Pulp International - Hsieh+Wang

Oct 2 2022

Five women meant to be sex playthings instead wreak bloody havoc on their oppressors. Duh.

This is the U.S. poster for the Hong Kong sexploitation action flick Yang chi, aka The Bod Squad, aka Virgins of the Seven Seas, which we talked about a while back. Shorter version: effort by men to forcibly create perfect sexual beings leads to violent bikini uprising. We have no idea why the bad guys didn't anticipate that result. We guess they never saw a ’70s sexploitation movie, in which case they'd know such movies often end with the men toes up. That's half the point of watching them. The Bod Squad premiered in the U.S. this month in 1976.

Hong Kong Yang chi The Bod Squad Virgins of the Seven Seas Hua Yueh Hui-Ling Liu Sonja Jeannine Diane Drube Gillian Bray Tamara Elliot Deborah Ralls Hsieh Wang poster art cinema sexploitation

Vintage Pulp

Dec 21 2021

Hong Kong sexploitation epic isn't very good, but give it credit for ripping the scab off a historical wound.

Above is a poster for the sexploitation flick Nu ji zhong ying, known in English as The Bamboo House of Dolls, and to get right to the heart of the matter, this one must have set Sino-Japanese relations back a few years. The film stars Danish actress Birte Tove as a nurse in Hong Kong who during World War II gets corralled along with her co-workers into Japanese Women's Concentration Camp 13, there to undergo various indignities before finally deciding that escape is her only option. You know the drill.

Tove is the marquee attraction, but the film is largely cast with Hong Kong actresses such as Lee Hye-Sook, Hseih Wang, and others, which means that while the movie resembles entries in the women-in-prison sub-genre—with the scheming wardeness, lesbian sex, group showers, and half-cocked escapees made into examples of what not to do while in a tropical women's prison—the obvious historical context of Japan actually sexually abusing Chinese women during the war gives it an underlying grimness that's hard to ignore.

We suspect that if this were made today it would spark an international crisis, insults traded by high ranking officials on Twitter, and possibly diplomats kicked out of China and Japan, but 1970s filmmakers did not shy away from uncomfortable subject matter—and this is about as uncomfortable as it gets. That isn't the problem, though. Well, that isn't the problem for us. The objective problem is the movie is just bad.

Legendary Hong Kong producers the Shaw Brothers (and by legendary we mean Run Run Shaw would be knighted in 1977) wanted to copy Jack Hill's women-in-prison movies The Big Bird Cage and The Big Doll House, but possibly overlooked the fact that setting such films in imaginary Central American hellholes as Hill did was worlds away from making the Japanese villains in a historically laden sexual abuse epic. But what do we know? Run Run got knighted, not us. In any case, Tove's escape plan runs into some snags, but we won't reveal what those are, just in case you're in the mood for politically explosive titillation. Our advice? Give it a pass. Nu ji zhong ying premiered in Hong Kong today in 1973.

I get the feeling there's history here. Since I'm from Denmark, maybe I can I just leave?

Vintage Pulp

Jun 21 2020

There's no kung fu like topless kung fu.

These Italian posters were made for the sexploitation/kung fu flick Schiave nell'isola del piacere, originally released in Hong Kong as Yang chi, and known in English as The Bod Squad, or alternatively, Virgins of the Seven Seas. This is a Shaw Brothers production, and when a company makes forty films a year not all of them will be scintillating. What you have here are five western women, all allegedly virgins, who get kidnapped by Chinese pirates. They're to be sold for big bucks to a brothel, but only after some training in delightful and arcane sexual arts. The plan to remake these inexperienced white girls into perfect carnal receptacles goes pear-shaped when an unexpected ally also trains the women in martial arts, and the five end up fighting alongside downtrodden locals to help take down an organized crime cartel.

Some of the things the squad learn—both sexually and for combat—are pretty funny. Like when they're taught to spit olive pits at lethal velocity. Or when they get a lesson in Chinese sex techniques—knowledge which is of course derived from a crinkly old parchment. There's also quite a bit of slapstick humor. The entire point of the movie, however, is to show five women going through various contortions in their undies, and on that score the movie is a slam dunk. The five squad members, Sonja Jeannine, Diane Drube, Gillian Bray, Tamara Elliot, and Deborah Ralls, give the physical acting their all, and in the end confirm that toplessness—like red sunsets, fine wine, and good music—makes everything better. After premiering in Hong Kong today in 1974, Yang chi reached Italy sometime in 1975.