Hell Has No Boundary 4K 1982

A white Jeep is speeding down a mountain road toward the seashore. Behind the wheel, a young man sips diet cola from a metal can, while a girl next to him struggles unsuccessfully to solve a Rubik’s Cube. After pitching a tent on the shore and grilling two sausages and a chicken drumstick over a campfire, the young people got ready for bed. Could they have imagined that on this very night, their carefree life would come to an end forever? Hearing what sounded like voices in her sleep, the girl went outside and was instantly possessed by an evil spirit; by morning, she seemed like a completely different person. First, she stabbed a little boy in the leg with a harpoon, then threw him from a great height into the water—simply because he dared to drink their diet cola. As regrettable as it is, this behavior seems to have gone completely unpunished for the law enforcement officer (the young people work for the police). Upon returning to her native Hong Kong, even more horrific things begin to happen to the girl—namely, people she knows start dying one after another.

As you might guess from the plot summary, “Hell Has No Boundary” is the most clichéd horror movie on the planet. It was filmed in 1982 at Shaw Brothers, once the most famous Hong Kong film studio, which by that point was on its last legs. These people approached film production with the same level of responsibility that the Chinese apply to the production of any other goods—namely, churning out a hundred films a year, 90% of which were kung fu action movies. “Hell Has No Boundary” happens to fall into the 10% exception.

The film’s greatest strength lies in its casting choices for the lead roles. Actress Liann Lau pulls off the role of a half-angel, half-demon quite well, and even her smile—which clearly wasn’t planned for the script— that occasionally flits across her face, is not at all annoying; on the contrary, it lends a certain charm to her character. And, of course, Derek Yee—one of the most dedicated figures in Hong Kong cinema, who later directed such masterpieces as *The Protégé*, 'One Night in Mong Kok,‘ and 'The Shinjuku Incident,’ and who demonstrated extraordinary professionalism both in his youth and throughout his acting career. He seems to be the only person who takes everything that happens to heart, and it’s almost awkward to watch.

It’s impossible not to mention a few memorable scenes that might prevent this film from sinking completely into oblivion—such as the one where the main character throws up into the toilet in the middle of the night, and then she’s forced to drink it all because, apparently, the water was cut off in her apartment for non-payment; or the very amusing scene the writers came up with at the very end, when Derek Yee’s character—under the influence of an evil spirit—reaches under a nurse’s skirt, and she thinks it’s the surgeon standing next to her who’s decided to flirt with her that way. In Hong Kong, mystical films have generally always been more comical than scary, and classic horror films have been a real struggle for local filmmakers—a fact that’s clearly evident in this movie as well.

Otherwise, "Hell Has No Boundary" is no different in quality from the TV series shown during the day. The actors, staring directly into the camera, deliver clichéd lines, and there are a huge number of blunders that aren’t even worth mentioning, given that the film was made on a shoestring budget, clearly thrown together hastily—and most importantly, it isn’t scary at all. But everything is relative, and of course it’s unfair to judge “Hell Has No Boundary” and “The Exorcist” by the same standard. Hong Kong had no tradition of horror film production, so it should be evaluated only against the backdrop of other local horror films of that era; in this context, *Hell* holds up quite well, and today it is undoubtedly a true rarity for all fans of Hong Kong cinema.