The time i accidentally read an erotic novel

I like reading. Ever since I was a kid I’ve always loved reading, loved picking up a book and getting involved in a story. I would read just about anything I could get my hands on. This was both good and bad. On the good side I read my way through a lot of books I really enjoyed, and managed to form a cohesive idea of what I liked and what I didn’t – I developed my own taste for books. On the bad side however, I ended up reading a whole lot of crap. I’m talking pure, literary garbage, and a whole lot of it too. I read nonsense horror stories, dull thrillers, countless condescendingly simple ‘young adult’ and children’s books. But I kept reading anything I could get my hands on anyway, garbage be damned.    

And that’s how I came to accidentally read an erotic novel. And I’m not talking Mills and Boons type crap, I’m talking full-on hardcore porno in written form. This wasn’t a love story, this was horny idiots screwing each other in elaborate ways for two hundred pages or so before it just sort of ended. And I read it accidentally.

Why? Well, it really was a mistake. I actually thought it was ‘Murder on the Orient Express’. Honestly. I had reached that early reading phase where I wanted to try out books I’d heard were famous or regarded as classics, more because I thought that if I read them then it’d make me look smart. I was either twelve or thirteen and found it and started reading. I don’t remember what it was called exactly, but I do remember it definitely had the words ‘Orient Express’ in the title.

The cover had a picture of a woman lying down with an open blouse, exposing her lingerie. Some people would probably say that that should have warned me that it wasn’t the book I was after, but at the time I didn’t actually know what Murder on the Orient Express was about, so it wasn’t a red flag for me. For all I knew the woman was the person who got murdered on the Orient Express.

Instead it turned out to be an erotic novel following the adventures of Frannie, a slutty woman who married a rich guy and uses his cash to travel the world with her slutty maid and bulky bodyguard and fuck everything she comes across. I actually remember a fair bit about it.

In this novel, apparently part of an ongoing series, Frannie and co board the Orient Express for some vaguely defined reason. While on board she has a series of erotic adventures, by which I mean she sleeps with everyone that gets within reaching distance, regardless of gender, age or mental state. And since she’s on a train, that turns out to be quite a lot of people.

A lot of nonsense went into the sex scenes. At one point she goes to some foreign lord’s mansion where he reveals that he’s spent millions of dollars to develop holographic technology…that he’s using exclusively to make porn with. Frannie, the insatiable nympho that she is, actually tries to have sex with the holograms and then gets really pissed off when she realises they aren’t real. This is the sort of character she is.

Surprisingly (or unsurprisingly), for a slutty rich lady a lot of people try to kill her. Like, more than you’d expect. That’s the other thing that happens apart from all the boning, people try and murder her for ill-defined reasons. Not for money, mind you, mostly ‘just because’. The would-be murders all naturally screw her before they try to murder her, because of course they do.

At one point on the train she meets a handsome, rich gentleman who invites her to his mansion at the next stop for some boning. This isn’t the holographic porn rich mansion guy, this is another guy (she meets/screws a lot of rich guys who have mansions). When they get there he tells his sad sob story about how his wife was murdered by an intruder and that he’s all sad and lonely and hasn’t been with a woman since. Frannie is touched (or wants to be) and gets ready for some banging. Handsome rich guy asks if they can do some role playing and if Frannie will pretend to be his beloved wife. She says fine, sounds good to me. He says great, I’ll roleplay as the intruder who killed her.

Now this is the point where the flashing red warning lights should have switched on in Frannie’s mind, but the woman is a ridiculous slut so she doesn’t think it’s odd when the guy puts on a balaclava and ties her to the bed.

Luckily, thanks to bullshit, she’s wearing a ring with a built-in warning system that instantly alerts her bodyguard (who, otherwise, exists solely to add another cock to the free-for-alls). The bodyguard just so happens to be nearby, and saves the day by beating the crap out of the would-be killer.

