88 Films: Sex and the Emperor (1994) - Reviewed

Images courtesy of 88 Films

In 1988, Hong Kong cinemas introduced the Category III rating (covered previously here), effectively the Chinese equivalent of an X or NC-17 rating.  Though initially meant as a restrictive measure, the rating generated a great deal of exploitation action, erotica or horror in its wake.  With the allegedly true war crime drama Men Behind the Sun being the first branded with a Cat III, very quickly thereafter a number of insanely over-the-top movies involving either rampant nudity or sex scenes or instances of sexual torture and/or violence burst through the floodgates for awhile.  While achieving particular notoriety with films like Sex and Zen or Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky, the height of the Cat III seems to have been between 1993 and 1994 with award winning shockers like The Untold Story as well as either goofy torture porn sexploitation ala A Chinese Torture Chamber Story or downright evil such as the notorious Red to Kill.
 
Amid the 1994 sexploitation freakouts being covered this month via 88 Films newly minted 2K restored Blu-ray of Sherman Wong’s Qing Dynasty period historical drama Sex and the Emperor, a film which is indeed openly scopophilic and chock full of nubile scattered nudes engaging freely in aristocratic carnality.  It also features scenes of violence and degradation which aren’t played for laughs and eventually do build a measure of emotional weight as we come to know the characters caught in the crossfire of this sick and sordid tale of forbidden love, castration, forced prostitution, gynecological torture and all other manner of softcore pornographic mayhem.  Eventually the film passes over into a revenge drama with startling scenes of choreographed action violence but above all, you’re left feeling like you need a shower if you don’t, in the words of The Cable Guy, “cream in your pants” first.
 
At once a period drama, on another level an exercise in sensual excesses not even Ken Russell would’ve dared film, Sex and the Emperor told in flashback as the camera looms over the Forbidden City (a place I’ve been once I’ll add) and tales of the young near teenage Emperor Tongzhi (Pounh Chong Soong).  Despite having a harem of concubines with no shortage of sex and close-ups of boobs and behinds, the Emperor develops a fondness for the young meek chambermaid Guilian (Yvonne Hung Yung).  Soon the innocent woman finds herself fending off the advances of Lee Lien-ying (See-Ho Leung), a lascivious palace servant posing as a eunuch who freely doles out cruel punishments and imprisonment if he doesn’t get his way.  Selling her off to a brothel commandeered by a cruel madam, Tongzhi is determined to track her down after catching wind of her fate even if it means fucking his way through the Forbidden City’s redlight district and picking up a deadly sexually transmitted disease along the way.

Crude and tawdry but also leaving room for moments that are disturbing and finally oddly heartfelt, Sex and the Emperor pretty much is Hong Kong period softcore pornography with more than a few scenes of what the disc back cover aptly describes as a ‘shag-a-thon’ interspersed with increasingly outlandish tortures.  Though not as utterly insane as kid cousin A Chinese Torture Chamber Story which featured a flying kung-fu sex scene involving the madam of this movie, Sex and the Emperor for fans of the Category III rating’s incredulities and absurdities is something of a raunch soaked feast.  Cinematography by Kin-Fai Mau is, against all odds, luminous and painterly with deep reds and gold colors interspersed with heavy nighttime blues though Vittorio Storaro’s lensing of the Forbidden City in The Last Emperor remains the best vista of the historic location perhaps ever shot.  The score by Ho-Kit Wan is fine though sounds synthy at times, also a characteristic of the Cat III film. 

 
The three principal cast members of this seemingly nonstop orgy largely traversed with frenzied violent sex rather than tenderness by the character of The Emperor all are tasked with difficult scenes of graphic nudity, physical degradation and/or humiliations and eventually makeup for portraits of battering abuses.  Pounh Chong Soong as the young horny Emperor with a dick for his concubines but a heart for his true love played by Yvonne Hung Yung mutually give affecting physical performances from the Emperor’s frequently angry aggressive sexing to the young chambermaid’s suffering at the hands of the nefarious Lee Lien-ying.  See-Ho Leung who plays the scheming servant functions as the film’s kind of Witchfinder General wielding unfounded claims laced with torture for his own sociopolitical gains.  The rest of the supporting cast of concubines, bless their efforts in putting up with staging full blown non-hardcore orgies in service to the growing demands of the Cat III rating.

 
Featuring drowning, dismemberment, boiling in hot oil, castration, imprisonment without food or water, Sex and the Emperor is now and was then a goofy/sexy/nasty cocktail that doesn’t always hold but will leave an impression as a distinctly Hong Kong Cat III sex fest.  The new 88 Films disc comes surprisingly stacked with extras including a limited collector’s booklet with reprinted original posters, an English dub, a running audio commentary by David West, an interview with James Mudge, Hong Kong trailer and reversible sleeve art with a particularly randy limited slipcover you can only see by purchasing the disc itself.  The Cat III film offers all sorts of things but only in recent years began actively involving class and political discourse with the sexuality such as Wong Kar Wai’s Happy Together and later perhaps Ang Lee’s best film Lust, Caution.  But more often than not, particularly in its heyday, the Cat III looked and sounded like this noisy messy squealing collection of group sexcapades.  You’ve been duly warned.  88 Films’ disc package is indeed comprehensive but be careful of whoever finds this on your Blu-ray shelf.

--Andrew Kotwicki