WTF China?!?: Raped by An Angel

Okay, I won't lie: I only wanted to see this because of the title.  Honestly, can you blame me?  This exploitation film came out in 1993 in China and actually spawned four sequels.  We only had four Exorcist films, but we have five Raped By An Angel films!  What should you expect from the first film of a series that brought us such films as Raped By An Angel 3: Sexual Fantasy of the Chief Executive and Raped By An Angel 4: The Raper's Union?  Incidentally, do I even need to bother to summarize the plot for you?  It would either meet your fears/expectations or just ruin the whole thing for you.  If you're still with me, check out my consent-free review of...

The film begins with a man breaking into a woman's house and raping her.  Wow, even I Spit On Your Grave set things up first!  As it turns out, this is actually a game he plays with his girlfriend, although it's much more for him than for her.  We are introduced to our heroines via a TV commercial they appear in.  They run around in the jungle, fire guns and dodge explosions.  Is this an ad for the military or the NRA?  No, it's actually an odd for...milk.  What's in your water, guys?  Our rape-happy villain makes them his focus and hits on them at a party.  It doesn't end well, unless you consider having a glass of scotch dumped into your lap to be foreplay.  The next night, he sets up his girlfriend to be raped by his friend, an act that he films.  So far, he's only a rapist-by-proxy, not that I consider that to be okay either.  We get an odd bit of dialogue as our heroines discuss their long-lost friend who has showed up with AIDS.  I bet you're wondering where that is going, if anywhere.  I'll never tell...until it comes up later.  The man sets up a series of events that will come into play later.  While it's clever, it also flies in the face of the entire film's plot.  That's a first, huh?

Things only escalate as our heroine tracks down a person for an interview related to her law class.  That man: a Triad boss.  Way to aim low, honey.  After helping him escape a murder coup against him (a kung-fu fight- what?!?), the man agrees to do an interview with her.  On top of that, he begins to woo her and eventually ends up having sex with her on a houseboat.  Meanwhile, there is some sort of main plot here, right?  This finally comes to head around the forty-five minute mark.  Ah, I see someone read Screenplay 101.  You see, the man has moved into the building with our heroines and breaks in one night to have some fun with our heroine's friend.  She puts up a fight, but proves to be weaker than his American Psycho impression.  By the way, you actually see more of him in this scene than you do of her- odd.  He sets up more plot points that fly in the face of logic during this as well.  The next day, her friend comes home and finds out the news.  She pushes her friend to press charges.  I choose you, courtroom scene!

The trial is, well interesting. The whole thing basically boils down to people either believing odd things about her (they were a couple, says the landlord) or buying into the weird things he set up earlier.  For example, he deposited a bunch of money into her account and made her publicly withdraw it with the threat of a tape.  The problem with all of this?  He acts completely-surprised when she 'dares' press charges.  He does all of this just in case they do something that has never been done before?  WHAT?!?  Anyhow, he gets off after blackmailing his ex-girlfriend with the tape of her being raped earlier.  Meanwhile, our heroine's new beau does what he can to get at that man.  That proves to not be enough as the girl who pressed charges is kidnapped, killed and dismembered.  Two months later, the man moves back in and finds our heroine there.  She sets up a trap for him by allowing him to watch her saunter around.  In a *lovely* scene, we get to watch the man manipulate himself while hanging upside down.  Ew.  The climax (sorry, I didn't mean to do that) comes when the evil lawyer uses the boss' ex-girlfriend to keep him away while he breaks in...dressed as a clown.  A big action scene ensues involving fighting, slashing, a bathtub full of acid and a crossbow.  Eventually, he catches and rapes the girl...only to find that she switched with the AIDS-infected friend.  They got you...in a roundabout way.  The End.

This film is really not that good.  It accomplishes what it was going for, I suppose, but is a highly-flawed film.  The movie takes nearly an hour to get to its point and main plot.  Before we get that, we get a whole ton of random stuff and a romantic side-plot  that the movie deemed more important than the main one.  Would you kindly not waste my time, movie?  I also have to mention this: the subtitle work is utter shit.  Now the producers of the film are not to blame for this, but still.  Whoever failed to spell check this shit and decided to do all of the translation as literal needs to be shot in the scrotum!  As a bonus, the script is full of vague and confusing expressions that I'm supposed to know.  The thing can't go three minutes without calling a horny guy a 'wolf' (Tex Avery would be proud) or a stalker a 'creeper!'  I can figure this out with enough thought, but it's distracting as hell.  Oh right, the movie.  It's not good.  It has random humor, a listless plot and some very out-of-place fight scenes.  That said, stay tuned next month for the sequel!

Next up, I celebrate the 1-Year Anniversary of my look at the sons of famous movie villains.  This time, their daughters take their turn.  First up, the daughter of a scientist continues the family work...sort of. Stay tuned...