The Story of Prostitutes

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Year of release: 2000

Genre: Triad drama

Director: Johnnie Kong

Action director: Tony Tam

Producer: Lam Shu-Kin

Writers: Sun Screenwriter Team

Cinematography: Kwan Chi-Kan

Editor: Hai Kit-Wai

Music: Tang Siu-Lam

Stars: Anthony Wong, Crystal Cheung, Cherry Chan, Gregory Lee, Karel Wong, Mak Cheung-Ching, Samuel Leung, Suet Lee, Lee Kin-Yan

Rated IIB for violence, language, drug use, and sexual situations



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Even with its' salacious title, The Story of Prostitutes is about as titillating as an episode of Silk Stalkings. Actually, scratch that. At least seeing Mitzi Kapture on the boob tube made those lonely Friday nights in the early 1990's seem a little more tolerable. This movie really does nothing more than alternatively bore and irritate you.

Looking very much like the Chinese version of Ron Jeremy due to weight gain and an unfortunate haircut, Anthony Wong (in yet another of his "any work for a paycheck" roles he took during this period) is one of the top pimps in the Mongkok district. An underling (played by Gregory Lee) is getting into trouble with loan sharks because of his gambling habits, so Anthony decides to put the troubled youth in charge of a local whorehouse. Gregory soon demonstrates an eye for finding "talent" (Cherry Chan and Suet Lee) but gets too attached to his girls, which quickly becomes his downfall.

With the growing western popularity of Hong Kong films due to the breakout of stars like Jackie Chan and Chow Yun-Fat in the latter part of the 1990's, HK producers scrambled to make products that they could quickly punt off to foreign distributors, who often had no clue as to what they were actually buying. The Story of Prostitutes is a prime example of this.

It's obvious that the movie was made for little to no money, to the point that there are really only three locations used, and the actors must be hitting laundry day, because they keep wearing the same thing over and over again. Everyone involved with this picture looks to be bored out of their minds, and delivers an accordingly banal performance that's slightly below the level of a Bob Ross painting show when it comes to pumping out excitement. It's probably no surprise that many of the actors haven't done much work since this came out.

But, hey, who cares about that? Just slap on some decent box art that holds the promise of boobs and blood, and you have a release that's primed to dupe silly gweilos such as your friendly neighborhood reviewer. Well, if you can't guess by now, unless you're a cinematic masochist, you really shouldn't devote ninety minutes of your life to actually sitting through The Story of Prostitutes. There are some Mystery Science Theatre worthy nuggets periodically dispensed out (mostly via the DVD's atrociously mis-translated subtitles) but having to sit through the rest of the dreck this movie hurls upon your visage makes the few slight moments of joy obtained feel like a hollow victory.

RATING: 3

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go grab a two-liter bottle of Shasta, my all-Rush mixtape, and tuck in to relive the glory days of CBS Crimetime After Primetime.