An exceptionally grim slice of exploitation, LOST SOULS is undoubtedly one of the strongest films ever made by the Shaw Brothers studio, a movie that makes other violent fare such as HONG KONG GODFATHER look positively tame. It's directed by none other than T.F. Mous, the controversial Hong Kong director who went on to make the notorious MEN BEHIND THE SUN.The story here is straightforward, exploring the plight of illegal immigrants travelling from China to Hong Kong to begin better lives. Unfortunately the protagonists of our story end up being captured by some very unpleasant people smugglers who run their operation out of a run-down farmhouse.What follows is a catalogue of depravity as the immigrants are subjected to all kinds of abuse. The film wallows in sleaze and the entire cast spend nearly all of the running time naked. There's male and female rape, beatings, humiliation, and murder, including an incredibly grim scene in which a young woman is burned alive. Presiding over the carnage is Chan Shen, a familiar face from Shaw's martial arts films, and he certainly gives a powerhouse turn as a man for whom there is no limit to cruelty.

Few films "mystify" me - but LOST SOULS has done it. I can only base how I feel about the film on my own assumptions about both the director, and my very limited (and probably EXTREMELY flawed) knowledge of Chinese history - so bear with me, or feel free to contact me about any inaccuracies that I may state here...First off - for those familiar with Mous' more "popular" works, MEN BEHIND THE SUN and BLACK SUN: THE NANKING MASSACRE - this Shaw Brothers production is both similar, and at the same time TOTALLY different from those two "epics" of what I've dubbed "historical-exploitation" films. I believe Mous to be a Chinese patriot who feels it necessary to tell his people's struggle through film...what I don't understand is how LOST SOULS can be so radically different from his other works.LOST SOULS is about Chinese defectors seeking refuge in Hong Kong in the early 1980's. If my VERY limited knowledge of Chinese history is correct (as it's never really explained in the film itself...) - the British were in control of Hong Kong at the time, and many were seeking political asylum from the Chinese government due to their harsh treatment on the mainland. Throughout the film, we follow several individuals, and eventually a large group of Chinese who risk imprisonment, torture, and worse at the hands of shady "smugglers" who, for a price, would connect refugees with their families in Hong Kong. If the families in Hong Kong didn't have the money to pay for the "safe return" of the refugees, they were sold into slavery or murdered on the spot. LOST SOULS as a film, shows a group of defectors who rise-up against their smuggler captors, and try to make it into Hong Kong on their own...Now - as a historical film, I feel that LOST SOULS fails. Unlike the EXTREMELY powerful MEN BEHIND THE SUN - LOST SOULS falls into too many of the clichés of Asian films of the time-frame. The "action" and editing of the film feel far too much like a cheap kung-fu movie to have the gritty impact that MEN BEHIND THE SUN does. As much as I feel that Mous probably tried to inject his personal and political beliefs into this film - it is overshadowed by the Shaw Brothers produced "stylizing" that would "sell" the film. I have no idea if Mous intentionally conceded to any studio pressure to get the film released, or if this was just an error of a novice director - but either way, regardless of the superior production values that LOST SOULS has over MEN BEHIND THE SUN or THE NANKING MASSACRE - it fails to be nearly as powerful as either of the aforementioned films.On strictly an "entertainment" level - LOST SOULS succeeds. The film itself feels far more directly related to the Japanese Nikkatsu-style violent-pink films of the time, with tons of languid nude scenes, "rough" violence, semi-explicit rape material (both male and female which was somewhat surprising to me for a SB backed production...), and overall "strong" subject matter. If I wouldn't have known any better going into this one, I would have figured that it was a bigger budget violent-pink film - although the full-frontal nudity would have given it away.Overall - LOST SOULS is a very hard film to rate. I think that personally, I was expecting more from the creator of such "notorious" films as MEN BEHIND THE SUN and THE NANKING MASSACRE - and was therefore disappointed with the outcome of this one. But on the flip-side - I found LOST SOULS to be more "entertaining" than Mous' other two films, while still maintaining SOME integrity to the subject-matter. I definitely think that LOST SOULS is a must-see for Mous fans as it seems to be a relatively "forgotten" film, or to Asian exploit-film completists - but DO NOT expect anything nearly as powerful as the director's other works...a very hard to rate 7/10...

TF Mous' unique style of exploitation kicked off with this grim gem which centres around the unfortunate travails of a group of Chinese boat people who arrive in Hong Kong by stealth and are immediately targeted by low-level people traders.The director of the superb MEN BEHIND THE SUN and the equally downbeat BLACK SUN has a knack for legitimizing his sex and violence with politically and culturally sensitive subject matter.This Shaw Brothers production, produced in 1980, bears the admirable hallmarks of Mous' later work. The action is well staged, the set-ups are creatively photographed, and the pacing is brisk. There is a solidity and sharpness present in the work of this fine director that places him in the top ten per cent of exploitation masters. He has more in common with Japanese pinku directors such as Teruo Ishii than his Hong Kong contemporaries such as King Hu, Chang Cheh and Jimmy Wang Yu. His art is gruesome, extreme and almost fetishistic in its intensity.The "lost souls" of this cinematic bad dream are a ragged group of male and female refugees who find themselves shackled in a makeshift prison run by a bisexual warden and his rape-loving cohorts. The women, in particular, are subjected to a Marquis de Sade-approved catalog of abuse and torture. The male of the species doesn't get off lightly, either; one character is graphically sodomized with an intensity that is rare for any Hong Kong film, let alone one greenlit by Run-Run Shaw (bless his adventurous hide!).There is a surplus of lurid nudity (I'm not complaining, mind you) and much bloodshed and general nastiness. Everything is lovingly lensed in appropriately grotty locations and Mous never gets shy about his more extreme depictions or the sexualization of the abuse. In fact, it's quite clear that Mous revels in the sadistic excesses of this less-than-cheerful exercise and I, for one, respect him for it.Mous' cinema is a cinema of transgression masquerading shamelessly as social comment. One can only admire such audaciousness.