The Cat (1991) Blu-ray Review

88 Films

Blu-ray Release: September 23, 2025

Video: 1.85:1/1080p/Color (Japanese cut is in SD)

Audio: Cantonese LPCM 2.0 Mono (Japanese cut is in Dolby Digital Japanese mono)

Subtitles: English

Run Time: 89:20 (Hong Kong cut), 97:00 (Japanese cut)

Director: Lam Nai-Choi

An evil blob-like extraterrestrial has come to earth with nefarious intentions. Luckily, some good aliens are on its trail: a man, a woman, and, of course, their fluffy black cat. (From 88 Films’ official synopsis)

Lam Nai-Choi, sometimes credited as Simon Lam, began his career as a cinematographer and shot films for Shaw Bros., including Sun Chung’s The Avenging Eagle (1978) and The Kung Fu Instructor (1979). Soon after, he relocated to rival studio Golden Harvest, where he directed some of the most unhinged films of the early Cat. III era. His masterpiece is probably the demented Indiana Jones meets Mr. Vampire meets Evil Dead extravaganza The Seventh Curse (1986), based on prolific Shaw screenwriter Ni Kuang’s Dr. Yuen book series, but it’s hard to choose a favorite. There’s the two-part manga adaptation Peacock King (1988) and Saga of the Phoenix (1990), the manic pseudo-remake of Witches of Eastwick, Erotic Ghost Story (1990), and the splatter kung fu classic The Story of Ricky (also based on a manga, 1991).

Lam’s final film in the director’s chair* was The Cat (1991). Like The Seventh Curse, it was based on a Ni Kuang novel, in this case one of the many books from the Wisley series (#39 Old Cat, pub. 1971) ** about a Carl Kolchak (of Kolchak: The Night Stalker fame)/John Constantine type of academic supernatural adventurer. The Cat isn’t as jaw-droppingly gory or sexually charged as some of Lam’s other cult hits, but its insane mash-up of genres, tropes, and tones works as a kind of consummation of his work. Like a deranged family adventure combined with adult-aimed sci-fi horror and topped with shoot ‘em up action that would make John Woo blush. 

The Cat is a heist movie, a supernatural detective story, a sentimental fantasy, and an over-the-top action/adventure, but Lam seems happiest while indulging in beautifully wet ‘n’ rubbery special effects spectacle. The main monster is a sort of room-sized mushroom blob with worm-like tendrils that shoot electricity. It can burn people like acid, breaking apart their bodies into chunks of gristle, or absorb them into gooey mass, à la Brian Yuzna’s Society (1989). It can also pilot people and spread its influence, like the emotionless pod people of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956).

Among The Cat’s dozens of show-stopping scenes is a signature sequence so brain-meltingly audacious that it lives in infamy. Lucio Fulci’s Zombie (Italian: Zombi 2, 1979) has its “splinter in the eye,” Alien (1979) has its chest-burster, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) has its star gate, and The Cat has its knock-down, drag-out martial arts battle in a junkyard between the titular creature and a massive black mastiff. Apparently, the original effects coordinator was fired for endangering the animal cast (don’t worry, all the animal violence that made the final cut is clearly simulated with puppets and stop-motion) and the sequence was completed by Shinji Higuchi, who went on to direct several films, including two live action Attack on Titan films (2015), Shin Godzilla (co-directed with Hideaki Anno, 2016), and Shin Ultraman (2022), as well Giant God Warrior Appears in Tokyo, a 2013 short film based on Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa of The Valley of The Wind (1984).

The cast includes Waise Lee as Wisley (admittedly a step down from Chow Yun-fat), Lawrence Lau as Wisley’s hapless comic relief friend, Christine Ng as his put-upon girlfriend, singer/actress Gloria Yip as the aetherial, child-like Alien Girl (that’s her name), and Philip Kwok is a cop possessed by the alien blob and turned into an unstoppable killing machine. He’s a mix of the Terminator and the killer entity from Jack Sholder’s The Hidden (1987). He later becomes an amalgamation monster in the tradition of John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982). Both Yip and former Venom Mobber Kwok had cameos in Story of Ricky, while Ni Kuang has an extended cameo here as Mr. Chen, the trainer/owner of the dog that the alien cat nearly beats to death.

* The Cat premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival in September 1991, one week before Story of Ricky’s Tokyo premiere, but wasn’t released widely in HK until late October of 1992, several months after Story of Ricky’s wider HK release.

** Having never read any books in either the Dr. Yuen or Wisley series, I think the continuities are typically separate, but I have also seen lists that count all the books as one ongoing series, rather than two.

Video

The Cat has been very difficult to find on physical home video. It was never released on official stateside VHS and the only DVD options were discs from Hong Kong and France (the second of two HK discs, from Joy Sales, was anamorphic and had English subtitles). As a result, 88 Films’ simultaneous US/UK/CA Blu-ray debut has been a real cause célèbre among HK film fans. In general, the 1.85:1 transfer, which was scanned and restored from the original negative in 2K, is better than I had expected (based on the lack of availability and condition of similar films) with rich colors, strong dynamic range, and crisp details. There is a slight oversharpened quality, especially the busy medium shots, but this rarely results in notable haloes or similar artifacts. A 4K scan might have been able to clarify the somewhat smudgy grain, but, for a 2K master, The Cat impresses with regularity.

Audio

The Cat is presented in its original Cantonese mono and uncompressed LPCM 2.0 sound. Because I’ve only ever seen this disc and a rip of the Hong Kong DVD, I’m not sure if there was ever an English dub available. Dialogue is clean and consistent with a hint of muffling and minor distortion. Special effects are punchy and loud, despite the lack of stereo enhancement. Composer Philip Chan’s jagged, screeching, yet sometimes oddly ethereal synth score is often the loudest element and I noticed no buzzing at high volume levels.

Extras

• Alternate Japanese version of the film (97:00, letterboxed SD, Japanese audio) – The Cat was co-produced by Golden Harvest and Japanese company Tokuma Shoten (hence Shinji Higuchi finishing the junkyard fight), who each made their own version of the film with different characters and cast members, co-written and directed by Mio Hani with zero credit (I only know this, because of the Frank Djeng commentary – it is otherwise not listed on IMDb or Wikipedia). They reuse a lot of the cat footage and most major special effects scenes, but it’s otherwise rather remarkable how different the two films are. I’d argue that the plot of the Japanese version makes a little more sense, but that it doesn’t really matter, because it lacks the propulsion and unpredictability of Lam’s original. 

• Commentary with Frank Djeng (Hong Kong cut only) – Everyone’s favorite NY Asian Film Festival programmer (who seems to be under the weather) explores the film’s release, locations, the lives and wider careers of the cast & crew, the Wisley series and other Ni novels, the making of the alternate Japanese version, and much more.

• Writing The Cat: An Interview with Gordon Chan (21:47, HD) – The actor and co-writer discusses being hired, his wider career as a screenwriter, collaborating on the script, differences between the book and movie, socio-political themes, and Lam’s lack of output since The Cat. 

• Image gallery

• Hong Kong trailer

The images on this page are taken from the BDs and sized for the page. Larger versions can be viewed by clicking the images. Note that there will be some JPG compression.