Mad Stylist

Call Quentin Tarantino a hack molester of beloved exploitation films if you want but you can’t deny the guy’s style has been hugely influential, or at the very least, often imitated. And no one churns out weird mutations of film that poorly imitate the originals like those wacky Asians. Veteran actor Stephen Yip, best known for his roles in a veritable scad of chop socky movies (not the least of which is the inept gross out  flick Centipede Horror), directed the bizarre Mad Stylist which nods to and perverts several well-known films from QT’s oeuvre.

Imagine if you will an ostracized young man, Dee, who has grown into a hairdresser. He has failed at life so he and his childhood protector cum girlfriend May decide to just kill people for kicks and give the bodies goofy 80s new wave haircuts. Kent Cheng and Michael Wong are cops on the case of the psychos and they don’t really accomplish anything but they do a mean drunken karaoke version of Frankie Avalon’s “Diana”… with Wong on sax for the love of Eve! Well, anyway, one day the Dee and May are tossing some hacked up corpse bits in a river when they are seen by a retarded chick whom the mad stylist immediately falls for because he feels a special bond—he and this windowlicker are both outsiders, see. May sends Dee out to kill the tard witness but instead he saves her from a transvestite weirdo who I suppose is about to rape or otherwise defile the lass and Dee brings her home. Just like a man, he makes up excuse after excuse why they can’t kill the spaz and how they’ll demand a ransom for her and this and that and homegirl gets jealous of  the time her man is spending with the (sort of hot) retarded chick (doing fun things like watching TV and playing fetch) and May gets bitchier and clingier. That’s a woman for you.

If you can make sense of the vaguely Natural Born Killers-ish crap plot, then in your mind’s eye edit in some random violent and/or sexual images from other films and clips of hentai also à la Natural Born Killers. And then pepper in some horrible “Misirlou” knockoff music whenever it’s hardly appropriate. That there is a recipe for success. BUT WAIT! I haven’t even mentioned the crude black humor. Like, in one scene, May goes to check on their captive who is chained up in the couple’s attic and she accidentally sticks her hand in feces-covered newspaper. Rightfully annoyed, she drags the stinky retard outside to hose her off and somehow a hilarious three-way water fight ensues which makes everyone laugh. Hell, I even laughed. Luckily, it’s never too far to go for some side-splitting gag or another… it adds to the charm.

It’s a shoddy film, don’t let me fool you. It’s even worse than it sounds, actually. Godfrey Ho shows it to his film students. Michael Wong switches between Cantonese and English for no apparent reason, for chrissakes.Yet, if there was an American remake starring Charlize Theron and that gay guy from What Not to Wear, I’d watch it and you know you would, too.