Dr Lamb
Dir Danny Lee / 1992 / Hong Kong
The film that started the early 90's craze in Hong Kong for true life crime films. This had a very troubled time with the local censors due to the sexual violence that's present.The Chinatown Cinema had this title Refused Registration on December 11th 1992. The 35mm print ran 89min.
Here's what the OFLC and Film and Literature Board of Review-Report on Activities 1992-93 had to say about the film.
"A Chinese language film, Doctor Lamb, presenting an exploitative portrait of a psychotic killer, was refused registration on the grounds of indecency for the combination of extreme violence, gratuitous sexual violence, child sexual abuse and necrophilia"
The Chinatown Cinema sat on the film for over a year before re-submitting a heavily censored version that was passed R18+(Medium Level Violence, Adult Themes) on February 11th 1994. The original version ran 89min, while this was only 81min. This print, missing around 8mins of footage, went on to play in Chinatown Cinemas around the country.
It is worth noting that the film was slightly trimmed by the Hong Kong censors before playing there. This would have been the same print originally submitted to our Classification Board in 1992.
The Hong Kong LD and VHS from Star Entertainment is the cut Category 3 version and has no subtitles. A Hong Kong DVD release on the Winson label is also a cut version, but has subtitles. The only known uncut release is from Manga Video in Spain, alas it's in Spanish only.
In 1996 Siren launched their Chinatown Video label. This was announced as a forthcoming release, though nothing eventually appeared.
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