Felicity

I enjoyed this mostly - not for the sex scenes which were par for the course, but as a 70s time capsule. I liked the protagonist, Felicity- she was pretty but not gorgeous, naive but sexy too. The story was a bit silly but I enjoyed the scenes in Hong Kong, especially the contrast between the rich and touristy areas and the poor people living on the water. I imagine too that girls and women would have been treated in ways portrayed here in the late 1970s (I was a child then). In all, it was a decent watch, mainly as a kind of snapshot of those days - I also liked the clothes! I gave a reasonable 6 stars out of 10.

I first saw this film back in the eighties and I still consider it to be the most erotic film ever made. Filmed on location, production values are high. Our eponymous heroine travels from her convent school, filmed at the artists' community at Montsalvat, Eltham, then Healesville train station, Victoria, in Australia to stay with her aunt in Hong Kong. There she meets the people who awaken her latent sexuality. All the female actors are incredibly gorgeous in a natural girl-next-door sort of way, especially Glory Annen who plays the lead. She spends a fair amount of time bathing and showering so the director certainly knew his job. Felicity offers a refreshing naturalness compared to the pumped up plasticity of modern erotica. Thoroughly recommended - naturally.

Can that be considered a pun? If so that I would ask you to ... forgive me. As you may be able to forgive Felicity ... actually she doesn't need your forgiveness at all. She may need my puns ... nah she does not need those either. What she does need is ... well I think you know where this is going ... and who is coming? Yes another pun arrived.

One can say that this seems more than inspired by Emmanuelle. And while it is not direct copy it does have a lot of things you will recognize (like the chair and of course loads of nudity and sexual situations). I reckon the first "real" encounter, is not really pleasing for Felicity ... but she her curiosity has been awakened by that point. And there is no stopping now ... as a song would suggest.

The movie does have cliches in it and it is predictable. But it also is really well played. And while the exploitation tag may be deserved to a degree, there is more here than meets the eye (or any other body part for that matter, excuse the pun).

It does miss opportunities though. Like when she and a lover come out of the elevator and are asked "goind down", they could have said, "we just did" ... instead we get a corny "what a lovely couple" a few seconds later from the woman getting on the elevator (alone).

I watched the uncut version, apparently there was a version that was cut a bit. Funnily enough in its home country of Australia ... it had most of the issues there. Something that is being discussed in extreme length in deleted scenes from the great documentary "Not Quite Hollywood" - included on the disc version of this. Don't be easily offende ... and you'll enjoy what you are being served.

If Merchant Ivory had set out to make a Russ Meyer's style film, this would be the result. The movie manages to walk a tightrope between it's brainless-ness, it's soft core porn, it's paper thin "plot" and somehow through it all doesn't come off as exactly sleazy. Calling it "sensual" feels wrong and somehow lends it more credibility than it probably deserves but all the same it's not exactly crass either. A weird little balancing act that pays off by being, if not great, than something better than the filmmaker's intended. Not good, not bad, just is.

With no knowledge of what to expect from this film but reading the plot description and having somewhat of an idea, it was certainly more explicit than it presented itself as. There is very much a plot but perhaps a lot more explicit and nude scenes than ought to be. It is very much a coming of age film with the lead title character of Felicity having a very quick sexual awakening.

Everything felt as it, it occurred quite quickly and very easy for Felicity. Where at an instance she was raped by her older driver yet didn't seem to care, notice or tell her friend. The sceneries of Hong Kong look well and are nicely shot. The way she randomly met the love interest in the end was rather odd yet plausible. Right place at the right time type of incident. A lot of the film is quite predictable with the change of an innocent young naive teenager (said to be 17) transformed to very eager craved. The film is very close to soft core but it's presented in a rather art house way.