Breakout From Oppression

If Breakout From Oppression is an indication of what Chinese suspense movies were like in the 70's I think I'll pass on them in the future. This was a hard movie to sit through, kind of like when your stomach is acting up and you have to visit the can every few minutes – it's hard to sit still for it.

Fanda is an innocent woman sent to prison for murder. Upon her release she is given a job at a newspaper, and she hopes to be able to start her life anew. Someone has other ideas for her, though. Someone is tormenting her by cutting her bike's breaks and nailing her pet monkey to the door. If that weren't bad enough it seems like everyone treats her like trash except for the guys that want to get her pants off. But she isn't the only one affected, the tormentor has no qualms about killing people if it serves the purpose of getting to Fanda.

As character connections are revealed and the killer comes out in full force the movie gets marginally less boring. For the most part though this thing is so choppy with such weak scene setup and worse dialogue that the movie is hard to follow. What's the point of the bullies in the prison? I thought that would play into the plot in SOME way since they kept cutting to those shots at the beginning of the story, but it has no payoff at all.

Maybe something is lost in translation, but the acting it terrible. When the one reporter is talking to Fanda about a murdered child neither the American voice-over actor nor the one on screen display the least bit of emotion. It's like some casual conversation. “Yeah, right there is where the little girl in this picture was brutally stabbed to death by her mother a little while ago, and I had chicken for lunch.”

The action is lame and plot holes abound. When Fanda cuts herself with a razor the wound looks brutal, but there is not the first drop of blood nor does she seem to require a bandage. Maybe she's Wolverine's half-sister? And exactly how does a bar of soap thrown from across the room end up under the foot of a ladder that is sitting squarely on the ground?

MORALITY:

We get some violence in this in the way of shootings, stabbings, decapitations, and a maggot-ridden corpse. Most of it is unrealistic like the bloodless gash I mentioned but still might be enough to bother sensitive viewers.

The strong language gets bad at times.

There is no sex or nudity though some of the guys clearly have intentions of a sexual nature where Fanda is involved.

SPIRITUALITY:

Stalking people is bad!

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I'm having a hard time thinking of anything positive to say here. Oh, I've got one! The premise almost sounds like the setup of a decent suspense/thriller. Too bad they couldn't make it into something worth seeing.

#BreakoutFromOppression