: Materials extracted from "Warning Categoy III: The Other Hong Kong Cinema" by Darrel Davis 2001

This post has been edited by password8431: Oct 27 2004 7 42 AM

[athlon]

HK CAT3 is a laughing stock. It's even softer porn than what you see at paytime tv in america. The sex scenes consists of impossible positions where the man is able to enter through the woman's hip.

But still, it's rare for Chinese people to get naked on screen.

Some actors/actress that showed flesh in CAT3 movies are:

Michael Tao,
That guy who played Piggie in journey to the west.

Female who got famous because of CAT3:
Veronica Yip Yuk Hing
Hsu Chi
Yung Hung
Lolletta (rachel) Lee Lai Chun

And someone special, who got famous because of CAT3 but without ever showing any points: Yip Chi Mei.

[password8431]

IMHO - CatIII Porn is just for the laugh, the serius bit are those that really provokes your morality and contradicts your life upbringing.

CAT III Actresses aside. We know them all/Almost all. But the actors are the ones to behold and some have gone on to great things.

Two Names come to mind...

Anthony Wong Chau Sang:-
(Famous for protraying a maniac in 1993 Untold Story)
Recent BlockBuster- Non CAT III (Infernal Affairs Trilogy)
IMDB - List of Anthony Wongs' Works


Elvis Tsui - Ever the King of Soft Porn CAT III (100 titles under his belt)


If you are looking for the "most" morally provoking CAT III IMO plus a bit of porn
Try this - THe Untold Story ( Anthony Wong - Best Actor HK 1993)

Untold Story Cover
PS - PM for site to BT

It is good to see that someone is reading my post and commenting about it.

Female who got famous because of CAT3:
Veronica Yip Yuk Hing
Hsu Chi
Yung Hung
Lolletta (rachel) Lee Lai Chun

i tend to disagree that rachel lee(lei lai chan) got famous bcos of softporn....she was famous before that part of those teenage girls(saw her in many old films before).......but for some reasons she got into the CAT3 movies...but i'm pretty sure she didnt get famous only after she got into CAT3 films

[neogeodude]

CAT III is just the equivalent of a Rated R movie in US. Some topless nudity, lanuage, or violence.

[ppt]

CAT III movies are quite lame. they always somehow manage to get a blanket over the actor/actress's waist & u will seldom see anything.

[Jon Lai]

HK movies aren't always rated III for their nudity, usually it is for the language and in depth meaning, a good example would be Dumplings. Real nudity cat III mvoies are rare, and so the hk ppl gives them a special "slang", cat IV.

[ppt]

Real nudity cat III mvoies are rare, and so the hk ppl gives them a special "slang", cat IV.

i think they call it '4 jai', but don't quote me

[Gatekeeper]

cat III is such a rip-off there's nothing in there that 16 yr old kids haven't seen

Guess sometime need a change once u watch too many of those actions/comedy though korean ones are better....more violence than juz sex...

[solipsis]

wasn't lawrence ng in healing hands in one of the controversial sex and zen movie? it marred his reputation and he regreted filming it ever since, but still that didn't stop him from landing top roles in tvb dramas. what a comeback kid!

[~iloveyou~]

i tend to disagree that rachel lee(lei lai chan) got famous bcos of softporn....she was famous before that part of those teenage girls(saw her in many old films before).......but for some reasons she got into the CAT3 movies...but i'm pretty sure she didnt get famous only after she got into CAT3 films

I would say that she last her fame because of doing cat 3 movie. A lot of ppl dislike her becuse of that. you know how asian are not open minded.

Shu Qi , on the other hand got famous bc of cat 3....in fact she got into the entertainment industry bc of taking nude pics and post it on the intenet of herself and got discovered by a director. she later start in the entertainment industry as a cat 3 actress

[jcdenton]

Ok i don't know what is wrong with you people who disagree, but I think Cat III is one of the best little niche's of cinema out there today. Well, if you like f*cked up, obscure sh*t. Pretty much anything by Herman Yau is undeniable genius whether or not "16 year old have seen it before". One that hasn't been mentioned: Ebola Syndrome. That movie is just NUTS. It's not even significantly graphic. Who cares? It's f*cking crazy!!

There is a long list of great titles in there that don't subscribe to pure soft porn, (Ebola Syndrome, The Untold Story Series, Red To Kill, The Cat, Run and Kill, Taxi Hunter, Gong Tau, Devil Fetus, Brother of Darkness) and the soft porn that is there is some of the quirkiest soft porn out there. Cat III is only for fans of pure out there cinema.

Sure some of it is crap, but, as mentioned earlier, it's a massive industry, of course it can't all be good.

So that's my little piece of Cat III worship, which I wholeheartedly believe it deserves.

[coke]

cat III or not i think hk's censorship is too much. imagine if tvb series had the odd swearing init, or the comedy itself had the swearing in it, u kno it would work, because i grew up watching steven chow movies.

alot of series or movies would be alot better if certain barriers wasnt stopping them producing certain things. thats why some adults grow out of tvb or hk movies because they think its lame, or its not realistic like the U.S stuff.

i still watch hk stuff alot, but one day i might even jus grow out of it, it needs a change.

[miss_modular]

i always thought that cat III was specially made for wong jing films (heh)

[kungfufan]

It would appear that half the people posting replies don't even pay attention to what password8431 has to say. CAT III ISN'T ONLY ABOUT (SOFT) PORN!!! It's about stretching the boundaries of what is accepted, about expressing creativity, about exploring as a viewer your own moralities, or degredation thereof. And if you really believe 16 year olds have seen all the disgusting violence and sadist misogyny that Catagory III puts out, then I feel sorry for the way the world is changing.

[Asian-aholic]

yeah there is a bit of a misnomer that all cat3 movies are soft porn. It really is a typical North american "R" rating if you will. I think there was a good point made earlier that sometimes this category is almost used a a marketing spin as ooh look this is controversial since this is cat3.

[auyong123]

HK Cat III sex movies are funny as hell

[Eliotyuhin99]

Almost no one watches them anymore in HK, people rather watch better ones on internet

[ang2383]

sorry if this is off topic, but what about china? are their movies similar to hk cat III? or do they have actual soft/hardcore porn movies? i'm just curious. i never knew there was this distinction with different categories in HK.

[alwizbthere]

pornography is officially illegal in china, though as much as the authority tries to clamp down on it, the underground industry is flourishing.

[dubz]

People often misunderstand CAT III as sleazy softcore porn. Even though a lot of them are, but some of them aren't.
CAT III films flooded the market in the 90s, and even 80s. And don't forget this period was one of the golden ages for HK cinema. There were many gruesome thrillers that were given the CAT III rating for its violence and gore, but they were classics and cult favorites.
We don't have those anymore, the most you can find now is a gangster flick getting a CAT III rating for language or an indecent hand sign or whatever. That and sleazy porn, which can't beat those from back in the day. Back in the day, you would have real starlets instead of these hired from China or whatever. But whatever, the time of CAT III is now over.

[alwizbthere]

most ppl go for full hardcore porn from japan or korea these days for those with asian preference