Zen and the Art of Matrimonial Maintenance

FILM

Sex and Zen directed by Michael Mak at the Harvard Film Archive February 12

The funniest moment in "Sex and Zen," part of an ongoing series at the Harvard Film Archive entitled "Outlaw Sexuality," occurs during the credits. Huge letters proclaim "Recommended by," and after a moment, the name of Penthouse magazine is emblazoned on the screen. In case you hadn't figured out what you were watching, that recommendation at the end should tell you everything.

"Sex and 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.

Mei Yang (Lawrence Ng), a handsome and charismatic young scholar, marries the buxom, beautiful and prudish Yuk Heung (Amy Yip). After a comically disastrous wedding night, Mei Yang initiates his wife into the pleasures of sex. Failing to heed the advice of an elderly monk, Mei Yang leaves Yuk Heung in order to pursue a life of ordered womanizing. A pitiful Don Juan with a beleaguered Leporello, Mei Yang discovers that he is, comment dit-on, unequipped for the task. In a riotously slapstick scene, he submits to an operation in which a horse's member replaces his inadequate one.

Now suitably accoutered, Mei Yang seduces the wife of Kuen (Kent Chung), a brutal silk merchant. 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 of the sex scenes are so over the top that one begins to think that this is an erotic John Woo film. To be sure, some of the situations are so implausible that they really function on a comic level, but as a whole, the violence and brutality are tremendously offputting.

For 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.