Lee Lien-ying is an eunuch who enters the Forbidden City with a big secret. One that will have his head on the floor if the wrong people find out.
Unapologetically described as a sexploitation film, “Sex and the Emperor” triumphs in that regard. Its abundant nudity never leaves the screen for very long, segueing from one erotic escapade to another, carried along by the threads of a moralistic plotline.
By its own admission, the movie disclaims any historical accuracy, despite hints to the contrary in its narrative structure. While the palace-intrigue elements ring true, the backdrop remains almost too preposterous to believe, unless you’re willing to harken back to Roman times during Caligula’s reign. And perhaps that’s the idea.
One unfortunate hallmark of “Sex and the Emperor” is the criminally bad acting, especially from the male leads. Unrelatable and puerile, they seem to have been cast for either weird comic effect or sadistic delight, or both. Many of the scenes give the impression of a formula sitcom.
Li Liyang (Leung Si-Ho) narrates the story. At a young age, he is required to undergo castration and effectively become a eunuch. However, a friend of the family removes only one testicle as a favor to the boy’s father, enabling the son to secretly enjoy carnal relations on the sly in the palace with his longtime lover, Dong Qing (Chin Guan). When Dong Qing unexpectedly becomes pregnant, the Empress Dowager (the emperor’s mother) enlists On Dahai (Stuart Ong) to brutally torture and kill the woman.
Emperor Tongzhi (Sung Boon-Chung) lives among the palace eunuchs, eventually taking a wife who must remain monogamous while he remains free to cavort with other women, which he does gleefully. The emperor and Li come of age together and become pals of sorts, yet always retain the master-servant hierarchy between them.
Against his mother’s, the Empress Dowager’s, wishes, the emperor chooses the lovely Guillan (Yvonne Yung Hung) as his wife. Dahai schemes against the emperor by manipulating the Empress Dowager into giving Guillan to his brother to marry. After receiving permission, Dahai instead brutalizes Guillan with a foreign object and sells her to a brothel.
With Guillan gone, the emperor succumbs to an arranged marriage. Though his new wife is seductive, the emperor still sees Guillan’s face when they make love. He takes out his rage with his mother on his new wife, violently engaging in sex with her before withdrawing, swearing off erogenous activity.
Meanwhile in the brothel, Guillan is imprisoned to condition her to a new life of ill-repute. She is taught the Eight Dragons bedroom technique of how to pleasure men without surrendering her virtue, which leaves her with at least some hope of redemption.
When the emperor learns where he might find Guillan, he sets out to find her, taking on an alias to wander freely among the people. Having no luck, he starts dabbling with any of the prostitutes available, finally working his way down to the lowest-class brothels, riddled with disease. His sexual exploits catch up to the emperor, and he contracts syphilis, which spreads to his brain and leaves his body covered with oozing sores.
Perhaps the most enlightening part of this package is the special-feature commentary by David West, who does a nice job contextualizing the movie in the early 1990s. The trend of sexually driven films kicked off with “Sex and Zen” in 1991, a surprise hit. By the time “Sex and the Emperor” came out in 1994, the movement had largely exhausted itself. With a supremely odd mix of humor, explicit sex, and periodic, gleeful cruelty, viewers would have every right to be confused by the juxtaposition of themes and moods.
Directed by Sherman Wong and written by Bing Cheuk, the film did well at the box office as a Category III (roughly equivalent to an NC-17 rating in the U.S.) Hong Kong release. “Sex and the Emperor” may appeal to a particular market segment, and though not for everyone, it succeeds enough for what it is. Now available in Blu-ray, in Cantonese with English subtitles.
Now available on Blu-ray™ from 88 FILMS
