 Sex & Zen (1991) Perhaps because I rarely throw myself into something because I think it's "so damn cool," I don't always see how people get so wrapped up in HK movies. Sex & Zen is a sex farce that reflects a lot of what I'd heard about HK outlandishness, but not being an action movie, it avoids all that five-people-pointing-guns-at-each-other stuff that makes the Tarantino fans cream their jeans. Set in the 16th Century, Sex & Zen stars Lawrence Ng as a "scholar" seeking the secret to providing ultimate pleasure to women. His married sex life (his wife is played by Amy Yip, sort of the Hong Kong Shannon Tweed and Jennifer Aniston in one?) doesn't fulfill him, so he spies on the local silkmaker and his wife, whose violent lovemaking appeals to him, and he decides that he needs a huge horse-cock like the silkmaker has. A huge cock, combined with great sensitivity, is a woman's greatest fantasy, he reasons. The solution? Well, a horse-cock transplant of course. At this point ensues one of the most out-of-control bits of madness I've ever seen in any film, porno or not. Ng visits a "doctor" who has devised a procedure for transplanting a horse penis onto a human, and where any other sex romp would simply show the before and after (he goes into the doctor's office, then cut to him coming out with a satisfied smile on his face), Sex & Zen goes so far as to show the procedure and all its complications: the doctor accidentally spills anaesthetic all over his arms at the crucial moment; a dog runs up and grabs Ng's tiny penis after it's been severed by a tiny guillotine; the severed horse penis is ridiculously flung into the air, and it lands (of course) in the mouth of Ng's page boy. Utterly crazy, out-of-hand stuff. And I swear, this isn't even porn! Once he is hugely endowed, Ng goes on a carnal rampage but ultimately pays a spiritual price – at the end of the film he is exhausted, emaciated, and utterly spent. Meanwhile, his estranged wife has had an affair with the silkmaker. In the end, he devotes his life to asceticism, having learned of the dangers of indulging the flesh. I suppose somewhere in there lies the "Zen" part, but I mostly remember the "Sex." It's a real wacked-out movie, very enjoyable, full of unlikely images (two women simultaneously fucking a flute; a woman masturbating with a paintbrush – while painting with it) that blur the line between "film" and "porn." It isn't hardcore, but just when you've decided it's a "real movie," it veers off into some crazy sex scene that bends your mind in a (good? bad? I'm so confused!) way. Beautifully shot, and subtitled for those of us who only speak the English, Sex & Zen is sexy fun with an edge of "what the hell?!" The stars (particularly Yip) are all entertaining without being too hammy, making this a fine soft-core pleasure in the spirit of Young Lady Chatterly II.
Review by Skinny Arbuckle |