This Michael Zen feature for Vivid combines the expected hot sex featuring a bevy of Vivid contract actresses with a complicated, plot twisty spy versus spy action story -quite an achievement. The bad news is that Vivid, on its way from being Adult Cinema's top label to a whimpering death 16 years later (today it is merely a lameduck arrow in web pornographer Bree Mills' quiver), saw fit to ruin the movie just a couple of years later, cutting out 1/3 of its running time in transitioning from VHS to DVD format. (IMDb insists on displaying 78 minutes as the original running time: Wrong and seemingly impossible to fix!)
The original's two hours of action had four sex scenes dropped and numerous characters jettisoned. The thinking, which has become dominant in porn by now, is that viewers expect and require nothing more than sexual stimulation from Adult Cinema, and anything approaching storytelling or involvement with characters is a waste of time.
This explains why pornographers who fluorished during the VHS era, say for example Michael Zen, Michael Ninn or Michael Raven were soon headed for early retirement. And even Paul Thomas, Vivid's wonder boy, days were numbered as increasingly his work veered toward all-sex junk in the 21st Century.
The original VHS "Mission: Erotica" stands up well thanks to that great cast, even though I have recently seen it sloughed off by barbarians as "Asian girl porn" by clowns who reduce all Adult content to crude stereotypes. Yes, Vivid girls Kobe Tai and Asia Carrera have the lead roles and run with them.
Seeing the movie for the first time at this late date (2022), I was enthralled by the quality performances and the conceit that one cannot know for sure who are the bad guys (and gals) or who are the good ones. Kobe and Asia are on conflicting trajectories, with Asia the big cheese at a government spy agency seemingly up to no good, or is it really a watchdog? Kobe is an action anti-heroine, subjected to manipulation but emerging as a timely La Femme Nikita figure, oddly presaging one of the better inheritors of that mantle, namely Maggie Q's TV incarnation.
Supporting cast is terrific, ranging from superstar Missy and in a key pair of roles her hubby Mickey G, to some of the best performers of the day: Chloe, Stephanie Swift, Heather Hunter and Sindee Cox.
