Dom Robinson reviews

Cert:

Cat.no: DV 1059

Running time: 89 minutes

Year: 1998

Pressing: 2001

Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)

Chapters: 10 plus extras

Sound: Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround)

Languages: Chinese

Subtitles: English

Widescreen: 1.85:1

16:9-enhanced: No

Macrovision: Yes

Disc Format: DVD 5

Price: £19.99

Extras: Photo Gallery, Trailers

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Director:

Aman Chang (Body Weapon, Fist Power, Raped By An Angel 2: The Uniform Fan, Sex and Zen 3)

Producer:

Wong Jing

Screenplay:

Simon Kin

Cast:

Karen Yeung, Xu Jin Jang, Jane Chung

Sex and Zen 3 again states that it continues to reveal the bizarre and erotic secrets from the most notorious and forbidden book in Chinese literature - and again it's still a load of pretentious twaddle?

This time, take 3 girls: Susan, Chinyun and Fanny, the latter of which must be at home living in a whorehouse. Their home, "The Fragrance House", is where they must stay while being bidded for as men throw their money down in a sexual form of eBay, the highest bidder getting to break the virginity of the girls.

But when Susan refuses to have sex with the customers and is cruelly tortured, Fanny kills wealthy trader Sir Lui and blames it back on Susan, meaning it's up to Chinyun and the other highest bidder Chu to step in and save the day. Can they do it? Does anyone care?

No-one will watch Sex and Zen 3 for the plot. It's just an excuse to watch three naked Chinese girls shag men or each other, although since Chinyun has a vagina that'd need a stick of dynamite to open it, her "sucking skills" have to be brought to the fore and an early, laughable, scene shows one girl teaching the three how to perform oral sex on a wooden penis. Very Generation Game !

When the men are gone for the day...

Non-anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1 is what we have, like last time, but it's not the best of prints and loses points for burning the subtitles into it so they can't be turned off and as they're stuck in the black bar at the bottom of the screen those of us with a widescreen TV can't zoom the picture in if we want to understand the dialogue.

The sound is basic Dolby Surround (Dolby Digital 2.0) but is quite muffled and may as well by mono for all the difference it makes.

Suck on this.

The only extras are Trailers for both the second and third films in the series and an 8-picture Photo Gallery.

A mere 10 chapters cover the 89-minute film which is far from enough and the film contains original Chinese dialogue, but with English subtitles burnt into the print.

The menus are silent but animated with a montage of images from the film run together.

And a shower scene to round things off.

Overall, this is, like last time, a bobbins film with not much in the way of production values and is the final part of a trilogy (see below), all of which is available on VHS, though just the latter two are out on DVD so far.