The Republic of Tunisia isn't much of a presence on the global metal map. The country has a small but dedicated underground and its bands span a variety of genres. Brood Of Hatred hails from the capital city of Tunis and has been active since 2010, releasing the locally distributed "New Order Of Intelligence" EP prior to this full length debut outing. Of all the Tunisian bands that were able to get their music internationally released, Brood Of Hatred is by far the most professional. "Skinless Agony" is a monumental record that could've come from any of the genre's greats. Making it all even better is that Brood Of Hatred sounds nothing like you'd expect given their moniker. If nothing else, "Skinless Agony" could very well be the standard to which all Tunisian metal from this point forward is measured.
Ray Kurzweil’s theory of singularity posits that by 2045 artificial intelligence will surpass humanity in knowledge. It’s a fascinating theory that seemingly becomes more of a premonition as our reliance in technology increases every year. Tunisian death metal band Brood Of Hatred - who don’t take quite as much after Suffocation as much as their name would suggest - uses Kurzweil’s prediction as the conceptual basis for its debut. Slickly produced with stunning visuals, and with proper backing from its Norwegian label partner Crime Records AS, “Skinless Agony” might very well be the first and best African death metal record.
The creative force behind Brood Of Hatred is vocalist/bass guitarist Mohamed Mêlki. Having faced every possible setback and delay imagineable; from being unable to enlist properly trained musicians, locating a studio facility that could, and knew how to, handle the music, and the additional difficulty of not having a cultural support system to help promote such endeavors “Skinless Agony” is testament to the will of its founding member. Brood Of Hatred exudes the kind of professionalism that often takes bands many years to attain. “Skinless Agony” does not in the least reflect that Brood Of Hatred is a third world act. It could very well have been a long-lost Immolation or Mithras record, for that matter.
Brood Of Hatred’s key influences are as obvious as they are American. The prominent use of dissonant, atonal riffing clearly takes a page from the book of Tom Wilkinson-era Immolation, while the songstructures recall pre-“Decimate Christendom” Incantation. The angular riffing style, the soloing and Mêlki’s more melodic inclinations are heavily informed by latter-day Death and Immolation circa “Here In After” and "Failures For Gods", respectively. Otherwise the guitar work uses post-hardcore accents to add to the otherworldly atmosphere. Brood Of Hatred plays death metal but they can't be pinned to down to a specific geographic sound and their many influences don't hail exclusively from the death metal genre.
It's all the more impressive that "Skinless Agony" sounds as thoroughly developed, melodically advanced and heavily structured as it does, especially in the light of Brood Of Hatred never having formally demoed in any meaningful capacity. The only thing of note that the band released previously was an EP, the majority of which was re-recorded for this session. Brood Of Hatred emerges on “Skinless Agony” as a fully-formed entity and full-fledged concept. In that regard they might very well be the Tunisian counterpart to Polish band Lost Soul. That is an accomplishment for any band, let alone one hailing from a third world continent.
Like its Polish contemporaries Brood Of Agony does not shy away from atmospheric enhancements. “Skinless Agony” is custodian to strategically-placed nuanced ambient sound effects and interludes. These segments very much help convey the dystopian future vision that the lyrics attempt to illustrate. In that sense they are reminiscent of vintage Fear Factory. Only on ‘The Singularity Is Near’ does Brood Of Hatred slightly stumble. Heavily-accented narration dampens the effect of what is otherwise a perfectably serviceable moodsetting interlude. The drumming is positively relentless, even though the double-bass pedalling often borders on the needlessly excessive. The melodic accents enhance the burly riffing and frequently dark sounding chord progressions, while the grunts hold the middleground between Ross Dolan (Immolation) and Golem frontman Andreas Hilbert.
If there’s one thing that might work in Brood Of Hatred’s disadvantage it is the overly processed, squeaky clean and clinically sterile production that defines much of the character of “Skinless Agony”. It’s beyond glossy. Too clean perhaps for the branch of death metal that it pledges alliance to. It never reaches the soul-killing sterility of a latter-day Deeds Of Flesh record, neither does it lose itself in excessive overproduction that has plagued much of Dimmu Borgir’s lamentable Nuclear Blast repertoire – but there’s a certain amount of grit and dirt that should ooze from a band of this kind’s every pore. To its credit the bass guitar lies prominently in the mix, and has a full-bodied, rubbery tone. For the most part “Skinless Agony” tends to be almost too slickly produced and too polished. As it stands the entire package that Brood Of Hatred delivered here is one few bands this young can match.
