Les fruits de la passion

The two main characters are taken from The Story of O. As is the initial premise in the novel, O submitting (to a brothel in this film) to Sir Stephen to prove her devotion. This movie takes place in China in the 1920's. A major side story is the uprising by some Chinese citizens. A smaller side story is a young man who has become infatuated with O. Even more side stories on other smaller characters.

The acting is good but none stand out. There are some very brief scenes of unstimulated sex but I would not call it hardcore. The camera work is excellent. I love how often the camera pans across a scene. A picture says a thousand words but this is ten thousand.

I like movies that have several pieces to make the story as this one does. Several interesting characters from each piece. Some might be put off by the sex and S&M scenes but they just were vehicles to help tell the story.

The acting could have been better tho wasn't bad. While O was the central character, it felt like something was missing. Still, I enjoyed watching.

This movie tries to be artistic but comes across as puerile as a film school student's first attempt. Next it tries to be erotic but comes across as clumsy as a virgin's first attempt. Lastly it tries to be cruel & gripping, but aside from Kinski's performance--which is powerful but conspicuously misplaced amidst the amateur melodrama--it's about as gripping as your hand around a wet noodle (which is an appropriate metaphor considering how un-erotic this film is). It features a blowjob scene which is even lamer than Chloë Sevigny's career-burying performance in The Brown Bunny. Run away now while you have the chance. Go find yourself a Victoria's Secret lingerie catalogue instead--it's more artistic AND more erotic than this tripe.

The movie maker wanted to make a kinki movie. Then he decided to make an artistic movie. He makes neither. The movie is suppose to take off where The story of O left. It never took off. Sir Stevens takes O to a Hong-Kong brothel so that she can prove her submission by whoring for him. She finds a love of her own. There is no erotism, there is no logic, there is no beauty. Be aware though, there are some very explicit sex scenes but still the movie remains very stale till the end. A disappointment.

... in particular, I was thinking that "Lust, Caution" blended the aspects of eroticism and uprising/terrorism much more effectively - not helped here by (in my view) the relatively unconvincing acting of the lovelorn young rebel.

Having said that, I was not at all impressed by Just Jaeckin's "Story of O" (the alleged predecessor), and this is better than that, IMHO. And Kinski is clearly having a lot of "fun" (of his own kind). I can't decide whether Illiers' relative blankness is actually an appropriate asset, given the context and character, or also a problem.

Meanwhile, there's some nice touches of humour, and the cinematography and set design is pretty good, so it doesn't feel at all like "a cheap piece of trash" - even if some may think that's exactly what it is :)

Worth a look.

This film is sometimes called 'The Story of O-Pt.2',which tries to pass itself off as a sequel (of sorts)to the French erotic S&M thriller 'The Story Of O'. Although I've never seen the original version, I did, however get to see this sorry mixed bag of sexual & social politics. I guess the 'O' angle comes from the occasional S&M overtones (which were never as explicit (and unpleasant to watch) as the ones in 'Mistress'. Klaus Kinski is the only recognizable face in this French/Japanese production (but speaks his lines in English--at least in the version I saw). The unnecessary use of surrealism only manages to make this some what boring example in pseudo porn even more pretentious (what are they trying to prove with depicting a piano floating in water?). It's obvious that after the whole "porno chic" trend in cinema petered out (ouch-sorry,bad pun!)about 1975, producers had to scrape the bottom of the barrel trying to please the mavens of adult cinema,not to mention Foreign/Art Cinema,so film goers had to contend with dreck like 'The Last Woman',and others like it.