An English guy named Christopher Hamilton (played with a fake accent yet believable douchiness by Richard Pacheco) lands in a mysterious island, looking for Madame Lau, a woman said to be able to create the ultimate sex experience.

A car awaits for them to take him blindfolded to Madame Lau’s joint, fronted by an oriental furniture store. The blindfold seemed a little unnecessary, but maybe that could be rationalized as a way for people not to notice that Annette Haven — who is not Asian at all — is the one playing Madame Lau. In spite of all of their intention to orientalize her, she still looks like the Annette Haven I know and love. I would normally care about this, but I could watch that woman play anything.

Madame Lau informs Hamilton that it’s traditional to perform a rite, an absolution to purify one’s senses before commencing a pilgrimage. The rite, of course, is quite hard to reject. A naked, oiled up Madame Lau massages him to start things up, and makes you realize immediately why someone would go out of their way so much to meet this person. But a masterful — albeit poorly lit — blowjob aside, this wasn’t Madame Lau’s main skill.

Her real prowess came from being able to recreate every fantasy the other person wanted. The only catch? This fantasy comes with the reality that a specific situation would have. Christopher said he was looking for “perfection.” The representation of which he thought was on this Playboy model featured on a magazine he kept with him. The girl shows up, but she can’t talk; after all, she was just a two dimensional image, and it wouldn’t be realistic otherwise.

Retro Porn Review - The Seven Seductions of Madame Lau

A frustrated Christopher then asked for something “real.” He recalled the famous Behind the Green Door scene and said he wanted to feel how it’d be like to be pleased by five people at the same time. A recreation of the scene then happens, with Johnny Keyes being played by a Madame Lau with a cool afro and in black face (and black vagina, I guess?), who simply dirty talks him to the verge of orgasm while the other four women play with him. Before he could come, Madame Lau orders the women out and finishes him by herself. A producer woke him up at the empty porn set and paid him for his first time on camera as he leaves. Not everything is as special as in the movies.

The film is loosely based on the Charles G. Finney novel Seven Faces of Dr. Lao (but, you know, with a lot more sex) and it focuses on the non-existent “perfection” and unnecessary deviations the mind takes while fantasizing. Madame Lau warned Christopher that the world as he knew it didn’t exist, and he was his own riddle.

The Seven Seductions of Madame Lau also had an uncommon — for porn, anyway — open criticism of the “American way of life” and its misplaced importance on quantity. As Christopher starts understanding the idea, they go through a recount of his important relationships, starting with his first girlfriend. In an interesting twist, Haven also played his virginal first girlfriend (as her normal Caucasian self.) I sort of expected some revelation about this — not to mention an explanation for her Asian transformation — but they just ignored this and moved on.

A great and appreciated outdoor scene (again, the lighting at Madame Lau’s place wasn’t good) showed Christopher with his older mentor, Mrs. Barrington, played by the amazing Georgina Spelvin in all her filthy glory. And the tour of classic porn MILFs continues with Ms. Veronica, the love of his life, played by Kay Parker; who somehow managed not to get even mentioned till the last few minutes of the movie. To be honest, the story had a pretty good pace and looked like it could have had a more promising final 10 or 15 minutes.

The acting is mostly good, as is usually the case with Haven’s movies, and the role players were pretty reliable. The soundtrack is also excellent, with a couple of really good original songs, based on jazzy numbers and slow funk and R&B grooves.

And sure, I see the irony that “playing with illusions of light” is also what we’re doing while we watch this film. But as Madame Lau taught us, the quantity of gratification is not important. I’m just happy I get to watch Annette Haven in action.

One Comment

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