Serial killers in China

Here's today's frontrunner for "most interesting thing you'll read about China": a lengthy article by Robert Foyle Hunwick in Danwei about notorious serial killers in China. Here's how it begins:

Yang Shubin looked the part: fat and rich. At nightclubs, he would say he ran a power station and buy expensive drinks. Women quickly swarmed around the flashy businessman who offered double the regular price for an evening’s company and would, sometimes[,] even bring gifts. When the long nights drew to an end, Yang had no trouble persuading a girl to leave with him.

They probably thought themselves fortunate to land such a generous customer. After all, becoming mistress to a wealthy businessman is the ultimate career move for a karaoke girl in China. On returning to his apartment, therefore, they would have been surprised to find a woman already at the home: 20-year old Ji Hongzhie, Yang’s girlfriend — and partner-in-crime.

With the help of a pair of childhood friends from Heilongjiang, Wu Hongye and Zhang Yulian, they would tie the woman to a chair, then beat her with sticks and iron bars, demanding bank details. Yang liked to slap their bare flesh with a spatula while his girlfriend needled their breasts, arms and legs. Later, after withdrawing the cash — the amounts ranging from 60,000 to 500,000 yuan — they would force some victims to call their colleagues to persuade them to come over to the trap.

The bodies would later be chopped up, boiled and fed through a meat-mincing machine. Large bones would be crushed up with clamps, and added to the meaty paste which the gang would dump in drains or trash cans outside hotels and restaurants....

This part in particular makes me think a movie could be in the offing:

But Harbin policeman Xu Jianguo did not forget. Having grown up in the same neighborhood as both gang members Yang and Wu, Xu had a personal interest in seeing the case through to the end...

...even if it cost him his life.

I added that last line for dramatic effect. Like?

Here's the link again, for you short-memory people.