Sex, violence and mixed messages vie for attention and dollars. Elizabeth Kerr reports.

You have to wonder if 3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy and I Saw the Devil represent the future of Asian cinema. Not all of it by any stretch of the imagination, but a good chunk of it, given regional cinemas' need to get audience attention and box office dollars. Foreign releases are hitting our shores faster and faster, and the digital age has ensured "news" about a film - controversies, bans, graphic sex and violence - precede its arrival. No matter how inured we may think we are to hype and marketing, they often put bodies in theater seats. Is it a calculated move? Maybe. Is it a case of producers knowing a buzzy film when they see a script? Partly. Either way, widespread curiosity is a major motivator when standing in a line-up.

On one hand this week we have, maybe, the natural evolution of 3D filmmaking in 3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy. It was only a matter of time before someone decided 3D porn was a good idea, and Hong Kong producer Stephen Shiu Jr has beaten Italian eroticist Tinto Brass to the punch. (Brass is currently in pre-production on a 3D quasi-remake of Caligula.) Ecstasy is not, as Shiu has stated in the past, porn. In fact, it's not even the naughtiest film Hong Kong has ever produced. But the idea of naughtiness coming at you from all sides that is notable, however unlikely it was that James Cameron was envisioning up-close ladyparts when he made the groundbreaking Avatar.

On the other hand we have the next phase of the distinctly Korean revenge thriller. As perfected by Park Chan-wook and carried on by hordes of filmmakers after him, Kim Jee-woon has perhaps reached the pinnacle (some would say nadir) of this particular sub-genre. Kim made a serious splash with 2005's A Bittersweet Life, taking the Hong Kong-influenced gangster drama in that country to the next level, and he's attempting to do it again. I Saw the Devil is a slickly produced bit of exploitation cinema that sends scads of mixed messages that are the result of Kim's gleeful, ber-violent shock tactics.

Accusing Kim alone of sending mixed messages is unfair: director Christopher Sun does it too. Passing judgment on which is more baffling or offensive is difficult given each film's intent. Ecstasy begins in much the same vein as its predecessor, 1991's Sex and Zen. There's a fun, slightly whimsical element to the film, and it's top-heavy with amusing passages to complement the rash of boobies. That light tone is what makes Ecstasy's sudden turn for the ghastly so surprising and infuriating. But more on the later. Quite opposite to that schizophrenic turnabout, Devil is unrelentingly gruesome from minute one - and I do mean minute one. The film opens with the graphic, brutal murder of the (surprise!) woman who sets the narrative in motion.

In Ecstasy we follow the carnal exploits of snobby scholar Wei Yangsheng (Hayama Hiro) after he marries his beloved Tie Yuxiang (Leni Lan). Though they adore each other, the sex isn't too good for them, and the marriage ends in divorce when she can't stand his extra-marital activities. He winds up getting his kicks at the pleasure palace run by the Prince of Ning (Tony Ho), with help from his dynamic sex duo of Dongmei (Suou Yukiko) and Ruizhu (Saori Hara), and the wise old Elder of Bliss, currently disguised as a buxom woman (Vonnie Lui). It's all fun and games until a sub-plot involving a precious artifact, Bliss' fugitive status, and a double-cross are woven into the story, turning it into a vicious, misogynist free for all. The first sign something is horribly awry comes when Yuxiang is raped by the equivalent of a Qing Dynasty handyman - which she ends up really, really liking. What?

Unlike Ecstasy's sudden change of heart, Devil telegraphs its confused moralizing early on. After serial killer Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik) murders his pregnant fiance, secret service type Soo-hyun (Lee Byung-hun) goes on the warpath in order to avenge her. Supremely disciplined, highly trained, and equipped with all manner of gadgetry, Soo-hyun lures Kyung-chul into a cat-and-mouse game that is every bit as nasty as the first murder. Soo-hyun tracks Kyung-chul all over Seoul, allows him to start victimizing another random woman, and then busts in just in time to save her - and lay some torture on Kyung-chul himself. He does this again and again and again, until he becomes just the kind of monster he's chasing.

The funny (for lack of a better word) thing about both films is in the bloody, sadistic, exploitive path each takes to the moral high ground. Ecstasy's ultimate message? Sex without love is pointless and invalid. Devil's? Blind vengeance will only rot the vengeful from the inside out. Sun and Kim have a pretty funny way of making those points. Sun puts Yangsheng and Yuxiang through such a battery of horrors - he has his transplanted donkey dong chopped off, she is repeatedly sexually tortured and humiliated, you don't want to know how Dongmei meets her end - the message is lost. Kim is so utterly creative and worshipful with his camera that Devil winds up wallowing in the gleefully violent mentality it's supposedly critiquing. You can't have it both ways, gentlemen.

But does either film live up to the hype? Sure. Ecstasy delivers the goods in the form of sex. It's bad, unsexy, wooden, sub-HBO sex, but there's lots of it. Is the 3D transportive? Not really, and its respectable period sets and costumes aren't made more vivid for it. Thankfully though, the gimmickry is kept to a bare minimum. By the same token Devil represents the revenge thriller well; all roads seemed to be leading to the spectacularly imaginative tortures on display here. For all their faults, both films seem to have a strong life ahead of them: distributors packed Ecstasy's industry screening at Filmart to the rafters, and there are already rumblings of a sequel. Devil has been rolling out in theaters worldwide since its Toronto festival premiere in 2010 that allegedly had viewers racing to the restrooms. So the question of the weekend at the multiplex: Just how curious are you?

3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy and I Saw the Devil opened in Hong Kong on Thursday.

(HK Edition 04/16/2011 page4)