Sex and Zen
This film is a serious exploration of the relationships
between men and women, husbands and wives, children and parents during
the time of the Ming dynasty (17th century) and delves into the roles and
expectations that each has pressed upon them by societal traditions.
Just kidding. This film is about sex. It is
easily the most famous Category III film and made Amy Yip into an international
sex symbol. It’s the reason why a thousand sex sites come up if you enter
her name into a search engine. Her pookie face sitting on top of a body,
that the word voluptuous doesn’t begin to do justice to, captured the imagination
and testosterone of males all over the world.
The film is derived apparently from a Ming dynasty
text and it tells the story of a scholar who intentionally goes against
the Buddhist tenets of abstinence and desires to conquer as many women
as he can. First he takes out time to marry Amy Yip and though their first
night is a bit difficult she soon gets the hang of it. Hard to imagine,
but Amy is not enough for him and he wanders elsewhere.
He wants to seduce the wife of the tailor, Tsui
Kam-Kong, but one night as he spies on them he notices that TKK has equipment
worthy of Dirk Diggler. He becomes very envious because as his friend tells
him his own penis “is only good for picking teeth”. So like any of us would,
he decides to have a horse’s penis transplanted on him. In this amazingly
bizarre scene, Kent Cheng as the surgeon uses a guillotine to get rid of
the offending member (ouch!) whereupon a dog gobbles it up and then the
horse’s penis is sewn on.
Many sexual situations are covered here. Swinging
from the rafters and penmanship take on an entirely new meaning! A little
whipping and food tasting is thrown in to complete the picture.
The film has sumptuous production values and the
softcore sex scenes are filmed in that hazy fuzzy soft lit manner. There
is a fair amount of nudity throughout.
On the whole though I didn’t really enjoy this
film. The mood of the film and many of the sex scenes stuck me as misogynistic
and mean spirited and everyone seems to come to a bad end. Still this is
considered a classic and every Amy Yip fans needs to see it.
My rating for this film: 7.0
