WE’RE GOING TO EAT YOU
Dir. Tsui Hark, 1980.
Hong Kong. 90 min.
Part of BEST OF SPECTACLE 2018

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18 – 10 PM
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WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23 – 10 PM
MONDAY, JANUARY 28 – 7:30 PM

“It didn’t turn out good.” – Tsui Hark on WE’RE GOING TO EAT YOU

A grim fantasy about Mainland China, Hark’s second directorial effort took the form of a sort of Hong Kong New Wave version of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. While on the surface, the film is much simpler than Hark’s densely plotted debut, it dips into multiple genres while working as a steely anti-communist allegory that probes the relationship between Hong Kong and China.

The films follows Secret Agent 999 of the “Central Surveillance Agency,” as he pursues a mysterious thief named “Rolex.” The hunt leads him into a cannibalistic village, where residents subsist on visitors they capture and cook. The film is part horror, part Kung Fu, and part slapstick comedy, and Tsui’s most overtly anti-communist film (although it treats religion, intellectuals, and bourgeois romanticism with equal satirical acridity).