Wade (Bryant Chang), a junior at a large corporation, is given an invitation to go to a swanky party for the elite by company president Mr. Yang (Jerry Huang), who is unable to attend himself; the only proviso is that Wade must masquerade as Yang's cousin. To help him blend in at the posh event, Mr. Yang provides Wade with designer clothes and plenty of cash, none of which stops Wade from bonking his boss's extremely hot model girlfriend (Maria Ozawa) at the bash after cleaning up at the roulette table (talk about a winning streak!). On top of all that, Wade is also presented with the one thing he has always dreamed of: a silver Ferrari Modena 360 (I would have gone for a classic red one myself).
Just as the evening looks like it couldn't get any better for Wade, it doesn't: it turns out that, along with four other guests who also aren't who they claim to be, he is to become an unwilling participant in the evening's entertainment, a gruesome torture show laid on for the benefit of the city's sadistic socialites.
The plot for Invitation Only, Taiwan's contribution to the sub-genre frequently termed as 'torture-porn', doesn't stray all that far from the film that it was clearly inspired by, Eli Roth's Hostel: a group of gullible people are duped into becoming victims for rich sickos. But despite being very derivative stuff, I still give Invitation Only the edge over Hostel: first off, the violence is nastier (including a particularly eye-watering jump-leads-to-the-genitals scene!!!); secondly, the women are hotter (not that Hostel's Barbara Nedeljakova is a munter, it's just that given the choice I prefer my ladies of the Asian persuasion); and last but not least, the film isn't by Roth, whose over-inflated ego really gets my back up.
6.5 out 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.
