Cats. You either love them or love them.
Evil Cat begins like all the best stories: An unearthing of a mysterious tomb at a construction site and a rancid smell in an office building.
Once our office smelled like a mouse had died under someone’s desk and in fact, a mouse had died under someone’s desk. At the same office, someone spilled juice all over the floor and didn’t bother cleaning it up. I guess what I’m saying is that I work with a bunch of slobs and a dead mouse.
Turns out the mysterious tomb contains the spirit of an evil cat, which looks exactly like a chorus member of the musical Cats. And just like the musical, this demon has been terrorizing generations upon generations. Each time it emerges, someone has to put the cat back into the bag, er, tomb. It has happened exactly eight times, and since cats have nine lives, this is the final fight. Finally, the sinister feline can be struck from our earthly plane.
If only it was that easy.
Soon the high-powered, no-nonsense CEO Mr Fan starts acting bizarre. After he’s caught eating carp out of a pond, he pounces and claws at all security guards. No matter how many times he’s punched and hit by a car, Mr. Fan always seems to dodge gracefully and land on his feet. Could he be possessed by the evil cat? All signs point to “yes.” And to evil.
Luckily Master Cheung is here to help. He’s trained in the shamanic powers of Mao Shan and teaches Mr. Fan’s driver, a dopey hunk named Long, in the ways of the spirit world. Together, with the help of some high kicks and charmed arrows, they take on the demon to cast it off into the depths of hell from whence it came. I should note that Master Cheung is played by Shaw Brothers legend and all-around badass Liu Chia-Liang, aka Lau Kar-leung, aka The 36th Chamber of Shaolin and The Legend of Drunken Master. If that’s not enough reason to watch, then keep reading.
Evil Cat is a triumph. There’s elements of The Exorcist and Ghostbusters, and nods to The Shining. But there’s also kitty-inspired kung fu, an endless shower of bullets, heavy petting in a Mercedes Benz, and a hand that punches through a torso. Every other scene is someone getting thrown through a window or punched across a hallway. The wire work and fight choreography is joyfully raucous: people climb up walls, sail through the air, and get thrown across a room and into glass coffee tables. There’s a scene where a cat literally gets someone’s tongue, and a scene where no one has a cat’s chance in hell. There’s a cat fight, a game of cat and mouse, scaredy cats, fat cats, cool cats, and even a cat nap in which the spirit of the evil cat enters a woman through her bone zone. Evil Cat is true to its name; it puts the “cat” in a Hong Kong Category III film. It’s a tidy, perfect—nay, purrfect—package filled with magic, lingerie, gore, and martial arts. The only thing that’s not in this movie is an actual cat. But I can forgive that one indiscretion.
But to answer your question, is Evil Cat better than The Cat? The answer is no. But the answer is also yes. Luckily, we don’t live in a world where we need to choose between them. So my advice is to watch them both.
Meow!
