What do you call a film that features three-dimensional beheadings, countless veiled "money shots," kitschy romantic montages, in-your-face flying mule dicks, and eyeball-busting bouncing boobs? We'd call it the film equivalent of a cheap mixed bag of fun-size Hershey's chocolate bars --- lots of short-lived thrills and variety that make you smile even as your stomach starts to turn.
Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy, which opens at the Coral Gables Art Cinema this week, tracks the sexual exploits and evolution of Wei Yangsheng (Hiro Hayama), a young scholar during the Ming Dynasty. He marries the young and beautiful Yuxiang (Leni Nam), and eagerly takes his soft-skinned new wife to bed, only to discover that he can't keep an erection going for more than a few seconds. He's a three-pump chump, if you will. Read on for a review of the film, which was banned in mainland China.
Because erectile dysfunction tablets were not yet prominent in
the days of the Ming Dynasty, Wei takes some extreme measures to
increase his endurance. His "studies" are conducted in the Tower of
Ultimate Bliss, a brothel run by The Prince of Ning that reminded us of Pinocchio's
Pleasure Island, right down to the jackass-like braying of the
milky-skinned women copulating or being otherwise serviced all over the
place.
In this den of carnal indulgence, we meet a variety of
curiosities, including some from the animal kingdom and others of the
human variety, who are often, um, not quite what they seem. Some have
thinly hidden violent demeanors; others bend gender in "extreme" and
ludicrous ways that made us laugh so hard we almost puked.
As
Wei undergoes coitus classes under the cruel tutelage of the malevolent
whorehouse overlord, his wife, whom we've all forgotten about by now
thanks to the barrage of skin-slapping scenes in between, gets
understandably upset. They separate and begin wandering down individual
wayward sexual paths.
For Wei, this entails an attempt to replace one of
his sexual organs with that of a large quadriped. The ensuing
hair-brained surgery at the hands of the Asian equivalent of a
handicapped Cheech and Chong was, for us, the hilarious high point of the
movie.
Consequently, the remaining 40 minutes,
which make attempts at serious drama, add a larger slice of gratuitous
Kung Fu-fueled violence, include queasy episodes involving rape and an
unfortunate monk, and awkwardly insert a puzzling moral, got a little
tedious at times.
Still, as a film junk-food curiosity with surprisingly
beautiful set design and costumes (in the few scenes where clothes are
worn), and effective use of 3D, it's definitely worth a late-night
outing with a few lighthearted friends.
Come
expecting pretty pictures, silly sounds, and an attention-deficit-driven
plot, all wrapped up in a baffling "ethical lesson," and you'll leave
having got what you paid for.
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