L'éveil des sens d'Emy Wong

British airline pilot George Taylor (Giuseppe Pambieri) enjoys a night out in Hong Kong with his work colleagues, but ends up in hospital after he gets in a fight with several men. While recuperating, George does his best to woo his beautiful doctor, Miss Wong, but when he is discharged, he hooks up with company secretary Helen (Ilona Staller AKA pornstar Cicciolina) instead. However, realising just how deep his feeling are for Emy, he ditches Helen, and declares his love to the doctor.

George and Emy become a couple and decide to get married. Emy prepares their new home while George is in London working, the pilot promising to keep in touch by mail. However, a bitter Helen intercepts George's letters and tells Emy that her man is in Australia and intends to marry the rich daughter of a sheep farmer. The distraught Emy tries to top herself, is almost raped by a 'friend', and drops out to become a hooker.

Frustrated at not being able to talk to Emy via long distance phonecall, George returns to Hong Kong, unaware that his woman is now walking the streets...

Yellow Emanuelle isn't really an Emanuelle movie: the lead character, played by Chai Lee, is Dr. Emy Wong-there is no Emanuelle. And while the film features the soft-core sex and full frontal female nudity synonymous with the Emanuelle series, the tone is different from the Laura Gemser films, being far more melodramatic and ultimately very downbeat. Despite this being a sexploitation movie, writer/director Bitto Albertini keeps it surprisingly classy, with great cinematography, solid performances and a story that refuses to wallow in D'amato-style sleaze. Despite the copious sex and skin, the film is actually quite moving: you'll despise Helen for hiding Emy's mail, and the film's final scene is remarkably tragic - certainly not what I expected.

This Hong Kong filmed potboiler packs in more melodrama than week's worth of 'The Young & The Restless'. This one is more of a throwback to the original 'Emmanuelle' trilogy(especially 'Goodbye Emmanuelle') than a D'Amato sleazefest. Chai Lee(Emy Wong)undergoes a stunning transformation from dour nurse to hot-to-trot streetwalker. Future Italian porn star/politician, Illona Staller, who would later go by the name Ciccolina(and have sex with an HIV positive John Holmes) plays Emy's competition. Exotic locales and some decent soft-core scenes round this one out. Recommended for fans of the original 'Emmanuelle', of which I am one!

The actors are great and the story is gripping for soft core of the time. I could not stop watching. It could use more in the erotic side because I was so invested into the actors I wanted be there with them in their intimate moments as well. This is a grand prize for soft core. Seek it out. Loved the film very much!

This is a disjointed movie. Seriously. The movie spends too much time on part of the story, and not enough on the other, where the sex bits in between are something of a cut and pace style. There are some really erotic moments as to Emy Wong's scenes of pleasuring men in the global trade of prostitution. She falls in love with a naval officer, who's called up on another trip and she hits the dumps. So, our shy Asian philly seeks sex from other men, after coming to the conclusion that Romeo's never gonna return. She really gets an education, after attending a sex school run by a strict money hungry madam. At the sound of a double clap, she has a thin shirtless Asian dude who tries out all the newies (fresh meat) and the positions amidst shots of pornographic art, one unforgettable scene has his nude ramming buttocks, reflected in a mirror, as he humps Emy. I loved that brazenness to this movie but on the whole, this one turns out to be quite a bore. Our naval officer tracks down Emy, and so begins a reuniting of lovebirds, where Emy gives up the biz. Tragedy strikes for one, when the two are interrupted by a former client in a restaurant, a middle aged guy who obviously can't get enough of her, or probably is infatuated with her. Emy refuses to acknowledge him. Such a typical scenario, of this 'hanger on/harassing customer, interrupt pro's new life' have been used in so many other prostitute type films. We do have some nice Asian night shots, plus a cat fight, involving Emy, fighting another pro for a standing street spot. And too we have some lotto game (I don't know what you call it), where the winner gets to see Emy do some nude frontal dancing, amidst a song I haven't heard in yonks.

From the promotional materials of the time, "The Sensuous World of Emy Wong" (better known by the unfortunate title "Yellow Emanuelle") one would think Bitto Albertini (aka Albert Thomas) was intending to churn out another soft-core romp, similar to the films of Joe D'Amato. However, after the opening montage around the seedier parts of Hong Kong, viewers finds themselves in the midst of a very different kind of film.

This is not unusual with Albertini's work. His legendary "Emanuelle nera/Black Emanuelle" (1975) was essentially a melodrama, with lots of soft-core fondling thrown in to attract the grindhouse crowd. Albertini concentrates more on dramatic tension and melodrama then his counterparts, with mixed results in most cases, including "Yellow Emanuelle." On one hand, you've got Ilona Staller (who later became on of the more off-the-wall figures of Italian porn) and Giuseppe Pambieri engaging in much (simulated) sleazy sex, accompanied by Nico Fidenco's pornoesque score. On the other hand, the romance between Chai Lee's Emy Wong and Pambieri seems to come from another film entirely. It's sensitively told, the actors really seem to believe in what they're doing, and their love scenes are beautifully shot (including one in an unfurnished bedroom that is just this side of art.) The drama works on some levels, Chai Lee creates a sympathetic heroine, although her plight (which I won't spoil for you) seems a little contrived and out of left field. The television version deletes the entire ending subplot (which, again, I won't spoil) and actually works better. The original theatrical ending seems hurried and contrived, so much so that it's intended effect is replaced by a giant "Huh?" from the audience.

All-in-all, the film is enjoyable and beautifully photographed. Those who prefer their sleaze a bit warmed-over but with *some* dramatic oomph will enjoy this picture. Those looking for something a bit more sordid may want to look elsewhere, perhaps to Joe D'Amato's huge catalogue of sexploitation.