Night Caller (Philip Chan, 1985)

Back in the mid to late Nineties I was pretty much obsessed with Hong Kong cinema (especially the Category III and Heroic bloodshed genres). There was a time where I was constantly buying and trading tapes-stuff was coming in all the time. Some of those films only got watched once and then forgotten about and confined to boxes and stored in the loft), such is the case of ‘Night caller’ which is a shame as it’s an entertaining enough little movie which I really enjoyed revisiting after something like 17 years or so.

Set around one X-mas, things start off in fine style with an Argento-esque murder where a pretty woman is stabbed and shoved through glass. There is a witness in the form of the woman’s little daughter who survives but is so traumatised by the ordeal that she can’t speak. It turns out the dead woman used to work for a modelling agency and it seems that the owner knows the identity of the killer as he tries blackmailing them  on the phone but ends up being victim number two (in a pretty neat scene in a TV studio). Meanwhile detective Steve Chan (Philip Chan) has brought the little girl (who’s still playing mute) home to his wife as a Christmas present as such (the pet shop must have been out of puppies) while he and his colleagues try to track down the killer who does come to light not before and is - how shall we say -just a bit of a nutbag.
The ‘happy’ ending is as dumb as it is sickly but overall ‘Night caller’ is a decent way to kill 90 minutes. Apparently Philip Chan really was a police detective before he turned director. He certainly has designs of himself as something of a super cop in this movie. HK veteran actor Melvin Wong has a role too. The star of the show is Pauline Chan as Bobbi but I’ve probably given too much away with the statement. Oh well, sue me.
 My tape is an old HK import. I know it never got released here in the UK but I’m not sure if it ever got an official release in the states. Probably not although it may have wound up in the Chinatown video stores. I believe it was out in Holland though. Also it was released on video disc but never on DVD so it still qualifies to be featured in the VHS vault of death.