#324
Perhaps the most accomplished genre picture directed by British-Chinese filmmaker Po-Chih Leong (Hong Kong 1941), The Island is Hong Kong’s answer to the likes of Deliverance, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, The Hills Have Eyes and Motel Hell – a film that transports the visceral survival horror so popular in the 1970s and 1980s from the backwoods of America to a remote island in East Asia.
At the height of summer, teacher Mr Cheung (John Sham) takes a small group of his students on an excursion to explore a rural island that he assumes is uninhabited. But upon arrival, Cheung and his class discover that they are not alone – the island is, in fact, home to three deranged brothers and their equally deranged mother. And when one of Cheung’s students refuses a marriage proposal from the youngest – and perhaps most disturbed – member of this deeply strange family, both the teacher and the young people in his care soon come to wish that they had stayed at home.
Following in the footsteps of its Western predecessors, The Island plays out a pointed class conflict as it pits its educated urbanites against the violent members of an isolated rural community – but never loses the unique qualities of a Hong Kong horror movie. The Masters of Cinema series is proud to present the film on Blu-ray for the first time anywhere outside of Asia.
