Verdict
Summary
Filled with gooey practical special effects (think 1988’s The Blob filtered through a Chinese buffet of weird crab meat and chow mein), and near-nonstop mayhem and gunfire, The Cat is one seriously wacky movie. The plot is a little similar to Critters (remember the space bounty hunters looking for the Crites?), but there’s all kinds of insanity going on in this thing, and it almost defies description. Is it worth watching? Heck yeah! Does it make sense? Heck no! Should you care? I didn’t, so why should you? Add The Cat to your WTF watch list, and thank me later.
Plot:
A man discovers his upstairs neighbors are aliens with a gnarly pet cat who can do incredible things.
Review:
We’ve all had noisy neighbors, but never neighbors like we see in The Cat: A single working class man is constantly disrupted in the middle of the night by his new noisy neighbors in the apartment directly above his. Around 3 A.M. every night, there’s a strange pounding noise, and it gets to the point where he can’t take it anymore. He marches upstairs, pounds on their door, and demands peace and quiet, but when the door opens, the strange neighbors – a male and a very seductively beautiful young woman – seem very “off” – but what’s weirder is that they have a pet black cat … and there’s noticeable blood and gore on the man’s hand and on the floor. They promise to be quiet (which they immediately counteract with more noise), but the next morning, they are completely cleared out of the apartment, leaving behind a huge mess on the floor, including entrails, which the downstairs neighbor believes is a child’s intestines, so he (of course) calls the police. When the cops arrive, they determine that the intensities belong … to a cat! So what the heck is going on? Well, a lot, actually. The weird neighbors are space travellers on the run from another race of extraterrestrials who have followed them to earth and are hunting them down, and the only thing keeping them safe is their pet cat, which is an incredible space warrior with extraordinary powers! I mean, seriously: This cat kicks ass! Endowed with martial arts skills, transforming abilities, and even extra sensory powers, this cat fends off alien beings, blob monsters, and in one incredible scene kicks a dog’s ass in a junkyard, and this moment in the movie is best seen to be believed! Space hunters armed with machine guns, shotguns, and grenades (and all sorts of artillery) go hunting through Hong Kong for … The Cat!
Filled with gooey practical special effects (think 1988’s The Blob filtered through a Chinese buffet of weird crab meat and chow mein), and near-nonstop mayhem and gunfire, The Cat is one seriously wacky movie. The plot is a little similar to Critters (remember the space bounty hunters looking for the Crites?), but there’s all kinds of insanity going on in this thing, and it almost defies description. Is it worth watching? Heck yeah! Does it make sense? Heck no! Should you care? I didn’t, so why should you? Add The Cat to your WTF watch list, and thank me later. From director Lam Nai-Choi.
88 Films presents The Cat in a brand new 2K restoration, and it comes in a really sweet hardback case / slipcover that includes a thick booklet, a reversible sleeve, a commentary, a postcard, and more. This was an unexpectedly rad release, and collectors of bizarre Hong Kong cinema (horror, action, science fiction) should have a blast with this one.
