Word: zens
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...Carpenter Center HFA is a resource for films students, a mecca for cinemagroupies, and, in the eyes of many ordinary movie-goers, an outright peculiarity. Films screened at HFA this month include "Sensations: A Holy Orgasm of Shadow-Play," "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer," Sex and Zen," and "Backyard Movie," the later juxtaposing "old home movies" with "cheeky footage of naked men on trampolines and frolicking dogs," according to HFA's monthly bulletin...
...Zen," a Hong Kong import directed by Michael Mak, purports to be an adaptation of a classic Ming Dynasty novel known as The Carnal Prayer Mat. Being unfamiliar with the novel, this reviewer is in no position to judge the faithfulness of Mak to his source. However, it would appear that the film makers are using the novel simply to lend respectability to soft-core porn...
...Humiliated, Kuen leaves the town and becomes a gardener in the house where Yuk Heung languishes. Mei Yang is taken in by a pair of lesbian cousins with a penchant for flutes, food and S&M. Engaged in Blakean excess, Mei Yang is unaware that, perhaps to justify the "Zen" in the title, a day of reckoning awaits...
Technically, "Sex and Zen" is a accomplished and quite beautiful. Deep-hued silk billows extravagantly around the suitable pulchritudinous actors in just about every scene. Peter Ngor's camera creates a luscious surface of vivid colors and careful compositions that does full justice to Raymond Lee's sets and art direction. However, the film's visual beauty and the amusing acrobatics in some of the scenes fail to distract one from the cruelty of the era the movie depicts. There is an extraordinarily disturbing scene where the prodigiously endowed and sadistic Kuen rapes and beats his wife. Some...
...those with a strong stomach and a taste for the bizarre, "Sex and Zen" is perfect fare. So get out your raincoat and go see it. You can always claim you are watching a classic Ming Dynasty novel...