User Reviews

As the title would imply, EVIL INSTINCT is a Hong Kong rip-off of the Hollywood thriller BASIC INSTINCT, albeit one made in a distinctive Hong Kong style. That is, the film is full of weird editing, offbeat camera angles, and bizarre characters that could only appear in Chinese cinema.

The film is one that's content to parade the starlets around in their form-fitting attire for the most part, although most of the thing is a tease with both Carrie Ng and Diana Pang leaving the nudity to lesser-known actresses. For much of the running time you'll be scratching your head and wondering what on earth's going on, because there's so much weirdness in this that it all gets a bit confusing.

I'll admit right now that I love Hong Kong cinema mainly for its action, so to discover that there's none in this was a bit of a disappointment. The acting isn't too great either, with the male cast members giving particularly stilted performances (I'm looking at you, Bowie Lam), although Diana Pang was my favourite performer and seems to be giving it her all. There are some amusing moments involving S&M antics and the like, but for the most part EVIL INSTINCT seems oddly shy about showing anything too explicit, either in terms of sex or violence.

This is trashy, flashy and fleshy, with a fantastic central performance from Carrie Ng, who has a singular ability to retain her dignity amidst this kind of thing. Basically, she's a snake woman. I won't give away more than that, but no, she never turns into a snake and the phallic ironies of the creature are not explored. Diana Pang Dang is an enthusiastic, pouting starlet, clearly destined for small things and imminent obscurity. The theme of deadly, sexual transmitted afflictions is hardly subtle, and Hong Kong cinema has real trouble negotiating the AIDS issue with even the slightest hint of sensitivity or insight, something of which their cultural critics will be deeply ashamed in years to come. But I guess you just want to know if there's any nudity. There's a little, but the two leads are always covered up, even when the covering is pretty flimsy. It also pays blatant tribute to Basic Instinct.

Every instinct in your body will constantly tell you to get up, turn off this movie and find something else to watch. Maybe that is what the title means by "Evil Instinct" (aka "Ji dou shou xing").

I knew that this movie was not going to be the brightest moment in Hong Kong Cinema for sure, but wow, it was awful. And possibly one of the worst - if not the worst - Hong Kong movie I have seen. And when I say seen, I mean it halfheartedly, because I gave up on "Evil Instinct" shortly after making it an hour into it. It was just too boring and downright insulting to the intelligence of the audience.

The cast was adequate, I believe, for a movie such as this. Of course, you are not going to see any properly established Hong Kong stars in this movie.

"Evil Instinct" is lacking a proper storyline to capture the audience and keep them interested, and it is nothing more than director Barry Chu having the chance to put naked women on the screen.

The DVD cover bolsters 'Basic Instinct with hotter women and far more style'. Yeah, well don't count on it.

I wasn't at all surprised to find that erotic Cat III thriller Evil Instinct was the most watched hotel pay-per-view film in Asia: with copious female nudity and soft-core sex aplenty, it's perfect entertainment for lonely, bored businessmen with idle hands.

The plot, for what it's worth, sees police inspector Sam Hui (Bowie Lam) mixing business with pleasure when he becomes involved with tasty insurance company executive Penny Ng (Naked Killer's Carrie Ng), one of several suspects in his investigation of a series of grisly sex murders. Meanwhile, Penny's curvaceous work rival Wendy (played by the lovely Diana Pang Dan) unwisely sets out to steal her colleague's customers by offering them kinky sex.

If any of this sounds vaguely familiar, it's because Evil Instinct is Hong Kong's answer to Basic Instinct; writer/director Barry Chu even goes so far as to include his own take on Sharon Stone's infamous interrogation scene (although Carrie Ng falls short of flashing her beaver to the cops). Unsurprisingly, the film fails to match its Hollywood counterpart in terms of intrigue and suspense (Chu is no Joe Eszterhas or Paul Verhoeven), and despite veering into seriously weird territory for a while by having Penny become addicted to an experimental snake serum, it is actually fairly dull stuff whilst the women are fully dressed and not getting fruity.

It's a good job then that the girls regularly shed their clothes and indulge in hanky-panky, with Ng wearing a selection of figure hugging outfits and getting it on with lucky Sam on several occasions, another smaller-breasted-but-still-rather-yummy Asian strumpet doing naughty things with ice cubes, and the delectable Pang Dan having sex in the shower and sporting a kinky PVC S&M get-up to please a discerning client (Wowzer!!).

There were many movies made around the time this one was made with "Ji Do" (Extreme) as part of its title. They were all Cat 3 movies. This one roughly translates to "Extreme Animal Nature". Carrie Ng gets her extreme animal nature from a serum made out of (I believe) snake venoms.

Most Cat 3 movies were made for skin exposures with little or silly stories to them, But this one seems to be a regular movie that fell on the side of Cat 3 due to its contents. The story is that good, or at least on par with other Hong Kong detective movies of the time.

Carry Ng comes to close as au natural as she possibly could in this movie. If I may comment on the body style of many Hong Kong actress is that they look thinner than they really are. Especially they have nice large rear end that's only noticeable if you look directly from the back (take Chingmy Yau for instance). They look thin when viewed from the side or the front. Large butt is considered sign of fortune in Asia, so these women would be considered harbinger of good fortune to themselves and to their husbands.

Well anyways, you will get to see Carrie's naked butt in this movie, if that ever matters. She's a seriously good actor as we all know, and she plays the role of woman who has two sides to her really well in this movie. Especially the way she plays a person afflicted by the snake was superb. There are few Hong Kong luminaries that could truly be called a "star", and her performance shows that she's one of them.

So the bottom line of this movie is that it has good plot, and story to it with extremely good performance by Ng that also features her beauty the way it should be. I'm glad that they made this movie during the zenith of her career.