At the very end of the story she meets another handsome guy and everybody has a free-for-all in their room on the train. Now in the thirteen or so years since I read the book I’ve actually been on an Orient Express train (in South America), and the rooms are not that big. Or at least not big enough for a six-way orgy. Handsome guy number whatever bangs her, then reveals that he’s an assassin and tries to kill her…by attempting to lift her up and throw her out the window. Again, I’ve been on an Orient Express train, and the windows are awkward and don’t open that much, certainly not to shove a person out. Also the bodyguard is like right there next to them, and he sorts things out pretty much instantly.

Frannie survives her self-inflicted ordeals, doesn’t learn any lessons and goes about her boning life as if nothing had ever happened.

From what I can tell, Frannie and her entourage get into a lot of stupidly dangerous sex-related shenanigans. One of the characters casually mentions that on one of their horny adventures they managed to get involved in an orgy with an angry death cult of massive, seven-foot tall black dudes who were planning on sacrificing them after the gangbang. Nobody seems to act as though this is a strange occurrence.  

And that’s that. I remember other vague details about the massive number of sex scenes that made up the book, but otherwise there wasn’t much for plot or characterisation (though that’s obviously not the point). I started reading it by pure accident, and continued due to curiosity. Young me was surprised and astounded by the ridiculous stuff that happened over the two hundred pages of smut.
It remains the only erotic novel I’ve ever read. After that I really don’t think I need to read another one. There’s no punch-line here. That’s the end.

Bangkok Knockout

A decent Thai action flick that lacks the certain punch needed to make it great, but mostly makes up for it by being decidedly fun and silly. It has a lot of fighting and some mild stunt work, but while some of the moves are pretty cool it lacks the impact, choreography and stunts the best of the genre has to offer. Things aren’t helped by forgettable characters, a pretty basic plot and a thick streak of unintentional silliness and stupidity. That being said, it’s still a fun watch, but it isn’t going to be particularly mind blowing.

A group of martial artists/stunt men who call themselves ‘Fight Club’ audition to get a part in a Hollywood action film. They win the audition and have a celebratory dinner, inviting family and friends. However the food is drugged and the next day they wake up in an abandoned factory. By winning the audition they’ve unwittingly been chosen to be part of an illegal violent game for rich degenerates where they have to survive bouts against several fighters trying to kill them. Thus begins a literal fight for survival as the group has to form together, fight, escape and survive.

The fights and choreography are pretty decent and fun, which is good because it’s the backbone of a film like this. One involving a cage of chain-link fences has the fighters clambering upwards to unleash flip kicks and the like. There’s a good mix of styles and weapon-based fighting, including some grappling and katana/axe based kung-fu. The combat itself tends to lack a brutal punch for the most part though, especially considering the supposed danger (for a movie about a death fight club, hardly anybody dies). There are also some noticeable edits and frame cuts in the choreography that indicate second takes. Some actions, particularly involving weapons or big kicks, also have a noticeable delay or miss completely, giving the actors breathing room to perform dodges but making some action feel stilted as opposed to fluid.

There are too many characters to keep track of. ‘Fight Club’ has about six members, but then a bunch of other people join, including relatives, friends and even a comic relief fat guy. It’s way too many to the point where I only knew the names of about three or four of them. The attention is spread thinly amongst them, and none of them really emerge as the focus. There is a character, Pod, who seems like he’s going to become the main hero, but honestly he spends most of the movie being pummelled, has few fights and isn’t particularly impressive.

 

The story is silly nonsense, and it’s the sort we’ve seen a few times before. Any and all attempts at dramatic or emotional moments fall completely flat. Most characters don’t have any personality or characterisation at all so you won’t care. When the silly twists start coming (including obvious betrayals) you won’t care, especially since the movie oddly piles them all on top of each other in a single scene. There’s a five minute stretch that seems dedicated to a few ‘it was me all along’ moments.

The pacing is probably a little too gung-ho after the opening. After a pretty mild, action-less opening, things finally kick into gear and then it is action action action until the end. The finale actually gets a bit exhausting actually – there’s a massive brawl and a final boss fight and it’s seemingly finished, but then there’s another ten minutes of action thrown in (this time with guns). I guess you get bang for your buck, but it is a bit of overkill. Most action flicks have a sort of wave-like structure – slow build up, action, cool-off, slow build-up, action etc. etc. Bangkok Knockout is slow build-up and then action for the rest, with the cool-off period also containing action.

