Treasured Films Brings Hong Kong Category III Shockers Run and Kill and Red to Kill to UK Blu-ray
Treasured Films is digging into one of the more notorious corners of Hong Kong cinema for its first releases of 2027, with Billy Tang’s Run and Kill and Red to Kill both heading to UK Blu-ray on January 31. Neither is likely to be confused with comfortable Sunday-afternoon viewing. The label is bringing both films to the UK fully uncut and newly restored in 2K, with Run and Kill receiving what Treasured Films describes as its first ever UK home-video release and Red to Kill also making its uncensored UK debut.
Both films emerged from Hong Kong’s infamous Category III era. Introduced in 1988, the classification restricted films to adult audiences and became closely associated internationally with the particularly extreme wave of exploitation, horror and crime cinema that followed. Billy Tang became one of the filmmakers associated with its nastier extremes, directing Dr. Lamb alongside Danny Lee in 1992 before making Run and Kill in 1993 and Red to Kill the following year.
Run and Kill
Released in Hong Kong in 1993, Run and Kill stars Kent Cheng as an ordinary family man whose life disintegrates with extraordinary speed after discovering his wife has been unfaithful. Drunk and distraught, he inadvertently arranges her murder, only to discover the following morning that the people he encountered were considerably more serious about the arrangement than he was. His attempts to escape both the consequences and the criminals involved push him into an increasingly vicious spiral of violence. Simon Yam, Danny Lee, Esther Kwan and Melvin Wong also appear.
The premise could almost belong to a particularly dark crime comedy, but Tang isn’t interested in giving his protagonist an amusing hangover story. Run and Kill has developed a reputation for the severity with which it keeps escalating his predicament, including violence involving his family that helped cement the film’s place among the more infamous Category III productions of the period. Treasured Films isn’t attempting to make any of this more respectable either. Its edition will present the film fully uncensored from a 2K restoration.
The disc includes two audio commentaries. The first features Cinema Arcana’s Bruce Holecheck with Ultra Violent Magazine’s Art Ettinger, while the second comes from Kenneth Brorsson and Philip Gillon of the Podcast on Fire Network. New material includes an introduction by The Human Centipede 2 actor Laurence R. Harvey, Camille Zaurin’s video essay Death Traps – Run and Kill, and the first part of an interview with producer Kimmy Shuen entitled When Cat III Films Were King. Additional material includes Run & Kill x CFK: On Location, Erica Shultz’s The Kids Aren’t Alright, a trailer and image gallery.
Optional Cantonese and Mandarin audio tracks are included alongside new English, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese subtitles. The disc is Region ABC and carries an 18 certificate. ORDER HERE.
Red to Kill
If Run and Kill sounds unpleasant, Tang apparently regarded that as a challenge. One year later he directed Red to Kill, a film that has maintained a formidable reputation even within Category III cinema and deals with sexual violence, murder and disability in deliberately confrontational fashion. Lily Chung stars as Ming-Ming, a young woman with an intellectual disability who enters a residential home following the death of her father. Money Lo plays the social worker responsible for helping her, while Ben Ng plays Chi Wai, a serial sexual predator whose fixation on women wearing red eventually places Ming-Ming in his path.
This is one where the phrase viewer discretion advised is doing some fairly heavy lifting. Red to Kill isn’t notorious because somebody once objected to a particularly enthusiastic squib. Its depictions of sexual violence and its treatment of vulnerable characters have made it an extremely difficult watch, and the film continues to be described as one of the most disturbing titles produced under Hong Kong’s Category III classification.
Treasured Films will nevertheless present Tang’s film as intended, with the fully uncensored version restored in 2K. Bruce Holecheck and Art Ettinger return for an audio commentary, while Laurence R. Harvey provides another newly recorded introduction. Camille Zaurin contributes Hong Kong Untold Stories, and producer Kimmy Shuen’s interview continues with When CAT III Films Were King: Part II. The supplements also include Arne Venema and Mike Leeder’s Wild Ratings – Talking Category III, a video essay from Jeroen Bijl of Horrible Reviews, the original trailer and an image gallery. The Cantonese-language feature is presented with English subtitles, is Region ABC and carries an 18 certificate. ORDER HERE.
Limited Editions for Both Films
Treasured Films is giving the pair matching Limited Edition treatment. Each first pressing comes housed in a rigid slipcase featuring new artwork by Ilan Sheady of Uncle Frank Productions, accompanied by an illustrated collector’s booklet with writing from C.J. Lines.
There are also incentives for ordering directly from the Treasured Films webstore. Run and Kill comes with an exclusive Charred Child magnet and reversible A3 fold-out poster, while Red to Kill receives an exclusive Mannequin Head magnet and its own reversible A3 poster. The webstore extras are limited to 300 copies for each release.
For collectors of Hong Kong exploitation cinema, the significance here isn’t simply another pair of catalogue titles receiving new discs. These are two films from one of the most uncompromising periods of Hong Kong genre filmmaking finally reaching the UK in fully uncensored, restored editions, supported by extras specifically examining the Category III phenomenon and the circumstances surrounding their production.
Treasured Films releases Run and Kill and Red to Kill on UK Blu-ray on January 31, 2027. For anyone planning the gentlest possible start to the new year, perhaps look elsewhere.
