There is a Secret in my Soup

Following hot on the heels of the harrowing 'Human Pork Chop' comes the alternate take on the same grim true story of the young drug addicted prostitute that falls foul of some nefarious pimps and criminals, whom if you were to believe 'Secret in my Soups' interpretation were simply stoners that went too far.

After being caught out stealing money from her recently acquired pimp, the young addict is captured and repeatedly tortured and demeaned in a catalogue of graphic and violent scenarios that 'should' push any viewer to the edge.

Whilst 'Human Pork Chop' is a straight faced exercise in terror (that works very well for it), 'Secret in my Soup' is nothing short of a dull exercise in exploitation that will both annoy and bore too. The film has a great high level of quality on the production front, but is sorely let down by the awful interpretation of what should be a harrowing storyline.

What is totally unforgiveable is the fact that although the director Yeung Chi Kin sets up many of the scenes well, he quickly loses all confidence in the viewer by adding scenes of soft core glossy exploitation. I mean, who is gonna believe their eyes when after the poor drug addicted lead female is battered and humiliated she then oils up and does an allegedly sexy nude dance for one of the twisted leads whilst he vacuum cleans her breasts?!! Absolute trash, and not even good trash it has to be said.

It is a shame too as some of the more manic scenes of the baddies really does come close to similar scenes from the Texas Chainsaw series (from which Kin was obviously inspired), but then it also laughable that their violent urges are allegedly from their demented dope smoking - yeah right.

The film also falls foul to some of the most embarresing censoring I've seen in a long while. One of the key plot elements in the story was the fact that the victims skull was found stuffed inside a kitty doll. The manufacturers of said kitty dolls must have placed an injuction on the film makers so they could not show the soft toy onscreen, which is a bit of a pain for them as it has meant that throughout the film there is digital blocking everytime siad doll appears. This in its own is hilarous when on screen two guys are beating the hell out of our poor victim for all to see whilst beside them there's a mess of digital blocks where the kitty doll should be?!!

Another irritation is the gross censoring to some of the key scenes of violence also which are horrendously blatant - so it's okay for the victim to oil up and be sexy in the nude, but the violence is a no-no. Go figure.

As ever the disc from Universe is very nice indeed, The widescreen image is as sharp as could be, the mono audio is fair enough and the optional english subtitles are clear enough throughout (although as always not essentially spot on translations). The extras as ever comprise of some bios and a nice trailer (that's probably better than the film itself - ouch!)

Possibly an interesting curiousity for completists that wish to make comparisons between this and the far superior 'Human Pork Chop', but otherwise definitely one to avoid. Complete tosh.