 

 

It’s actually a really silly, stupid film. The evil fighters in particular tend to be ridiculous. One is a flamboyant gay dude with makeup who wears a fishnet shirt and pink underwear. He’s defeated when one of the good guys constantly bashes him in the crotch. One is just a guy with a metal plate strapped to his chest. The most ridiculous is an axe-wielding mask-wearing dude that looks like he wandered off the set of a slasher flick. Increasing the silliness, a fight against a presumably scary, intimidating opponent becomes a battle to cause an asthma attack by preventing him from using his inhaler.

The background villains are goofy as fuck. A cigar-chomping white guy in a tiny room with four really ordinary looking folks who bet on who will win/lose/die make up our villainous cabal, and the film constantly switches to them after every fight to show them either celebrating when they win a bet or complaining when they lose. They all speak in laughable bad English (evil Japanese lady sound like she learnt her lines phonetically). It also has to be the lowest budget evil rich person club I’ve ever seen – they’re in a tiny trailer with small flat screen televisions and two prostitutes.

Bangkok Knockout might not be a knockout, but it is fun. After the slow opening it gets going in a big way and the action scenes are entertaining, and though it does devolve into constant punching it’s still a fun time. The overwhelming silliness also help spice things up, as do some of the weirder fight scenes and villains. Bangkok Knockout’s problems are the competition – there are better Thai action flicks out there. But, by that same token, there are many that are far worse. So with that I’d say it’s worth a watch if you like some Thai action that’s sillier than they probably intended. 

Haunters

A pretty damn effective and unique Korean thriller with a creepy premise.

Cho-in is a crippled man with a terrifying gift – he can control people just by looking at them. Having grown up in an abusive household, Cho-in has become cruel and deranged and uses his ability to rob people and inflict pain on others. On the other end of the scale is Kyu-nam, a cheerful, hard-working and somewhat absent-minded man. He’s easy-going and cares for his friends, and seems to be special in his own way. When Cho-in attempts to rob the store Kyu-nam works at, he finds that his powers don’t work on him. Already deranged, he becomes furious to find someone he can’t control, and becomes determined to kill Kyu-nam by any means necessary, including turning his own friends against him. Kyu-nam, in turn, makes it his mission to put a stop to Cho-in and save his friends, and the world, from Cho-in’s madness.

After a dark opening in the company of Cho-in, the introduction of Kyu-nam and his friends is positively cheerful and somewhat goofy. They’re a likeable bunch, which makes the turn into full-on dark thriller territory all the more effective. There are occasional moments of light, silly humour thrown in, but when the film turns dark it turns dark. It manages a good balance of the two.

Cho-in’s ability makes up for his own disability – he doesn’t do his own killing, but rather controls others to do it for him. The implications of just how powerful Cho-in’s ability is leads to some pretty chilling scenes. Kyu-nam, on the other hand, is determined and capable, and willing to throw himself into harm in attempts to save others. He’s also gifted in his own specific way, fitting to his character. In this respect, you could argue that Haunters is a superhero movie. If you want to argue that, then you’ll find that Haunters is a far better hero origin story with a far greater villain than countless big name superhero movies. 

The acting is top notch. In particular the guy they chose to play Cho-in is creepy as hell. He has the look of a deranged serial killer. Everybody else does their part well. The special effects work is very light and understated, and works well. The film is also well shot, with some really creepy scenes and shots sprinkled throughout. One complaint is that the film is often too dark visually, with shadows and darkness being too black. Scenes at night are often almost entirely black making it impossible to make out what is happening. One sequence within a pawn shop at night is pretty much the same as watching a black screen for a few minutes.

So this is turning out to be a rare, short review. Haunters is a good movie with a really interesting premise. It gives it a good treatment too, with a tight story that focuses on the characters and builds up exceptionally well. This one gets my thumbs up.   

