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連體 (1984)
The Siamese Twins


Reviewed by: andras
Date: 12/12/2003
Summary: Shaw Bros SIAMESE TWINS

The comments about this 1984 horror/thriller around are something along the lines of "stay away" or "it sucks". I would settle for a "it could have been better" but that shouldn't keep You from staying away of course. This film is only for the most hardened horrorfilm-collectors who gotta have every SB-terror release in their collection.

The basic idea behind its non-existent screenplay is not bad: a woman returns to home from Canada to find her confused parents hiding a terrible secret from her. She had a siamese twin who died upon seperation. Her twin now haunts the family house and she's kind of pissed at her sis and everybody around her. This could have been developed into a nifty Basket Case type scenario,but the movie only comes alive in the last 15minutes or so.

Director Angela Mak Leng Chi comes from television and it shows.There isn't a whole lot of style to the film.Cinematographer Lau Moon Tong (of Rape After and later the Jet Li movies) makes sure the lighting is okay,but the director decided to shoot the film like a TV-movie. Lots of scenes have people talking,emote and then talk a little more, pour a little brandy then off to sleep. Most of the cast comes from tv and it shows too. One actor has difficulty drinking from a glass. The attractive leading lady(Idy Chan Yuk-Lin) however gives a solid performance. Her parents are played by SB veterans Yueh Hua and Tanny.

The box proudly displays the CAT.III logo but I suspect it to be more of a marketing ploy than the result of submitting this to the local censors. I counted a pair of innocent tits, a bare butt (of the male kind) and minimal gore. As I said,there is some interesting goings on in the last part of the film and the movie is blessed(?) with one of those "new wave" horror scores that is at least not canned music like on HUMAN LANTERNS. There is an absolute lack of zoom-lens here,shot in normal ratio and in Cantonese so yes this is a new-wave production! Stuck somewhere between NOMAD and LIFE AFTER LIFE, this is minor stuff by Shaw Bros standards.