While Western exploitation films of the 1960s and 70s – gory, sex-crazed shockers such as Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Blood Feast (1963) and Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) – were largely confined to low-rent drive-in cinemas, Hong Kong took a decidedly different approach. The introduction of the Category III rating in 1988 gave rise to an adults-only genre that did not just lurk in the underground – it conquered the mainstream. Although local martial arts films had been marketed...