Lung and the half breed Ying are members of the Hong Kong squad tasked with fighting the monsters that live amongst us, masquerading as humans, unnoticed by the average population. Yeun (Tatsuya Nakadai) is a powerful monster that thinks it is time for humans and monsters to live in peace, but few others agree and he is under attack by other monsters as well as by the Anti-monster Squad. And Lung has a secret: He fell in love with the incredibly cute monster, Gaye (Michelle Reis), who now lives under the protection of Yuen. Can Lung save the day? Will Ying find acceptance? Will Yeun survive? Do Gaye and Lung have a future together? Who cares?
The animated Wicked City is a classic of anime. This live action take is not. Based on the same manga, little is the same. The anime is a Japanese, fantasy-horror noir for adults. This one is some kind of strange, Hong Kong, cheesy, kids movie.
It is, however, a kidās movie with lots of nudity. You never see anyone nakedāfog or bubbles or electricity gets in the way, but the female lead spends as much time naked as dressed. And thereās a lot of symbolic sex, particularly rape. Those rapes can just be considered āenergy drainsā as the evil demon takes power from our heroine. The fact that they are both naked, and heās thrusting forward between her spread legs while she screams and moans, throwing her head back, may just be coincidental. Or not. Thereās also a sex scene where the female monster has shape-changed into a pinball machine. Or it could be the villain gets very excited by pinball. Childhood was different in ā90s Hong Kong.
Donāt think of the nudity and sex as a negative. Theyāre the least embarrassing part of the movie. When away from groaning, weāre stuck with a nonsensical story, combat on the level of the Power Rangers, and horrible characters. Lung and Ying are deeply unpleasant and inconsistent, and presented with a degree of over-acting seldom seen in professional productions. Gaye comes off a little better due to being adorable, but if you arenāt excited by hot Asian women, you are out of luck.
Tatsuya Nakadai is in a different class than the rest of the cast, slumming it for a paycheck. Gambling debts is the only explanation I can come up with for why the star of Yojimbo and Ran appeared in this sludge.
The subtitles vary with different releases. In one version, the dimension-traveling monsters are alien lizard people, possibly from outer space. If anything, that makes it worse.