| Overview: | Michael Mak Dong-kit's Category III period sex fantasy was a major hit on its home turf and even garnered theatrical play in many Western specialty theatres. Based on an infamous 17th. century novel (previously adapted in 1988 as YU PUI TSUEN), it is the story of avaricious scholar Mei Yeung-sheng (Lawrence Ng Kai-wah), whose sexual appetites far outweigh even those of his seemingly insatiable wife, Chau-yin (Amy Yip Chi-mei). Dissatisfied with the size of his small organ, Mei undergoes a riotous operation that leaves him with the penis of a horse! Eager to put his new member to the test, Mei seduces the abused wife of local shop owner Wong Chut (played by Category III king Elvis Tsui Kam-kong). He then moves on to the beautiful, bisexual Shui Chu (Isabella Chow Wang), whose cousin/lover (Japanese porn star Rena Murakami) does not take kindly to the fact that Chu is hiding Mei from her. Meanwhile, a revenge-minded Wong has taken up with Mei's wife and the scholar's hedonistic ways eventually lead to his downfall.
A superior adult film, SEX AND ZEN is styled along the lines of the period fantasies being produced at the time and incorporates examples of humor that amuse through their sheer shock value (the horse organ transplant is only one example!). The story is pretty much non-existent, doing little more than setting up each sex scene, and the moralistic ending (which is probably true to the original work) doesn't exactly jibe with the filmmakers' campy approach to the material. The myriad couplings unfold amid lush, colorful surroundings, though much of the sex has elements of rape and/or S & M which, while tame by the standards of Asian pornography, may still offend some viewers. This is the only film to date in which local breast fetish queen Amy Yip exposes her nipples, something she reportedly did under triad coercion. Kung fu veterans Lo Lieh and Tien Feng co-star (the latter plays Chau-yin's stern father, who's nicknamed "Master Iron Doors," in reference to his intolerance of immorality), while the wonderful Carrie Ng Kar-lai is granted too little screentime as a devious brothel madam.
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