An Amorous Woman of Tang Dynasty

I can’t tell if it’s fair to call An Amorous Woman of Tang Dynasty an exploitation film or not. On the one hand, this is a movie that does have an actual story as well as some great production design and the appearance of a budget. On the other hand, there’s a whole lotta unnecessary titties in this movie.

An Amorous Woman of Tang Dynasty is about Yuan Gi, a Taoist priestess. Yuan Gi is that sort of male-gaze type of bisexual who’s just always up for sex regardless of gender. Yuan Gi is apparently incredibly intelligent and an excellent writer. I’m just taking the characters’ word for that though because we never see her write. Mostly, Yuan Gi just has a lot of sex. She has two main relationships in the film. The first is Pok Hau, a ronin and her main romantic and sexual focus. The other is her maid, Lu Chio who she seems to just fuck when she’s bored.

Yuan Gi’s character arc is her becoming increasingly hardened, immoral and decadent as the film progresses. Desirable as she is, she begins to think too highly of herself. I’m pretty sure the film is supposed to be a bit of a cautionary tale but it’s one I don’t agree with. Yuan Gi’s main “flaw” as a character is her aggressive desire to not belong to a man or anyone else but to herself. I couldn’t get on board with her independent streak beinf the source of her flaws as I’m pro-women not belonging to other people. She also definitely kills a person yet the film time and time again suggests her major sin is still her sexual liberation and independence. There’s definitely a weirdly high amount of slut-shaming for a movie that’s also intentionally sexy.

This movie was not written by very smart people. The characters all lack a level of depth. The characters also tend to be particularly stupid, probably because the people who wrote them are stupid. The film’s pacing is also weird. A lot of plot development will happen in a very short amount of time. This is then followed by a longer amount of screen time devoted to complete filler that doesn’t move the story along at all. The screenplay and character work are definitely the worst part of the movie.

However, the visual elements of this film are almost enough to distract me from how lame the script is. This is a surprisingly beautiful film. The art direction and production design are gorgeous. The cinematography is also lovely. There’s a handful of particularly beautiful almost poetic shots that deserve to be in a better movie that this. Perhaps most surprisingly, the costume design is gorgeous. For a movie that has its female character nude as often as it does, it’s surprising how beautiful her clothes are in the occasional scenes where she’s actually wearing clothes.

I’m less familiar with Asian exploitation than I am European or North American. I’m also still not sure if the film qualifies as exploitation. But it reminded me heavily of European exploitation film that I don’t know what else to think of it as. There are some standards of the genre to be found here yet also some cultural specific moments. Most notably, Pok Hau wears a traditional Chinese mask that features a long nose. Yeah, the nose of that mask definitely gets some play in a sex scene between Yuan Gi and Lu Chio. That’s the kind of movie it is, sleazy yet also steeped in Chinese culture.

In terms of story, An Amorous Woman of Tang Dynasty was exactly what I expected– just an exercise in showing Taoist priestesses being naked and doing other R-rated activities. Basically, nunsploitation with a Chinese twist. Yet An Amorous Woman of Tang Dynasty absolutely exceeded my expectations in terms of its visual quality. Does that make up for its basic story, slut-shaming and overly casual, somewhat sexualized rape scenes? No, but it’s something at least.

Overall rating: 5.8/10