Scrolling through a list of available films to review for a film festival can be overwhelming. One should not judge a book by its cover, but sometimes a reviewer has to follow their gut and request films whose posters and titles catch their attention. I can’t explain exactly what drew me to Dr. Lamb at first, but once I read the brief description saying that it was about a serial killer in Hong Kong, I knew I wanted to watch it.
Dr. Lamb was written by Kam-Fai Law and directed by Billy Hin-Shing and Danny Lee. It was originally released in 1992 but has been restored and re-released.
Let me tell you right now: this is not your typical serial killer movie. For one, there are some humorous parts to it even despite the gore. Dr. Lamb has a balanced ratio of giggles and gags throughout this 90 minutes film. For the other, the story opens with a glimpse of Lam Gor-Yu at a young age, but when we fast forward to his adulthood, he is being arrested and so is his whole family. There is a huge amount of time spent watching he and his family be interrogated as the police try to get a confession. It is not until after his confession that we get to hear him describe the killings. I absolutely approve of this not usual order of storytelling.
The only downside I could say there was to Dr. Lamb is that sometimes the audio would go into English. The characters would say a few sentences in English and then return to Cantonese, which was a bit distracting.
Did I mention that this is based on a true story? These are real events that happened in Hong Kong in 1982.
So if you are a true crime fan or a horror fan, I highly recommend making an appointment with Dr. Lamb.
Screened for this year’s 26th edition of Fantasia International Film Festival.