Wicked City

Toronto International Film Festival Program Guide
1993

Wicked City
Yoshiaki Kawajiri
Japan, 1987
90 minutes Colour/35mm
Production Company: Japan Home Video/Streamline Pictures
Producer: Carl Macek, Kenji Jurata, Makoto Seya
Screenplay: Kisei Choo, Greg Snegoff (English Version)
Cinematography: Kinichi Ishikawa
Editor: Harutochi Ogata
Art Director: Kazuo Ojika

Wicked City
Mak Tai Kit
Hong Kong, 1992
90 minutes Colour/35mm
Production Company: Film Workshop
Producer: Tsui Hark
Screenplay: Tsui Hark, Roy Szeto
Original Story: Hideyuki Kikuchi
Cinematography: Andrew Lau, Joe Chan
Principal Cast: Jacky Cheung, Leon Lai, Michelle Li, Yuen Wo-ping, Tatsuya Nakadai, Roy Cheung, Carmen Lee

A peace treaty is at stake. The co-signees are, on one hand, a race of powerful, shape-changing creatures from a parallel dimension and, on the other, mankind. The treaty will be signed so long as agents from both sides are able to keep the VIP envoys alive. But dark forces will stop at nothing to undermine the pact and leave the Earth open for invasion and eventual conquest. This is the central premise of the two feature films named Wicked City, two very different, explosive and mind-shattering takes on the same dystopic vision.

The first, an animated feature made by legendary director Yoshiaki Kawajiri in 1987, shocked Japan with its graphic sex and violence, and sophisticated film noir animation technique. Its story of a sober society ripped apart by radical alien terrorists fits perfectly a Japan still smarting from charges of xenophobia. The film has not been available until now, with a newly dubbed print financed in America by Streamline Pictures.

The second Wicked City is a Film Workshop remake of Kawajiri’s film, this time starring real people. Undaunted by the story’s demanding visual pyrotechnics, producer Tsui Hark uses all the Hong Kong special-effects tricks he can muster: battling martial arts masters ride the tops of airplanes, an actual vagina dentata snaps its menacing jaws, every object imaginable takes flight, and seemingly normal objects are hideously transformed. Curiously enough, the Hong Kong version also presents a transparent political allegory, only this time the aliens are right across the border, and the treaty date is 1997.
—Noah Cowan