Hong Kong Digital #105: Chinese Erotic Movies

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April 22nd, 2002	Issue #105

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Hong Kong Digital is a recurring series of movie reviews by John Charles -- associate editor / film reviewer for Video Watchdog magazine and the author of The Hong Kong Filmography.

Chinese Erotic Movies
(1997; Golden Dream Factory Series)

Cover art courtesy Spice Eight Group.

RATING
10 A Masterpiece
9 Excellent	8 Highly Recommended	7 Very Good
6 Recommended	5 Marginal Recommendation	4 Not Recommended
3 Poor	2 Definitely Not Recommended	1 Dreadful

Cantonese:	*Chung kwok sing hei gwoon*
Mandarin:	*Zhong guo xing xi guan*
English:	*Chinese Sex Films Display*

This so-called documentary claims to be a primer in ancient Chinese sexual practices but is really just an excuse to string together "the good parts" from the period softcore productions SEX AND ZEN (1991), EROTIC GHOST STORY I-III (1990 / 1991 / 1992), and CONFESSIONS OF A CONCUBINE (1975). The program is broken down into several sections, bridged by smarmy narration from someone doing an Eric Tsang Chi-wai imitation. These include a look at how prostitutes of the time were trained in special exercises and techniques that would keep their clients coming back for more, the deflowering of virgins, lesbianism, penis transplantation (bet you didn't know it had a long history in China, did you?), self-gratification, etc. The actresses featured in the erotic scenes include Amy Yip Chi-mei, Chik King-man, Isabella Chow Wang, Pauline Chan Po-lin, Rena Murakami, Kiyoko Kamimura, and 70s favorite Yum Yum Shaw.

Isabella Chow and Lawrence Ng. Image courtesy Spice Eight Group.
Click here for an image of Kiyoko Kamimura in EROTIC GHOST STORY -- nudity (courtesy Spice Eight Group)

Aside from providing a look at CONFESSIONS OF A CONCUBINE (not available on DVD), Brian Chung's CHINESE EROTIC MOVIES will not be of much interest to those who already own copies of the films condensed therein. However, if you indeed only want "the good parts," most of the highlights from these pictures are incorporated, though the minimal chapter coding does not make it very easy to find them. There is nothing especially imaginative or accomplished about the way the clips have been assembled, though the voiceover script does provide a handy glossary of sexual slang like "Rubbing Bean Curd," "Old Man Pushing a Cart,” “Hanging Drum,” and “God Passes Iron Bridge.”

DVD Specs:

Spice Eight Group (Mega Star) #MS/DVD/307/JP (Hong Kong label)
Dolby Digital 5.1
Cantonese and Mandarin Language Tracks
Optional Subtitles In English, Chinese (Traditional or Simplified), Japanese, and Korean
9 Chapters Illustrated In the Menu With Stills
Various Ratios
Coded for ALL Regions
81 Minutes
Contains non-stop nudity and moderate sexual content, and brief sexual violence

DVD menu courtesy Spice Eight Group.

Film Board Ratings and Consumer Advice

Hong Kong: OAT II (the disc would get C-III, if officially submitted for a rating)

Note: This movie was rated by an alternate classification system used for videos that have not been submitted for the Category rating system.

Presentation

As you would expect from a compilation program, picture quality varies. Colors and contrasts are generally passable and there is occasional wear on the source prints (particularly in the case of CONCUBINE, the oldest production here). EROTIC GHOST STORY II comes off best, with its kaleidoscope of colors well-rendered. SEX AND ZEN, EROTIC GHOST STORY, and CONCUBINE are all cropped to fullscreen, while the other two are presented in a good approximation of their original 1.85:1 ratios. The sound mix is largely just "wide mono" and undistinguished. For whatever reason, some of the dialogue, sound effects, and music in each movie have been replaced; in the case of CONCUBINE, the visuals are all that remain of the original production. English subtitle translation is only fair and the timing is off by as much as a second in spots. The disc includes a Chinese / English menu and one solely in Japanese, a video promo derived solely from the first two minutes of the program, and theatrical trailers for SEX AND ZEN and EROTIC GHOST STORY I & II. Mega Star's name appears nowhere on the presentation or the packaging but this is clearly one of their products and even has one of the company's Japanese catalogue numbers. The keep case carries the copyguard symbol but the disc is not encoded with Macrovision.

CHINESE EROTIC MOVIES is available at Poker Industries

Click here for more information about The Hong Kong Filmography