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18 June 2022

Umbrella Entertainment studies SEX AND ZEN (review)

Umbrella Entertainment (Australia) Region ALL Blu-ray

Licentious young monk Wei Yang Sheng (Lawrence Ng, DRAGON INN) is a seducer of women who finds himself in a fortuitous union with Qui Yan (Amy Yip, ROBOTRIX), not only because she is beautiful but because he very much needs the protection of her righteous father - nicknamed “Master Iron Gate” - from many wronged husbands.  wei teaches his wife to enjoy sex through the teachings of the “Carnal Prayer Mat” a book banned because of its graphical depictions of sexual positions and the notion of sex as pleasure.  When he travels far from home, ostensibly to study but screw around away from his watchful eyes of his father-in-law, he enlists “flying thief” Sei Khunlun (Lo Lieh, FIVE FINGERS OF DEATH) - so principled that he returns stolen money with interest - to get him into the bedrooms of wives under the noses of their husbands.  

When Wei fails to measure up to the endowment and stamina of the draper (Elvis Tsui, THE ETERNAL EVIL OF ASIA) they witness taking out his anger sexually on his pretty wife (Mari Ayukawa), Sei tells him to come back when he has a dick the size of a horse.  Wei gets just that after he meets doctor Tian Chao Zi (Kent Cheng, DR. LAMB) whose family have specialized in limb transplantation for generations with Tian focusing on perfecting the transplant of animal sexual organs onto humans.  After Wei seduces and abandons the draper’s wife, he sets his sites on noblewoman Rhu Zui (Isabelle Chow, HOT DESIRE) while her husband is away - having promised to wear custom-tailored prophylactics to avoid bringing home the clap again - but her possessive widowed lesbian cousin Hua Chen (Rena Murakami, DREAM LOVERS) has other plans for both lovers.  Meanwhile, Qui Yan has grown sexually-frustrated in her husband’s absence and turned her attentions from learning calligraphy with a brush stuck in her nether regions to the hunky gardener who used to be a draper, leading to tragedy when a set of contrivances reunite husband and wife.

A big budget, visually-striking answer by Golden Harvest to the Category III competition, SEX AND ZEN - from the novel by Yu Li, previously adapted just four years before as THE CARNAL SUTRA MAT - is frequently explicit in its acrobatic couplings like ancient Asian erotic drawings come to life as photographed by Just Jaeckin (GWENDOLINE); however it is no more sex-positive than its grittier, dirtier ilk with women receiving the brunt of punishment for enjoying sex (even the one who truly “flourishes” under such treatment).  The cruder comic elements do raise a chuckle or two but it is obvious director Michael Mak (BUTTERFLY AND SWORD) put all of his energy into choreographing and visualizing the sex set-pieces set against some vividly colorful period sets as shot by Peter Ngor (ARMOUR OF GOD) and scored by Mak-regular Wing-leung Chan (LONG ARM OF THE LAW).  The film spawned two sequels in 1996 and 1998 ostensibly based on different vignettes of the source novel, as well as a digital 3D effort in 2011.

Wildly popular in international markets, SEX AND ZEN was only available stateside via a Tai Seng import of the Hong Kong DVD featuring a gauzy non-anamorphic transfer dating from the laserdisc era.  A few years later, Joy Sales put out an English-friendly Region 3 DVD in Hong King using Fortune Star’s remaster.  Although a definite improvement over the earlier master, it has unfortunately been upscaled for the Blu-ray releases thus far, including Umbrella’s 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen disc which looks its best in the brightly-lit studio interiors and exteriors but shows its limitations in scenes with heavy diffusion including the Temple of Venus sequence late in the film where portions of the frame are as soft as they are blocky.  Cantonese and English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and 2.0 stereo remixes of the original mono mix are included along with English subtitles that reveal the dialogue was always a bit corny before the English dub.

Extras are restricted to a theatrical trailer (3:16) and an interview with director Mak (13:59) who reveals he had no experience in the genre when Golden Harvest commissioned a $12 million “classy erotic picture” and researched how to make the film stand out, finding inspiration in a Japanese photo book of orgasmic expressions of women.  He reveals they ran through the budget quickly wasting film trying to warm up the actors and shooting in a temperature-controlled studio.  The cover has two artwork motifs on the front and back as well as the more popular “horse” image on the inside, while the back cover copy is printed on the slipcover only.

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