3d Sex And Zen: Extreme Ecstasy

Young scholar Yangsheng (Hayama) has no experience with women when he falls for the beautiful Yuxiang (Lan). So he asks the notoriously oversexed Prince of Ning (Ho) for help satisfying his new wife. Ning's women Ruizhu and Dongmei (Hara and Suo) teach him plenty, and the Elder of Ultimate Bliss (Lui) offers a way to boost his manhood. But things don't go as planned. Meanwhile, the abandoned Yuxiang is ravished by a muscled workman (Kishita) and marries a kindly scholar (Lu) before realising that she still loves Yangsheng. But will they ever be able to reunite?

The film is bright and luridly designed, using 3D to hilariously throw all kinds of things into our faces. And everything about the movie is way over-the-top, from the nutty plot to the camp performances. As a result, most of the audience's laughter is at the sheer silliness of the filmmaking itself, even though much the story is deliberately comical. And it's constantly attempting to shock us with something outrageous, such as the slapstick, panic-stricken penis transplant.

All of this is so cheesy that we can hardly believe what we're seeing.

Apparently this style of filmmaking comes from a tradition of Hong Kong soft- porn. And it gets extremely grisly as well, with some genuinely nasty torture and brutality thrown in with a blackly comical wink. The sexuality seems coy by comparison.

Meanwhile, the film has a rather ugly misogynist slant; even though the women are primarily active in sex, they're also little more than male fantasy figures, usually naked (the men keep their loincloths on) and always wanting sex. Not that the film is kinder to the men, most of whom are obsessed with size issues and power games. And as the sadistic final act unfurls, it seems a bit corny that the main message is that sex is essentially irrelevant when you have true love.