Ebola Syndrome (1996)
By: Markus Zussner on August 30, 2006.
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| Region 4, PAL. 1.85:1 (Non-anamorphic). Cantonese DD 2.0. English Subtitles. Hard Corps (Australia). 98 minutes |
| The Movie |
| Cover Art |
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| Credits |
Director: Herman Yau
Starring: Anthony Wong,
Meng Lo, Yeung Ming Wan
Screenplay: Ting Chau
Country: Hong Kong
AKA: Yi bo la beng duk
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Some movies are just plain offensive, made to
offend people who like to be offended, like me.
I always say if the flicko is sicko, then it must
be a good one. Director Herman Yau and lead actor
Anthony Wong collaborate again to give us Ebola
Syndrome; a sleazy, queasy movie full of
blatantly sick and disgusting moments of bloody
humour, violence, and depraved sadism from start
to finish. It's not any particular scene that launches Ebola Syndrome into the disgusto
category; it's the entire damn film.
It's about a dude called Kai, who seems to have
almost a zero tolerance for bullying and loses
the plot when he is verbally or physically abused.
In the opening scene we see Kai going hard with
the bosses wife when his boss comes home with
an employee and busts them. This would naturally
evoke a violent reaction in anyone who comes home
to see his or her partner playing nudie twister
with someone that you employ. Kai's boss does
what anyone would naturally do, and that is kick
the shit out of him. Now Kai just can't accept
the punishment being dished and it is not long
before Kai "Stop bullying me!" just
plain loses it and kills almost everyone in the
room. After the dispatching of all parties involved
Kai pauses for a moment and flicks his long blood-drenched
hair out of his face with his bloody knife and
then proceeds to go after the last surviving person,
the boss's young daughter who is cowering
in the corner. Before Kai can kill the last surviving
witness to his little outburst he is interrupted
and has to flee. With a murder warrant out on
him in Hong Kong, Kai flees the country and before
you can say "Interpol" we jump to several
years later to find Kai working as a kitchen hand
for a Chinese restaurant in sunny Johannesburg
in South Africa. Even here he cannot escape the
so-called "bullying" that blows his
top. The restaurant owner's wife hates his
guts and she never shies away from telling Kai
as well as everyone else. The restaurant owner
is aware of Kai's past and the outstanding
warrant for his arrest back in Hong Kong, but
he would never find a replacement kitchen hand
who would work for peanuts like Kai.
One day the boss and Kai go out to buy some pigs
from an African Tribe. On the way home the truck
breaks down so while his boss repairs the truck
Kai goes off for a little stroll. He finds an
African female lying on the ground near a riverside
quite unwell and incapacitated and decides that
this is his perfect opportunity to get laid. Despite
the girl looking like she's about to bite
the bullet any second Kai rapes her and then heads
back to the truck. Later on when Kai and his Boss
get back to town, Kai develops a fever. The Bosses
wife tells Kai off for being sick and wishes he
would just die (she's really a lovely girl). The
boss arranges for a Doctor visit; after all cheap
but good labour is hard to get. The Doc tells
them that Kai has the Ebola virus, but he is not
going to die. Doc informs Kai that one in ten
million people are unaffected by the Ebola virus
and become carriers and that Kai is one of those,
er lucky people?
Later on Kai gets a bit fucked off for being
bullied by the bosses wife whilst being sick so
he has another one of his "Stop bullying
me!" temper tantrums and kills her and his
boss. Kai then gets motivated in the kitchen and
whips up some creative and innovative new dishes
to add to the menu like Spaghetti Ebolanais or
Pea and Ebola soup, tossed salad with spit dressing,
and is that frosted icing I see? Now we're cooking
with gas! Kai kills off his customers with his
innovative and fatal menu, making sure the guests
don't come back for seconds.
Anthony Wong is superb as Kai making this one
of the sleaziest characters that has ever graced
celluloid. I can't help but love to hate this
dude. Other than our leading man Kai, there are
really no other interesting characters in the
film with the exception of the surviving female
child from the opening scene all grown up. She's
spotted Kai and endeavours to find justice for
the murder of her parents. The character comes
off as annoying and distracts from the rest of
the story, but no matter, Anthony Wong playing
the part of Kai is all you are going to need.
Anthony Wong takes the weight of the whole film
on his shoulders efficiently and to strong effect.
There is a little nudity throughout but none of
it is titillating in any way so there is nothing
here to get your jollies from. The nudie scenes
are designed to keep your hand off your pecker
and eject eyeballs out of sockets. Ebola
Syndrome has more bodily fluids flying
from all corners of the screen than all the Toxic
Avenger movies combined and then some.
I'm talking about every bodily fluid that you
can think of or imagine and why not; the Ebola
virus spreads very effectively this way so why
not travel down the Ebola highway. Vile, sleazy,
sadistic, cruel and bloody depraved about sums
up Ebola Syndrome quite nicely
I should think. |
| Video |
| The usual standard picture quality. Picture is
clear and sharp, a bit grainy in parts with the
odd spot here and there but mostly the picture quality
is fine. Subtitles are nicely out of the way below
frame. Again, nothing to write home to mama about |
| Audio |
| Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0 only. The usual standard
audio quality. Clear and clean. You can watch the
film with or without English subtitles. |
| Extra Features |
| Zippo, not even a trailer. |
| The Verdict |
| It's no so much gory as it is messy, so if you
like blood and ooze flying all across the screen
then get infected and dirty with this uncut version
of Ebola Syndrome. Like so many
sick flicks it doesn't come with a Mental Health
Warning on the cover but the packaging is made of
cardboard which is of some consolation, so if the
DVD contains the virus, you can burn it. If after
viewing you start feeling a little queasy, then
you know what to do with that petrol can. Guys,
if you are looking for the perfect horror film to
freak out your date and have her jumping into your
lap then avoid Ebola Syndrome at
all costs unless you want to wear your girlfriends
stomach contents (which can be appealing to some).
This is not a scary horror film but rather an extremely
disgusting "killer on the loose sicko flicko"
designed to gross out depraved and twisted minds
that are offended by nothing. You cannot compare Ebola Syndrome to other movies
that deal with the transmission of infectious disease
like Warning Sign, 28 Days
Later or The Crazies because Ebola Syndrome is unlike any of
these films. It does not attempt to deal with how
to stop the virus from spreading and infecting others
but instead hovers voyeuristically around Kai who
is getting his kicks out of spreading the Ebola
virus. What is very disturbing about the films theme
is that it emulates the real life concern of the
transmission of the HIV virus by people who knowingly
carry the disease, yet take no measures to prevent
the spread of the virus, and continue to have unprotected
sex with unsuspecting victims. What really scares
me is that there really are people out there today
that are aware that they have the HIV virus and
willingly infect as many people as they possibly
can, destroying many lives along the way. The overall
rating I have provided below is a disgusto-meter
rating exclusively for the sickos because as far
as the scare factor is concerned, it doesn't rate.
For best effect, watch Ebola Syndrome while wearing a Bio-suit. I did. |
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