Milocrorze - A Love Story

What the hell? Milocrorze is a decidedly bizarre Japanese anthology offering three weird, vaguely connected stories about ‘tragic’ love. Stylistically it’s wild and interesting and content-wise it’s full of strangeness, for both good and bad. It’s also rather vapid and shallow underneath all its style, with segments that lack any real meat, but it doesn't really matter. Like many anthology flicks, Milocrorze is an uneven movie as a whole. There’s a great segment, a good segment and a bad segment that bookends the film and brings the whole thing down. What’s weird is that the three segments are, as far as I can tell, directed by the same person and star the same main actor.

Anthology films are a weird concept, as I’ve discussed in the past. Sometimes they can give you something great (like Safe Haven from V/H/S 2) and other times you get garbage (ABCs of Death sucks). Anthology flicks also tend to mostly focus on horror (all the ones I can remember are horror-focused). So Milocrorze is a strange change for me in that regard. The easiest way to do this review is to go through each segment.

The first segment is split into two parts, the first at the very beginning of the film and the second at the end. It bookends the film, opening and closing it. It’s also the worst segment by far, starting things poorly and ending them weakly. Ovreneli, a weird young man with bright orange hair (played by a child), falls in love with a woman named Milocrorze. She’s described as the most perfect, beautiful woman in the world, but honestly she’s kinda plain and has no defining or positive characteristics. They have a house together and are happy, until she suddenly gets bored and starts dating other people. The young man gets sad, his heart falls out and he uses a frying pan to cover the hole in his chest. He lives the rest of his life sad. The end (of part one).

The second segment is the best and possibly the weirdest – Besson Kumagai, a ‘youth counsellor’ who runs a call advice number, gives desperate, nervous young men relationship advice. The advice is always something ridiculous and terrible (like constantly buying condoms at the supermarket so checkout chicks think you’re a stud). Every time he gives somebody advice, Besson suddenly breaks out into party dancing (with his own theme music), joined by a scantily clad lady entourage. He’s just funny. He has a bowl haircut, wears big shades, has a paunch, an ugly white suit and an oversized bowtie. He insults a lot of people, gives a few of them bad advice and dances a lot before the segment crashes (literally) into the next one.

 

The third is the longest segment by far (longer than the other two combined), and almost feels like it’s from another movie entirely. Tamon, a nice young man, falls in love with Yuri, a flower girl. He starts the romance slowly, and has to contend with her giant brutish boyfriend. He beats up the boyfriend and they’re happy for a while…until a gang of crossbow-wielding human traffickers attack, shooting out one of Tamon’s eyes and kidnapping Yuri. Tamon goes to find her, becoming a wandering samurai in the process, and tracks her down to a massive brothel/gambling den, which he then hacks his way through to find his love. The battle, Tamon versus a seemingly endless horde of goons, is stylistically cool but it goes on for ages because it’s shot in slowest-of-the-slow motion. You can fast forward through it and it’ll still look and feel really slow.

The ending brings us back to the first segment, some thirty years later. Ovreneli (now played by an adult) has lived a mostly sad life, and goes to a hot spring resort to cheer himself up. When he gets there he finds it’s run by Milocrorze and her new husband, a man twenty years her senior. Ovreneli pines for her, confronts the husband, gets punched out and leaves. When he goes home he’s finally over Milocrorze, his heart grows back and he lives the rest of his life happily. The end (of the movie).

 

So how does it all stack up? Oddly. It’s highly bizarre and strange, even for an anthology film. Its visuals and content feel more suited to music videos than a feature film, but there’s something inherently watchable about it, even if it is just the visual strangeness. This is a movie you could just have playing on mute in the background of a party.

The opening and ending ‘Milocrorze’ segments suck badly. I really didn’t like the style or story for either. While the vibrant colours are eye catching, the content is vapid and empty. They’re full of nonsense, as if stupid names and weirdness make up for a lack of anything good or clever. There’s no meat or humour there. Thankfully they’re both pretty short, but the opening sucks and the end segment (which is somehow worse) weakly limps the film to its credits.

