Hong Kong movies are well known for their imaginative large scale idea but because of the lack of technology and money they usually make these interesting ideas look sometime cheesy and stupid, even if the whole movie is very entertaining. With my personal experience, I know that common people (Hollywood knowledge only) don't like HK movies because they find them too cheesy and unbelievable. On the other hand most of the people who enjoy HK movies love this innovative and unserious aspects and that's exactly what this movie is all about.

The Cat was directed by Lai-Choi Nam who also directed The Seventh Curse and the well known classic movie Story of Ricky. But unlike these two other movies, instead of trying to find a way to shock the audience with extreme gory scenes, The Cat centers more on the Sci-Fi aspect of the story, kind of a non serious HK X-Files if you want. But the movie still has that special touch that makes you wonder where they always find these crazy ideas.

The Cat doesn't have the most ingenious concept ever and the story even looks more like a dumb pretext to introduce you a very weird scene. Even if the story is easy to follow, the biggest flaw of the movie is the fact that there are a lot of unexplained elements in the movie, especially about the nature of the aliens. It's like the filmmaker didn't bother explain to the audience the multiple why, when and how of the story. I'm guessing that those who like their movie storyline flawless wont be able to stand this movie but if you don't mind the story that doesn't take things too seriously, you will probably have a good time. Just keep in mind that the story is rather a vehicle to bring together the most unusual ideas you will ever see in a Hong Kong Sci-fi movie. Like Peter likes to tell me in these kinds of situation: "Don't Ask!"

This is a B movie so don't expect the most incredible actor performance ever. Most of the acting was kind of cheesy and funny but I think that was a good thing, a movie like that with a serious tone would have probably ruined the whole thing. Out of all the characters, the most interesting one was the main character Wisely, he was a kind of modern action Sherlock Holmes. As for the rest of the cast, they were mostly forgettable characters unfortunately. The one who had some potential was the Alien girl with her cat, but since there's almost no info about her background or true nature, it was kind of hard to really understand all of her motivation and feeling.

Sci-fi, action, comedy and horror are elements that a lot of Hong Kong movies have tried to mix together and it seem that only a few directors have achieve a successful result. In my opinion The Cat doesn't belong in the successful category, of course it's not a bad movie but I don't think that any of these genres have been exploited to the max. Too many details are unanswered in the Sci-fi aspect to really understand it, the action is there but nothing that we have never seen before, ok except the cat and dog fight. As for the comedy and horror elements, both of them were present but none of them really impressed me.

The special effects were probably the most interesting thing, because of the very limited budget Im really wondering how they manage to get all these effects done. The most spectacular scene is of course that much talked about scene were a cat (the Alien) and a super dog fight each other. I wont say too many details, but as many people before me have said, just for this only scene makes a viewing of the movie worth it. There are also a couple of nice gory scenes, consisting of Alien eating human bodies and slimy unidentified thing attacking humans. Most of the effects were good for a low budget production, but don't expect to see something like in Story of Ricky.

Even if the movie is far from being perfect it still have some memorable moments and also contains enough interesting elements to keep the interest of any HK movie addict for a whole viewing. If you like Hong Kong movies for their crazy ideas and concept, The Cat is a movie you really have to see, but if you are annoyed by the cheesy factor in HK movies, then stay away from it at all cost.