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In Hell
(Also known as: The Shu / The Savage)
Directed by Ringo Lam, 2003
The Security
Housing Unit houses the hardest criminals inside Marquezas
Prison, located in the swamps of Mexico's State of
Cormelos. It is one of the last true medieval
maximum-security penal farms in the country. Everyday
prisoners are led out in chain gangs to work the swamps
and untamed bayous, festered with poisonous snakes and
alligators.
Kyle Lord is a petroleum engineer, arrested in Mexico City
and sentenced to Marquezas for the vigilante killing of
his wife's rapist/murderer. Given the circumstances, Kyle
might have been acquitted on the grounds of temporary
insanity or perhaps even convicted of the lesser charge of
manslaughter, but the fact that a Federal Policeman was
also killed in the shooting, albeit accidentally, sent
Kyle to Marquezas.
General Battista is the warden of Marquezas. He has
orchestrated a perverse sport where prisoners fight,
sometime to the death for the entertainment and profit of
he and his cronies. The inmates call it "The Shu".
Racial bigotry, violence and corruption thrive in places
like Marquezas. It is where common criminals become
hardened. They become the most dreaded monsters of our
imagination. It is only natural for "The Shu" to
flourish under the care of corrupt and powerful men like
Battista. It is only natural that only the most violent
and powerful survive "The Shu". Some, like the
inmate philosopher, 451, see the evil of their ways and
repent, doing the best to keep their humanity. 451 tries
to help Kyle adjust to this unfamiliar and violent world
but Kyle is a man destined to fight his own battles. Thus,
it is only natural that Kyle begins a steady decline
towards becoming one of the monsters he despises.
As he struggles for his humanity, he fights his oppressors
and is quickly sent to "The Shu" where his
unbridled rage catapults him to the victor's circle.
Kyle's decline into a "living hell" is part of a
journey to that thing we all battle within our selves.
In Hell is one of the most violent van Damme movies. |
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