A Chinese Torture Chamber Story

Director: Bosco Lam
Year: 1994
Rating: 7.5
For some reason I couldn’t help but picture Sgt. Joe Friday at the scene of the crime:

“Just the facts Ma’am. You say your husband’s penis exploded. Has this ever happened before?  Where were you at the time? On top of him? And the blood on your face would be from his exploding penis I suppose. I think you better come down to the station to give a statement and to have your bottom whipped and your finger nails pulled off.”


One might think that a film that begins with an exploding penis and a pouty innocent face covered with gushing blood would have nowhere to go but down, but that’s just the beginning of the bizarre happenings that occur in this ribald tale that alternates between low comedy and high torture like an S&M session of pain and pleasure. One could suffer pangs of vertigo, as one has to digest fast moving images of flying sex, intriguing sex toys, detached testicles, breast crushing machines, forced virgin dildo deflowering, rolling nude on a bed of nails and the limpid beautiful eyes of Yvonne Yung Hung. Producer Wong Jing gleefully takes out all the stops of taste and good décor in this Cat. III film that revels in its smirking debauchery.
 

In a series of flashbacks that come at the prodding of various implements of fiendish torture, Little Cabbage (Yvonne) relates what brought her to this sorry state. The scholarly and well-respected Lawrence Ng spots her tiny feet one day and immediately brings her and her feet into his household as a servant with the intention of one day making her his consort. His wife (Ching Mai) spends much of her time diddling with various sex toys (“the 4 lustful instruments”) such as the ever-popular lustful bells (“it will stimulate your tits”) or the more adventurous Mr. Horn that expands in water and is the perfect companion piece with the stimulating Hair Circle. These can all be purchased as a package on the Home Shopping Network for the low low price of $29.99 for a limited time. Tell them I sent you.
 

When the husband is out of town the wife also brings a lover into her sexual games and the very curious Little Cabbage is discovered peeping on them. This leads the wife to arranging Little Cabbage’s marriage to Tommy Wong who makes up for his poor status with a penis that is compared to a horse by the snorting Yuen King Tan. Knowing that his size will likely kill Little Cabbage, the two plotters feel safe, but Tommy abstains from hurting his wife and decides instead to take matters into his own hands. To the tune of Unchained Melody and a parody of Ghost, Little Cabbage does some non-pottery molding of her own with spectacular results.
 

All seems fine until the fateful day in which a mysterious aphrodisiac is ingested by Tommy and the combination of desperate desire and stimulants causes his penis to take off on a one-way journey to the moon. Both Little Cabbage and Ng are charged for plotting his murder and the corrupt magistrate (Lo Hung) has every intention of getting a confession out of them no matter how cruel he needs to get. These periodic scenes of torture are not necessarily for the squeamish, but at the same time it is kind of difficult to take them very seriously because of the overall ludicrousness and downright silliness of the film. Only the vile deflowering by the female guard (Liu Fan) seemed to be truly gratuitous and misogynistic with zero entertainment value. On the other hand those detached testicles were kind of amusing!
 

Ok – enough about plot and character development the reader is no doubt saying – tell me about the flying sex. Certainly one of the more famous and talked about scenes in HK film and to be copied a year later in a less inspired scene in Eternal Evil of Asia with one of the same participants (Julie Lee) – the queen of the flying sex act. In its own odd way this is simply a spectacular, humorous and delightful ode to the joys of sex and the bliss of a contented marriage. Picture Wong Jing having Chow Yun Fat and Zhang Ziyi flying through the trees in Crouching Tiger when all of a sudden Zhang rips off her blouse and challenges Chow to a sexual duel that he happily accepts ("wait till you hold this Green Destiny in your hands"). Well maybe not Chow and Ziyi – but how about the King of Cat. III Elvis Tsui and Julie Lee – famous for her on and off screen sexual shenanigans. These sexual kung fu masters take each other on in a battle to the climax – first Tsui attacks with his Invincible Mouth that makes her squirm in his powerful grasp. She counters with an upside down Oral Attack that momentarily paralyzes him, until he meets her in a mid-air crash and moves behind her for an assault from the rear. Unlike many fights, this one is all give and take, but eventually Tsui’s spinning Invincible Wheel move combined with the Turning Screw brings the duel to a satisfying end for both parties. I recommend that men do not allow their partners to see this scene or they may find themselves being asked to attempt some rather precarious positions at home and likely to be found wanting.