Meanwhile small-time crook Michael Chan, who calls himself Little Knife (Andy Lau) on the streets, has set up a practical joke for a neighbour. Little Knife lives in the New Territories in a small house down at the waterline with his mother (Chan Lap-Ban), his girlfriend Jane (Joey Wong) and his friend Crawl (Ronald Wong). In getting away from a swarm of Triad assailants Ko Chun runs into Little Knife’s trap and crashes down a hill injuring his head. Little Knife and his friends find Ko Chun and decide to rob him now that he’s in a helpless state. To make ends meet Jane works as a hostess in a nightclub in the big city. Little Knife has a change of heart, mostly due to Jane’s intervening, and instead takes Ko Chun into the house, and nurse him back to health. Rendered amnesiac due to his head trauma Ko Chun has no recollection of his former identity, and has regressed to an infantile state – but has retained both his masterful gambling skills and his incredible love for chocolate. Thus, in lieu of actually knowing that Ko Chun is the God Of Gamblers, they dub him Chocolate. Little Knife decides to have Chocolate checked up by Dr. Toneg Wong (Dennis Chan) just to be safe. In the interim they use Chocolate for their own personal enrichment, but Ko Chun’s former gambling associates want to coerce him into playing one final high-stakes match against revered elderly Singaporean industry legend Chan Gam Sing (Bau Hon-Lam).
The titular star of the God Of Gamblers is Chow Yun-Fat, who at this point was mostly known as an actor in dramatic and romantic pieces as Love in a Fallen City (1984). Yun-Fat had finished a stint in the heroic bloodshed genre working with directors John Woo and Ringo Lam on HK action classics as A Better Tomorrow (1986), City on Fire (1987), Prison on Fire (1987) and A Better Tomorrow 2 (1987). For the romance An Autumn's Tale (1987) Yun-Fat won the Golden Horse Award for best actor. God Of Gamblers allowed Chow Yun-Fat to showcase his versatility as an actor as it combined all of the previous genres he had dabbled in. Jing Wong’s gambling movie broke Hong Kong's all-time box office records establishing gambling as a veritable genre. God Of Gamblers was the first high-profile appearance of Joey Wong after her star-making turn in Tsui Hark’s tragically romantic fantasy wuxia A Chinese Ghost Story (1987). Wong gets a few bars of Burt Bacharach’s ‘Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head’ as a theme, to establish her character’s good nature and overall innocence. When we first see Wong she’s wearing a casual shirt and ripped denims, later she can be seen wearing a very flattering figure-fitting verdant corset-dress that accentuates her athletic build. Sharla Cheung had been in Wong’s The Magic Crystal (1986) and would feature in Royal Tramp (1992) and its sequel, Kung Fu Cult Master (1993), The Sword Stained with Royal Blood (1993) and Dragon Chronicles - The Maidens Of Heavenly Mountains (1994).
Most, if not all, the comedy is derived from Chow Yun-Fat’s Ko Chun regressing back to an infantile state after his head injury. His child-like antics, and the lenghts to which the gang have to go to provide their card-playing wünderkind with a steady stream of chocolate, do give Yun-Fat the possibility to show his range as an actor. At one point Little Knife is chased by Triad goons across bamboo scaffolding which is pretty funny. Ng Man-Tat excels as the lecherous Triad loanshark and Michiko Nishiwaki does most of her acting with mere glances during the opening mahjong game. Joey Wong, having played a good amount of spectral maidens by this point, is allowed to do something else than constantly looking misty-eyed and pouting. As Jane she usually acts as the gang’s voice of reason and conscious – and Little Knife only comes around until Jane tells him to. Sharla Cheung’s Janet is pretty much a supporting character and her involvement in the plot is minimal as such. Once Jane is reunited with Ko Chun at the end of the third act there’s a wonderful sense of chemistry between her and Chow Yun-Fat. Jing Wong always had an eye for beauty and Strawberry Yeung Yuk-Mui, who plays a card-dealing waitress at one of the games later in the movie, is no exception to the rule.
Depending on your tolerance for situational – and slapstick comedy shenanigans God Of Gamblers is one of those cross-genre exercise that could only have come from Jing Wong. When Wong’s on fire he hits the marks more often than not. When he doesn’t something as nigh on incoherent as