Another Piece Of Romance (1994)

Directed by: Lo Yuen-Yeung
Written by: Lo Yuen-Yeung & Pan Hong
Producer: ?
Starring: Chan Wing-Chi, Peter Yang, Wu Fung, Charlie Cho, Chun Wong, Angelina Lo & Gam Biu

Set in Thailand, Sung Kwan (Gam Biu) is after a precious antique vase dubbed 'The Love Bottle' that his rival Dick Yeung (Peter Yang) is in possession of. He does have his own vase but when combined with the other, it is said to unleash unmatched sexual potency (backstory is that a monk took the secretion of 500 boys and girls and mixed it with secret mud from Tibet to make these two bottles) and Sung Kwan really needs an heir in the form of a son.

Together with a black magic practitioner from the Mainland, first plan is to scam Dick Yeung (an avid nude photographer as well), claiming the antique represents bad luck but he's dismissed as a fraud. Next step is the use of black magic to curse all the men in Dick's family, using Sung Kwan's daughter Chi (Chan Wing-Chi) and her virginity as a trigger for said curse. All while Dick's wife knows he's fooling around with girls and the sisterhood of women now decides enough is enough. The scissors are out and the dicks have to go.

A no budget, Taiwanese produced and packed time, one time director Lo Yuen-Yeung surprisingly enough controls the movie quite well. Confidence isn't obvious as we get dropped into the apparent pervy nature of Peter Yang's character taking beach photos for his own pleasure yet he's not disliked by the ladies! Then in order to get the story threads established quickly, Lo verges on crafting muddled pieces of exposition but manages to make all threads that then becomes the focal point coherent in the end. Focal point involving black magic, multiple scenes of (mostly) off-screen castration that then cuts to another thing. It's a full platter. Another Piece Of Romance eventually gets to a point where it has argued very well that throwing a lot on the screen is actually THE solution when you know how to make it stick.

Because you'd expect (and maybe want) a busy tone with the cinema of the period and despite its very basic technical skills as a movie, the walking talking elements surrounding the black magic, said male mutilation becomes incredibly fun to follow. Because one key is also momentum and there's no sense of it being so random it's akin to filler or being muddled. After a while it becomes fully acceptable Dick Yeung has previously befriended Anita Mui and her appearance here (played by a double) makes sense for the movie universe at hand. There's also therefore a few both nasty but undeniably comedic scenes involving the scissor-plot and with it being silly make believe and not a commentary, to have animals run off with the members at hand and one of the male victims getting a dog's penis transplanted that then triggers with dog-like behavior... it's all delightfully off the wall.

Combine that with Chan Wing-Chi putting her sensual all into the black magic scenes and clearly enjoying this direction versus some of the other films she's done, Another Piece Of Romance shows it has a sense of humour but is in control of its depiction too. Few low budget, quickly shot Category III movies had the skill to build on bizarre plotting, deliver and also squeeze in a few jaw dropping sights along the way. Busy is good in this case and Lo Yuen-Yeung in the end knew exactly where to aim all that was thrown at us.

reviewed by Kenneth Brorsson