The Tamon segment starts oddly (it initially feels a bit like a re-tread of the Milocrorze opening, including the initial high-colour style and seemingly even the story), and then gets weirdly interesting once it hits the wandering Samurai segment. The style and tone go darker and better and it looks really cool. Sadly it also wears out its welcome with its painstakingly long action sequence finale. This segment is also the only one to really feel like a proper short movie, with an actual plot and structure.

The Besson part is really funny, mostly because of the oddness of it. The random bursting into party dancing, the horrible relationship advice (complete with dramatizations) and just the character Besson are great. It does feel more like an extended sketch from a comedy show than anything else, but it’s good, weird fun nonetheless. 

In the end, like with any anthology film, it has its ups and downs. It’s sad that the downs bookend Milocrorze, which is otherwise a pretty strange, stylistic but bizarrely watchable anthology.

The Happiness of the Katakuris

A Japanese remake of ‘The Quiet Family’, directed by Takashi Miike, the man behind Ichi the Killer and Audition. And it’s insane. Surreal, bizarre, cartoonish - it’s an entirely different film. Oh sure, the premise is the same – a family running a failing lodge starts to receive guests who all die under various circumstances, causing the family to bury the bodies so as to not destroy their lodge’s reputation – but the details are different, as is the tone. And as they say, the devil is in the details (literally here).

For one thing, it’s a musical. A full-on musical with multiple song and dance numbers and a few dramatic scenes where actors just sing their lines when something important happens. Each music number is different in style. There’re dramatic songs, cheery songs, one involving zombies doing back-up dancing and even a colourful, chintzy (and ridiculous) ‘Love Boat’ styled one involving wirework.

The rest of the movie is downright strange. Again, it’s a remake and follows the basic premise and a few details from the original film, but otherwise this is an entirely different film. Action scenes play out in Claymation, where things get downright bizarre. It also changes a lot of the plot details and road bumps. Instead of sexual predators, undercover police men and assassins there are con artists, escaped serial killers and a sudden, unexpected volcanic eruption.

The opening Claymation scene sets the tone – a woman in a restaurant finds a demon in her plate of soup. The tiny imp rips out her tonsils and goes on an odd, abstract journey where he is killed, reincarnated then killed again, his corpse ending up in the woods where the Katakuri’s newly open mountain lodge is. Travelling psychics at one point declare this as the reason for the lodge’s bad luck, and the following slew of deaths (a vaguely similar scene also happens in The Quiet Family, minus the actual demon). This entire sequence essentially sums up what sort of movie Katakuris is, and establishes how different it is to the Quiet Family.

Compared to the Quiet Family, the Katakuris are a more likeable bunch, mostly framed as unfortunate underdogs. They’re a more loving and caring family group as well. It’s made up of Grandpa, Mom and Dad, the Son (the only character similar to his Quiet Family counterpart), the Daughter and the Granddaughter who narrates. Of the group only the Daughter and Granddaughter are (mostly) ignorant of the mounting bodies. The daughter herself is completely deluded, spending much of the movie pining over her (con artist) suitor, while the granddaughter honestly doesn’t really add or do much, and is strangely absent through most of the carnage.

The Quiet Family was darker and subtle, while Happiness of the Katakuris is downright bizarre and cartoonish. While the former was grim, Katakuris is almost jovial in its nonsense. It’s a more colourful movie, mostly devoid of the horror-like atmosphere of its source material. I suppose the differences are cultural – a lot of South Korean films employ darker humour, while Japanese ones use completely weird and bizarre humour (the musical numbers are a perfect example). Compared to the Quiet Family’s vague ending, the Katakuri’s get a semi-happy one that ties up everything, almost comically so. It's also sort of built up to - the Quiet Family lacked a real climax, while the Katakuris goes full crazy with its one.

It’s a substantially different film to the point where I don’t really know how to compare the two in traditional terms. Sure, they have the same concept and a few similar details, but they’re two exceptionally different takes offering incredibly different experiences. As for which one is better? Depends on what you like I suppose. The Quiet Family is a black comedy shot as a horror film, using dark humour. Katakuris is a bizarre musical comedy that employs a massive amount of absurdity. I can enjoy both, but it really depends on where your sense of humour lies.

