My Pale Lover
My Pale Lover
1993
Director: Chow Jan-wing
Viewed on DVD
This is an extremely harmless and rather pointless
exercise primarily interested in displaying numerous women without their
clothes on. Which in itself is not really a bad thing, I admit. A plot
may have helped but that was clearly more trouble than the producers wanted
to go to. Oddly, even though this was made shortly after Yvonne Yung Hung’s
Cat. III coming out party in Can’t Stop My Crazy Love for You, she is about
the only female in the film who doesn’t get too revealing – having only
a rather sedate, uninspired and generally covered love making scene at
the very end.
The film wastes no time in jumping into the sleaze
as it opens with two topless women gyrating on stage in a small squalid
bar causing the patrons to have nose bleeds in the fine tradition of Hong
Kong comedies. The women (who are apparently Thai from their language)
then proceed to another long quaint tradition – pulling razor blades out
of hidden places and opening a beer bottles with body parts that would
make watching football at home on a Sunday much more interesting. Nike
(Chiu Wai) works in the bar as a bartender and is involved in a relationship
with the bouncer Dick (Gung Fei) and the two of them have numerous sexual
escapades involving masks, alley ways and slapping. Other folks working
in the bar are doing much the same sort of thing – one amusing episode
being when the owner thought he was having oral gratification from his
girl (Ying Siu-liu) under the desk only to finally realize she was standing
by the door and it was his pet dog doing the duties. At least that passes
for amusing in this film.
Across town, Nike’s friend Rose (Yvonne) is a
psychiatrist with a motley group of clients with sexual issues. One of
them is an obsessed suitor who hates cats and attacks her stuffed Garfield
toy. For some reason not quite explained, the two women switch jobs and
lives – Rose begins serving drinks in the bar and Nike begins counseling
men, often naked as is the nurse and a bunch of other folks. Rose moves
in with Dick and romance blooms. That is the film in a big fat nutshell.
Absolutely pointless but mildly entertaining – kind of like an old episode
of Love American Style with loads of simulated sex and large bosoms.
My rating for this film: 4.5
