There is a Secret in my Soup (2001)

One night police bust into a Kowloon flat and scour its filthy floors. Teeth are found in a bedroom and a skull falls out of a stitched-up Hello Kitty mermaid doll. The unnamed investigating officer (Michael Wong) scoots in as fellow cops are vomiting, looks around and has the suspects rounded up: pimp Rocky (Hugo Ng) and his wife Pat (Angela Tong), violent type Joe (Gabriel Harrison), and another young couple. In the interrogation room, they tell how the skull came to replace the doll's soft cushioning.

Hong Kong viewers all know why that skull was hidden, for There is a Secret in My Soup is based on a true story, detailed in court about a month earlier. Local audiences needed only to sit back, watch the reenactment and change the names with the following tale:

Maggie Chan (Cherry Chan) is forced out of home by her abusive husband and moves in with friend Pat. Maggie is a single mother and is looking for part-time work, so Pat kindly takes her to her hubby Rocky's brothel. Soon she steals Rocky's lighter and some cash. He's incensed and has her held in a Tsim Sha Tsui flat where she is beaten and abused until her death.

Seeing first the execrable Human Pork Chop and then this film in succession at the theatres produced an uncomfortable moviegoing experience. Rushed to theatrical release at the same time, both films follow the same story and viewers watch as each detail reappears in similar sequence. The police interrogation and resulting flashback device is also shared between the two films. The gist remains as abhorrent in There is a Secret in my Soup as it was in Human Pork Chop - exploiting a lady's grim misfortune and dwelling on her torture and humiliation.

Still, if a viewer must see one of these two films, in fairness I recommend that There is a Secret in my Soup be it. Production values are as sordid and fly-by-night as it gets for recent Hong Kong film. Key to the impression are two ridiculous bump n' grind inserts taking up 14 minutes of screen time. It's as if the running time came out too short (understandable considering the film's subject and haste), leaving the filmmakers to make best use of two available actors, a garage and some very sleazy ideas.

Atmosphere throughout the film is effective for the cheap and dingy interiors, complete with tacky Christmas lights and dim but natural-looking lighting. The Hello Kitty doll - a star of the original court case - has its eyes savagely scratched and scribbled out by hand on the theatrical print*, inadvertently altering the mute cat's wholesome image. Though containing tasteless comedy, There is a Secret in my Soup also shows its victim in a more sympathetic light than Human Pork Chop does, offers meagre background information, and doesn't dwell on the cruelty to the same extent.

The cast is entirely B-list and their dubbing is a total write-off. Michael Wong's the first star to hit the screen and his dubbed voice had the audience giggling at every line. It's clear the filmmakers only had the actor for an evening. Gabriel Harrison gives his most overblown screen role yet and his scenes with his lithe garage partner are memorable. The remaining actors are less appealing.

Above: The main hand-painted billboard at the President Theatre in Causeway Bay
Inset: The street-level painted billboard at the President Theatre

* Note 1: The Hello Kitty doll's eyes were scratched out on the print when the film played Hong Kong cinemas. The Universe VCD and DVD editions use digital pixelation/blocking to hide the eyes. While I much preferred the messy white scratches, the new method is still sinister and adds to the film's squalid impression.

* Note 2: Human Pork Chop is reviewed here.

Credits:

Directed by Yeung Chi-kin
Produced by Wynn Lau
Starring Cherry Chan Chiu-chiu, Hugo Ng Doi-yung, Gabriel Harrison, Tim Shaw, Angela Tong Ying-ying, Christy Cheung and Michael Wong Man-tak