Exposed to Danger

I'm so used to low budget Hong Kong movies from the 70's being chopsocky martial arts flicks, that I was very surprised with how Breakout From Oppression panned out. As opposed to being an action film, this one is in fact quite clearly a horror-thriller. The story centres on a girl who is released from prison after serving time for a serious crime. On release, she is given a job at a newspaper. She starts a relationship with her new boss which leads to jealousies from a couple of her female colleagues, one of which turns out to be more than a little bit psychopathic.

While I would never claim this film was especially good – it's really no more than mediocre – it did make for a very welcome change to see a non-martial arts Hong Kong flick from this era. The story is quite functional but there are moments of interest sprinkled along the way such as a crazed woman with a knife, a man imprisoned in the basement of a house, another man beaten to death by a wrench, a spring roll laced with broken glass being fed to a child, a bar of soap replete with razor blades and that old staple – the push bike with no brakes! The complex events eventually come together and climax in a demented finale on a beach, which includes a cat fight and a beheading. So, there is certainly a reasonable amount going on in this one, so even though it isn't executed especially well, it does benefit from going down a psychological route as opposed to another Hong Kong flick about people kicking and punching each other.