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3 of Twilight of the Warriors director Soi Cheang’s early horror films that show his gift
Soi Cheang Pou-soi’s first horror films were very low-budget and relied on clever use of cameras and cuts instead of special effects
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Long before the success of the Hong Kong action blockbuster Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, Soi Cheang Pou-soi made his mark directing innovative low-budget horror films.
We recall three of the director’s notable early releases.
1. Horror Hotline … Big Head Monster
Cheang had garnered some attention with the idiosyncratic, ultra-low-budget horror film Diamond Hill in 2000, but it was 2001’s Horror Hotline … Big Head Monster that made his name.
It impressed Hong Kong critics because it was a straight-up horror that did not feel the need to mix genres. There was no romance and, most noticeably, none of the distracting comedy often used between scary scenes.
Taking his cue from US horror films like The Blair Witch Project, which he frequently references, Cheang’s only aim was to shock.
“Beneath its cheesy title, there lurks one of the most inventive Hong Kong psycho-thrillers of recent years in Horror Hotline … Big Head Monster, one of the very few to come close to replicating the clammy chills of late 90s Japanese pics like The Ring,” Derek Elley wrote in Variety.
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