A Lamb in Despair (1999)

A rapist named Ted returns to Hong Kong from the US. He has 25 murders under his belt; all unproven in the US courts. Back in the SAR the local courts can't try him and the cops, led by Cheung Tat-ming, have nothing to pin on him. Spotting a failing in the legal system, journalist Charles (Wong) decides to use his tabloid glossy magazine as a tool to keep Ted off the streets. But Charles' Third Estate ideals fail dreadfully when he swipes a photo from Ted's father's house and places it as a cover shot.

The cops quickly lambast Charles for provoking a known killer and before he can be told "There's blood on your hands", Ted plucks a lady off the Mongkok streets. In his remote lair he strips the girl, shackles her to a ball and chain and humiliates her. And then a young family walks in the door. Ted's back in form and it takes Charles (by now feeling considerable guilt) and Ted's ex-neighbour Mendy (Yiu) to stop him.

Thankfully, A Lamb in Despair isn't presented as comedy, as can easily be the case in Hong Kong. Instead, there's a moral. Ted comes from a history of domestic violence, perpetrated by his [step?]mother and left unchecked by his dad. With lashings of psychology babble, the producers stress this as the cause of Ted's schizophrenia (in this case, the afliction flew in through the window when he was locked into a toilet). The final sentence of the film is "Let your children grow up in a healthy environment." Nice aims for a film so badly acted, poorly dubbed, weakly directed and sadistic in scripting.

Credits:

Directed by a Tony Leung
Starring Anthony Wong Chau-sang, Sherming Yiu Lok-yi, Edward Mok, Karen Tong, Cheung Tat-ming and Simon Loui