Dr Lamb (UNCUT) - Danny Lee, Hin Sing 'Billy' Tang - (1992) DVD

DR.LAMB was made in 1992 and was the first film to truly bring the Cat.III psycho-sicko genre to the attention of film buffs. Directed by Danny Lee and Billy Tang, the film's success theatrically was helped by the fact it was based on a real-life case, and one that the whole nation was riveted by at the time just ten years earlier. Simon Yam plays Lam Gor Yu (the real name of the actual killer the film is based upon), a nutcase with a penchant for picking up women in his taxi and snuffing them out, before screwing their dead carcasses...AND recording it all on video!

As would be the norm for years to come, this style of Category III film was going to cause the censor's office a few headaches. Cuts were ordered and several brief moments were removed to appease the board. Danny Lee has claimed that between 3 and 4 minutes were cut out of the picture but this is not the case. Subsequent video releases of the film were all cut, representing the same cinematic truncation already applied. The only uncut version to ever rear its ugly little head was a Spanish video release that has since become very hard to find. Dubbed in Spanish and in a grainy fullscreen transfer, this represents the only known existing edit featuring the missing moments as rumour has done the rounds that the original distributor's no longer have the master they used for the Winson DVD release in Hong Kong a few years back (they binned it!). That is not to say that original vault materials are no longer in existence as they may very well reside in some vault somewhere. However, the Winson DVD was announced as being 'restored' and 'uncut' prior to its release and turned out to be neither. It DOES appear to be culled from 2 or 3 variant masters, making it a composite edit in itself, and features a brief second or 2 of extra blood not in previous video incarnations. However, a composite made with the Spanish cut would be the only TRUE restoration until any official remastering and restoration work can be done by someone like Tai-Seng (who did such a great job on THE UNTOLD STORY)...

This version we are offering to you is the composite you have been waiting for! Using the HK disc as the 'base print', the extra gore footage from the ultra-rare Spanish tape release has been reinstated. Seeing as the aspect ratio shifts from around 1.70:1 to around 1.77:1 half-way through the HK disc, the decision was made to matte the composite off to exactly match the 1.77:1 framing, enabling the fullscreen footage to be smoothly integrated and the entire composite to retain a consistent image quality. However, due to the stronger audio of the DVD release, the restored footage is of a quieter level and lesser quality and is the only real blemish on an otherwise exciting disc!

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