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Dr. Lamb (1992)

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Popular Hong Kong actor Simon Yam, who had previously portrayed serial killer Lam Guo-wen in a television miniseries, plays his fictionalized counterpart in this gore-soaked exploitation film from producer-director Danny Lee. Starting with Lam's difficult childhood, the story then moves forward to the police capture of Lam after he submits film containing images of a naked woman who appears to be dead to a photo developing lab. The police tactics are quite brutal, but despite beating Lam repeatedly, they are unable to extract a confession until they show his family some explicit photographs he took of his young niece. His confessions are then graphically played out for the remaining hour, with all the sex, blood, and violence which Lee (who also plays Police Inspector Lee here) could fit in, as the catalog of Lam's atrocities is exhibited with an enthusiasm bordering on the voyeuristic. He was working nights as a taxi driver, and used his position to farm female victims from the city's streets on rainy nights, indulging in a penchant for necrophilia, cannibalism, and the photography of the women's dismembered bodies as a souvenir of his activities. The film's success led to a number of so-called "True Crime" films in Hong Kong, mostly following the conventions laid out in Dr. Lamb, although few approach its visceral and graphic violence. Kent Cheng co-stars with Lau Siu-ming and Emily Kwan. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi