Movie Review: Viva Erotica/色情男女

In 1996, Hong Kong’s movie industry was facing a number of challenges.

Organized crime involvement in the movie industry was rampant, from ‘street tax’ on location shoots to management-level interference.

You don’t really think Andy Lau wanted to make The China White, do you?

But hey, money doesn’t launder itself…

And there used to be a lot of money in local movies.

You could launder yours and gank theirs. What’s not to like?

Ask the audience.

Tired of a flood of quickly and cheaply made movies, they started to movie away from local cinema towards Hollywood.

There were still good local movies being made, but they were surrounded by a lot of garbage, and people didn’t want to wade through it to get to the good ones.

Good directors found themselves out of work, or having to sacrifice their artistic integrity by making Category III movies.

All of these things are integral to the plot of Viva Erotica/色情男女, one of my favorite Hong Kong movies.

Derek Yee directed and co-wrote Viva Erotica/色情男女, which tells the story of a down-on-his-luck director named Sing, played by Leslie Cheung.

His girlfriend, played by Karen Mok, is as loving and supportive as a woman can be.

He’s introduced to a potential investor by Chun, a producer played by Lau Kar Wing.

Paul Chun plays Pui, a triad boss who doesn’t like spending money. He thinks fights are too expensive, what with the buses and the tea.

He wants his girlfriend to be a movie actress, and he’ll pay for the movie.

She can’t act her way out of a paper bag, but she has tits.

  And they’re lovely.

But that voice…

It’s art reflecting life, really.

For me, Elvis Tsui Kam Kong steals the movie with his role.

One of the things I appreciate is that we get to hear his real voice.

He plays a Category III actor who’s conflicted about his responsibility to his family and the way he meets that responsibility.

There’s more than a little bit of art reflecting life here, since Elvis Tsui was, is, and always will be the most recognizable face of Category III sex movies.

Shu Qi got her career start doing Category III as well, so life can check its makeup in the mirror.

Viva Erotica/色情男女 is Category III mostly because it’s a movie about Category III movies.

It starts with a sex scene, but it’s part of the story, not part of a movie-in-a-movie.

There’s no nudity in the scene, probably because it’s Leslie Cheung and Karen Mok.

But the rest of the movie has nudity because it’s a movie about making movies with nudity.

There’s nothing exploitative about it, though I guess you could say it’s not difficult to look at.

Well, most of the time.

I still think that making it such an accurate film makes it a better movie.  It allows for more honest, open, and realistic depictions of the things that go on when making these kinds of movies.

Viva Erotica/色情男女 is one of my favorite movies because it works on a number of different levels. By itself, it’s a fun, well-made, entertaining movie.

But I also really appreciate that it manages to capture a specific time and a set of real-life circumstances so accurately.

You can enjoy this movie but you can also learn from it, and that’s probably what I admire most about it.