A Chinese Torture Chamber
Story
For some reason I couldn’t help but picture Sgt.
Joe Friday at the scene of the crime:
“Just the facts Ma’am. You say your husband’s
penis exploded. Has this ever happened before? Where were you at
the time? On top of him? And the blood on your face would be from his exploding
penis I suppose. I think you better come down to the station to give a
statement and to have your bottom whipped and your finger nails pulled
off.”
One might think that a film that begins with an
exploding penis and a pouty innocent face covered with gushing blood would
have nowhere to go but down, but that’s just the beginning of the bizarre
happenings that occur in this ribald tale that alternates between low comedy
and high torture like an S&M session of pain and pleasure. One could
suffer pangs of vertigo, as one has to digest fast moving images of flying
sex, intriguing sex toys, detached testicles, breast crushing machines,
forced virgin dildo deflowering, rolling nude on a bed of nails and the
limpid beautiful eyes of Yvonne Yung Hung. Producer Wong Jing gleefully
takes out all the stops of taste and good décor in this Cat. III
film that revels in its smirking debauchery.
In a series of flashbacks that come at the prodding
of various implements of fiendish torture, Little Cabbage (Yvonne) relates
what brought her to this sorry state. The scholarly and well-respected
Lawrence Ng spots her tiny feet one day and immediately brings her and
her feet into his household as a servant with the intention of one day
making her his consort. His wife (Ching Mai) spends much of her time diddling
with various sex toys (“the 4 lustful instruments”) such as the ever-popular
lustful bells (“it will stimulate your tits”) or the more adventurous Mr.
Horn that expands in water and is the perfect companion piece with the
stimulating Hair Circle. These can all be purchased as a package on the
Home Shopping Network for the low low price of $29.99 for a limited time.
Tell them I sent you.
When the husband is out of town the wife also
brings a lover into her sexual games and the very curious Little Cabbage
is discovered peeping on them. This leads the wife to arranging Little
Cabbage’s marriage to Tommy Wong who makes up for his poor status with
a penis that is compared to a horse by the snorting Yuen King Tan. Knowing
that his size will likely kill Little Cabbage, the two plotters feel safe,
but Tommy abstains from hurting his wife and decides instead to take matters
into his own hands. To the tune of Unchained Melody and a parody of Ghost,
Little Cabbage does some non-pottery molding of her own with spectacular
results.
All seems fine until the fateful day in which
a mysterious aphrodisiac is ingested by Tommy and the combination of desperate
desire and stimulants causes his penis to take off on a one-way journey
to the moon. Both Little Cabbage and Ng are charged for plotting his murder
and the corrupt magistrate (Lo Hung) has every intention of getting a confession
out of them no matter how cruel he needs to get. These periodic scenes
of torture are not necessarily for the squeamish, but at the same time
it is kind of difficult to take them very seriously because of the overall
ludicrousness and downright silliness of the film. Only the vile deflowering
by the female guard (Liu Fan) seemed to be truly gratuitous and misogynistic
with zero entertainment value. On the other hand those detached testicles
were kind of amusing!
Ok – enough about plot and character development
the reader is no doubt saying – tell me about the flying sex. Certainly
one of the more famous and talked about scenes in HK film and to be copied
a year later in a less inspired scene in Eternal Evil of Asia with one
of the same participants (Julie Lee) – the queen of the flying sex act.
In its own odd way this is simply a spectacular, humorous and delightful
ode to the joys of sex and the bliss of a contented marriage. Picture Wong
Jing having Chow Yun Fat and Zhang Ziyi flying through the trees in Crouching
Tiger when all of a sudden Zhang rips off her blouse and challenges Chow
to a sexual duel that he happily accepts ("wait till you hold this Green
Destiny in your hands"). Well maybe not Chow and Ziyi – but how about the
King of Cat. III Elvis Tsui and Julie Lee – famous for her on and off screen
sexual shenanigans. These sexual kung fu masters take each other on in
a battle to the climax – first Tsui attacks with his Invincible Mouth that
makes her squirm in his powerful grasp. She counters with an upside down
Oral Attack that momentarily paralyzes him, until he meets her in a mid-air
crash and moves behind her for an assault from the rear. Unlike many fights,
this one is all give and take, but eventually Tsui’s spinning Invincible
Wheel move combined with the Turning Screw brings the duel to a satisfying
end for both parties. I recommend that men do not allow their partners
to see this scene or they may find themselves being asked to attempt some
rather precarious positions at home and likely to be found wanting.
My rating for this film: 7.5