By – Gareth Jones

For fans of weird cat movies, bizarre Hong Kong cat movies, unusual science fiction cat movies. (Do you detect a theme?)

For the majority of my life, I have been a dog person. This is mostly due to the fact that my mother and I had cat allergies.  That changed when I got married and my dear wife had two cats. It permanently changed one fateful night when I rescued a cat.  We named her Tabitha and she lived for 22 years with us.  She changed my whole perception of cats. I now fully understood why so many folks love cats and I also understood why so many also think that cats are from another planet. In turn, I also see why there are so many films with cats as aliens.  I grew up watching The Cat from Outer Space, still one of my all time favorite Disney produced films. Now, imagine that film filtered through Hong Kong martial arts, gross out exploitation, and nonsensical but hilarious storylines and you still would not be able to predict the madness of Lam Ngai Kai’s 1992 film.  It also contains elements of House, another cult classic involving a cat.

I became aware of the film because of the Criterion Channel’s series of cat films, which included all of the aforementioned films and so much more.  Even after watching the trailer, I was unprepared for this film.  Here is an attempt to describe the plot.  Two aliens are stuck on planet earth.  One is in the form of a young girl, one is in the form of a cat.  They are joined by an older man, their “knight” and protector, who is trying to help them find their way home.  They have to steal a series of artifacts from museums in order to find the pathway home.  Along the way, they are pursued and confronted by some kind of fungus monster from outer space, called the Star Killer.  In turn, they are joined by a writer and his friends (dare I say a Scooby Doo-like team?) as they try to investigate the museum thefts and then help the aliens get home and defeat the fungus monster.  You know, as one does.  Of course, one does not watch this movie for the plot.  You are here for the flying cat, flesh melting, and badass kung fu, including an unforgettable fight between the cat and a rottweiler.  Truly, one of the most ridiculous fight scenes between a dog and cat ever put on the screen.

Director and cinematographer Lam Ngai Kai is best known for the extreme gross out film The Story of Ricky, which sounds even more bizarre and disturbing.  Here, there are enough humorous moments to balance out the gruesome fungus scenes.  The effects are cheesy but entertaining, and the acting is over the top to match the insane plot developments. Obviously, it is not a film for everyone, but for those who love the strange and unusual, it hits all the right notes.  It also shows once again that cats are really alien creatures here to torment us, but also to teach us about ourselves, and how to kill alien fungus creatures, the most important lesson of all.  Thank you cats from outer space.

Available to stream on the Criterion Channel and others