Virgins of the 7 Seas
洋妓
Hong Kong, 1974, colour, 2.35:1, 92 mins.
Directors: Gui Zhihong 桂治洪, Ernst Hofbauer.
Rating: 6/10.
Amiable slice of West-meets-East nonsense is handled with some style by the Shaws machine.
STORY
China, Qing dynasty, 19th century. Six western women are kidnapped by the pirate One-Eyed Dragon (Jiang Yang) and delivered to brothel-owner Diao Zidong (Wang Xia). One girl dies but the remaining five – Brenda (Gillian Bray), Dawn (Sonja Jeanine), Anna (Diana Drube), Karen (Tamara Elliot) and Celia (Deborah Ralls) – are groomed by Diao Zidong’s lesbian wife Diao Doufu (Ge Dihua) as they wait to be auctioned off. Secretly, they are trained in martial arts by the sympathetic manageress, Ge Meimei (Liu Huiling), who is waiting for the return of her elder brother, Ge Bao (Yue Hua), sent into exile by Diao. The auction takes place and each girl subsequently turns on her buyer; Ge Meimei ends up killing Diao Doufu when she tries to prevent the escape of Karen. Eventually all of them escape to Ge Bao’s hideout, where he trains them some more. However, Diao Zidong soon discovers where they are.
REVIEW
If only to set the record straight, it must first be said what Virgins of the 7 Seas 洋妓 is not, before going on to point out its more positive qualities. It is, decidedly, neither a cheap sex film nor a rip-off by Europeans of an established Hong Kong genre; the influence of the appalling [Austrian-born director] Ernst Hofbauer – who gave you Sex in the Office Erotik im Beruf, Unsatisfied Virgins Mädchen beim Frauenarzt and Swinging Wives Der neue heiße Sex-Report (all 1971) – is non-existent in the direction; and the film lacks any pseudo-seriousness which might have weighed heavily on the enterprise. The print in this country [the UK] has been trimmed of a few minutes of kink (but nothing of story-line), retitled with an exorbitant disregard for plot, and dubbed (abroad) into joke Chinese and English/American. One might be forgiven, on such a pedigree, for going miles to avoid it.
This would be a pity, however, at least for enthusiasts of Hong Kong production. Unlike the disastrous Hammer enterprise [The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires 七金尸, co-produced with Shaw Brothers and released in Hong Kong three weeks after Virgins], this film is very much a Shaws vehicle, and if one did not already know, there is nothing to suggest the participation of a foreign co-director. It is tempting to ascribe all the sexual scenes to Hofbauer and the rest to Gui Zhihong 桂治洪, but production stills indicate that Hofbauer worked on considerably more than that. If so, then the Shaws style conquers all, for the film has a fluidity and swiftness of pace (quite apart from photography and art direction) which bear comparison with the best seen in this country. There are also many moments which recall the sensual textures of Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan 爱奴 (1972) by Chu Yuan 楚原 and Golden Swallow 金燕子 (1968) by Zhang Che 张彻 – all a far cry from leaden West German skin-flicks. The fights are similarly skilful: a brief, savage outburst between Ge Dihua 葛荻华 and Liu Huiling 刘慧玲, and a fine early scene featuring Yue Hua 岳华 (using speeded-up effects to supernatural effect). If all these elements fail to cohere into the mythic form of works like Golden Swallow, then it is because the film is primarily a comedy rather than an examination of heroism.
The “story” concerns five western girls kidnapped by pirates during the last [19th] century and sold to a rich brothel-keeper. The manageress, Ge Meimei, herself a “captive”, is rescued by her brother Ge Bao, who also takes along the girls (meanwhile trained in the martial arts). It is blatant nonsense, done with considerable panache by the Chinese, who regularly use western women in their films for the same kind of exotic attraction as the West uses Asians. Apart from regularly stripping, the girls (from America, Austria, Britain and Italy) show more personality than run-of-the-mill sexual wallpaper, and [American] Diana Drube and the spunky [Austrian] Sonja Jeanine show genuine acrobatic skill. The laughable script contains some real gems: “You’re into kung-fu?” “Man! Into kung-fu? I’m a Black Belt”; and “She’s looking for cherries. They don’t grow on trees, dearie.” It is to the Chinese players, though, that one looks for real support: an eminently graceful performance by the beautiful Liu; a solid male lead (in Luo Lie 罗烈 style) from Yue; smooth villainy from Li Minlang 李敏郎 (stroking his queue as he surveys his purchases); and acerbic lesbian nastiness from Ge. The film’s Chinese title translates as “Foreign Whores” – a measure, perhaps, of just who is really being “exploited” in this amiable Hong Kong production.
CREDITS
Presented by Shaw Brothers (HK). Produced by Shaw Brothers (HK).
Script: Zheng Yixun. Photography: You Qi. Editing: Jiang Xinglong, Zhang Zhaoxi. Music: Wang Fuling. Art direction: Cao Zhuangsheng [Johnson Tsao]. Sound: Wang Yonghua. Action: Xu Erniu.
Cast: Yue Hua (Ge Bao/Ho-ho), Liu Huiling (Ge Meimei), Wang Xia (Diao Zidong), Ge Dihua (Diao Doufu), Li Minlang (You Lao’er), Jiang Yang (Duyan Long/One-Eyed Dragon, pirate leader), Gillian Bray (Brenda), Sonja Jeanine (Dawn), Diana Drube (Anna), Tamara Elliot (Karen), Deborah Ralls (Celia), Wang Hanchen (Dawn’s buyer), Luo Han (Anna’s buyer), Zhu Yougao (Karen’s buyer), Xigua Bao (Celia’s buyer), Ai Donggua (Brenda’s buyer).
Release: Hong Kong, 21 Jun 1974.
(Review section originally published in UK monthly films and filming, Sep 1975, as Enter the Seven Virgins. Modern annotations in square brackets.)