Blue: L'orchidée sauvage II

Why did anyone keep giving Zalman King money to make these? And how did Tom Skerritt keep getting sucked into these things? You'd think "Poison Ivy" would have been enough to teach my fellow Seattle-ite to stop riding the 90's Alyssa Milano erotic thriller burn-out-coaster (he's really the only thing even passing for okay in this). To Tom's credit, he grits through with as straight a face as humanly possible. A great actor reduced to, well, "this." The other actors plow through it in what I suspect is some kind of drug and alcohol-rehabiitation parole requirement.

On the plus side, the garage sale I bought this at did come with a free box of tissues. I think that's positive.

The story is about a beautiful young girl, Blue (Nina Siemaszko), who is approaching sexual maturity. In order to achieve a happy and fulfilling life she must avoid being corrupted and enslaved by sexual desire and lust, and ultimately find true love. But this is no easy matter in the cold, cruel world in which she suddenly finds herself virtually alone and defenseless. She becomes the unwilling victim of power hungry individuals who seek to exploit her as a prostitute. With help from more compassionate and understanding people, Blue struggles to maintain dignity and courage in her desperate commitment to be free.

While its true that the film has little connection with its predecessor "Wild Orchid", its main flaw seems to be that its just a little too cliché and at times hard to believe. This shortcoming is difficult to avoid, however, in most any book or film. To Zalman King's credit, the final outcome and the essential theme are not completely obvious from the very beginning. The exotic setting in the past also helps give the film a sense of novelty.

While the movie does have numerous sexually explicit scenes, which may offend some people, it exhibits far less voyeurism and wanton sexual intercourse that are typical of so called "soft-porn" movies. Whereas, I found Nina Siemaszko's natural beauty to be a refreshing change from the irritating plastic-boob floozies that are the main attraction of the aforementioned genre. Moreover, Wild Orchid 2 is a far more compelling human drama than stories about men from out of space who want to learn what love is, but seem to only be interested in sex. A rating of 2.8 hardly does this film any justice. I myself was quite found of the movie, and consider it worth viewing by those seek more tragic and melancholy overtones than what you may find in a typical romance.

Nina Siemaszko portrays of young "virgin", who is lonely, innocent and vulnerable, yet strong willed and independent, with higher moral values. She acted well enough to earn my sympathy, and I found myself routing for her throughout the film. Through Blue's trying experiences, we learn that in order to find true love we must be bold and determined, we must exhibit self-sacrifice and compassion, and, above all, we must look beyond outward appearances and fallacies, and seek the inner beauty that lies within ourselves and others we meet.

A pretty bad movie, and despite what others seem to think, it was not as good as the first (which wasn't especially "good" either).

The whole attraction for the first Wild Orchid film is the awesome sex scene with Carre Otis and Mickey Rourke. Otherwise, it's a pretty dull and even pretentious movie.

However, the sequel has only one halfway decent sex scene in it, and the female character is not enjoying it at all.

Overall, both Wild Orchid films are of the sort one sees on Cinemax or Showtime at 1 AM. A minute or so of eye candy isn't really worth seeing the rest of the film.

I was a little kind of disappointed when I watched the normal version of this as it feels like it teases so much more. Luckily I was able to track down the unrated cut and it offers some extended dialogue scenes and more "steamy" content.

That being said, its still not great. Nina Siemaszkos character is not very likable but this is probably a part of her situation in the film. Its got a pretty decent cast all in all but Robert Davi and Christopher Macdonalds characters could have used more time.

I like the filmography, soundtrack, overall setting, and costumes for the actors which is where this movie scores points in my opinion. If it was named something else it would probably score better.

I noticed that the overall IMDb rating for this film was a lowly 3.2. This seems a bit unfair. The story is good, not great, and may at times be bit predictable. But the acting is quite good with a very sympathetic performance by Tom Skerritt. Robert Davi shows a warm side in much contrast to the "heavy" he played in a James Bond Film. Wendy Hughes couldn't have been more cold and calculating in much contrast to the warm and loving character she played opposite Peter Falk in "Happy New Year" or the playful character she played opposite Pierce Brosnan in "The Heist." Lastly, Zalman King as a filmmaker has tried to elevate the adult genre to an art form. If not familiar, try to see his most successful series: "Red Shoes Diaries." Sometimes you can catch an episode on late night Showtime.

It might be said that not every film is meant to be "Gone With the Wind" or "Citizen Kane." There's nothing wrong about a shoot-em-up western where the gunfighters never seem to run out of bullets. And although "The Fast and the Furious" may never make IMDb's top 250 list, it was a good enough film for the producers to make two sequels.

It's all about entertainment and since the world's population is so diverse, we all like different types of movies. One could guess that some viewers who are offended by nudity may have been "turned off" by this film, which also may account for the low 3.2 rating. But the film is worth a watch.

Finally, Nina Siemaszko is excellent in this film. She brings across her vulnerability, frustration, disappointment, etc. Her performance must have been good, because other producers noticed and she had a nice supporting role in "The American President" and a recurring role for 3 or 4 years on "The West Wing." On a personal note, I would urge all of us to respect the IMDb and the lengths they go to provide this forum. Let's give fair comments to all films we view. We may actually affect the careers of some of the industry people.