The Quiet Family

 

A South Korean black comedy directed by Kim Jee-woon, who also directed I Saw the Devil, A Bittersweet Life and The Good, The Bad, The Weird. It's an entertainingly grim farce, filmed almost like a horror film with a thick streak of dark humour.

A family leaves the city and opens an isolated lodge in the mountains. Named ‘The Misty Inn’, the family works hard and hopes to become successful, but weeks go by without them receiving a single guest. As time goes on the mixture of ongoing failure and desperation starts to turn the family strange.

One night they finally receive a guest. The family all become excited, thinking this is the end of their bad luck. But overnight the guest kills himself with the death looking almost like murder. Not wanting to add bad publicity to their already failing lodge, the family doesn’t report the suicide but instead bury the man in the woods, hoping to forget about it. From then on the lodge starts to receive more guests, most of whom invariably die, causing the family to frantically cover up the evidence. As the film progresses things continue to get darker as the corpses begin to pile up with the lodge receiving visits from sexual predators, undercover policemen and assassins.

It’s a darkly humorous farce, with things continuing to get darker as the family continues to cover up the onslaught of dead bodies.

The characters are all fairly broad strokes, often with a quirk or two. And, strangely, none of them are particularly likeable – you won’t really be rooting for any of them. Most are stubborn or lazy, stupid or aggressive, but maybe that’s the point – they’re normal, fallible people (and a dysfunctional family unit). The focus isn’t really on any one character (though younger sister Mina does narrate at times) so you never get too much of an insight into any of them. The film stars some actors who would go on to become big stars in Korea, including Song Kang-ho (The Host) as the son and Choi Min-sik (Oldboy) as the uncle.

The surly patriarch takes charge quickly and is really freaking eager to bury some bodies. The second they find the first corpse he’s almost instantly prepared with plastic bags and shovels, and after that he practically has his burying equipment on standby. The matriarch is happy to listen to her husband and offers no objections. The uncle is somewhat lazy but seems to have a few more morals than the rest. The son is stupid, spending his time trying to peek in on guests having sex. The two daughters are selfish, lazy and offer no help whatsoever. As a family unit they’re a mess, but covering up murders and burying bodies becomes something that brings them all together. There’s a lot of humour to be had in the simple situation, and the film milks it well.

 

What the film lacks is a traditional plot structure. It doesn't really have a big climax – while the situation builds and gets more bizarre, it never really blows over or has a resolution. The ending is somewhat vague as well, leaving unanswered questions. That being said, as an odd finale it sort of brings events (and the family) full circle.

This is a true black comedy, offering a darkly farcical situation and seeing how grim it can go with it.  There’s a real commitment to the dark humour, as there are no real moments of levity or lighter humour – everything is as dark as it can be. That’s not to say that it isn’t funny – it is, with a lot of humorous misunderstandings (a scene where the son and uncle are chasing leaving guests through the woods to ask them a simple question is made hilarious by the fact that, unwittingly, they’re brandishing hatchets and cleavers). It’s that the commitment to being a black comedy does mean that if you don’t enjoy dark humour you probably won’t get much out of it. It's almost like a horror movie.

As with Kim Jee-woon’s other films, the cinematography is top notch. It’s shot like a horror movie, with a creepy atmosphere in the lodge and the cold woods outside. Most scenes are framed in horror terms, with dark shadows and angles that give things a menacing air which leads to more humour. The choice of music is odd but strangely fitting, keeping with the director’s other works. There's a selection of classical tunes mixed with what sounds like Mexican flavoured hip hop and some Partridge Family songs; it’s an odd mix but it works.

The Quiet Family is an entertaining movie, though it is strange. It’s a dark comedy in every sense of the meaning, and also a sort of weird peek at a dysfunctional family unit that will neither break apart nor change, for better and worse. It’s also a really interesting film to watch in terms of Kim Jee-woon’s career. It’s his first feature film and showcases a lot of the stylistic and cinematic flair and dark humour and themes that have come to characterise his later works.