Maureen Lidgard Brown hits a high note in the subterranean lair of THE EMBALMER.
(Chingmy Yau Suk-ching), who believe her to be a millionaire’s missing daughter. Hoping for a reward, the two bide their time by convincing the potential meal- ticket that she is really one of their girls. Not surprisingly, Night­ ingale eventually crosses Jaguar’s path at a nightclub, which helps to jog her memory. Teaming up with Ching’s boyfriend Big Nose Fu (Jacky Cheung Hok-yau), for­ merly a Triad hitman, Nightin­ gale launches a final assault on Jaguar and his boys. Like most disposable HK pop
entertainment, DEADLY DREAM WOMAN fuses together all man­ ner of commercial elements with reckless abandon but the result­ ing hybrid is quite palatable. Sharia Cheung Man and Chingmy Yau Suk-ching exude an endear­ ingly playful sexuality and the shootouts are executed with con­ siderable panache by director
12
Taylor Wong Tai-lai (TRIADS: THE INSIDE STORY), no stranger to this type of film. Though the mid-section lags somewhat, fans of Sharia Cheung Man will note that it provides a vivid, albeit comic, recollection of her early role as a naive hooker in Cheung Tung-cho’s superior action/melo- drama BET ON FIRE (1988). This attractively transferred
disc is letterboxed at 1.75:1 and features Mandarin digital and Cantonese analog tracks. The sound on the disc previewed was badly distorted on the analog tracks for approximately 15m of Side 1. —JC
THE EMBALMER
1965, Sinister Cinema #H210, LB, $19.00 ppd., 77m 10s Unless a dubbed English lan­
guage version of THE VAMPIRE OF THE OPERA (1964) or LADY
MORGAN'S VENDETTA (1966) miraculously turns up, this may be the last of the 1960s Italian horror cycle to surface on domes­ tic home video. Fondly remem­ bered by American fans as the co-feature to Michael Reeves’ THE SHE-BEAST ( 1966) on a Europix double bill, this is Il Mostro di Venezia (“The Monster of Venice”)—also made by a direc­ tor who died young, in this case Dino Tavella (1920-69), who di­ rected only one other feature (1964’s Una sporca guerra, “One Dirty War”). The delirious, no-brain plot finds a series of young women abducted along the canals of Venice by a menac­ ing skin-diver, who embalms them in an ancient subterra­ nean monastery and, donning a monk’s hooded robe and a rub­ ber skull mask, chortles over these “alabaster goddesses” in his “Temple of Beauty.” Meanwhile,
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