How Hong Kong’s Category III adult film industry is laid bare in 2 films that offer a different perspective

Viva Erotica (1996) depicts life behind the scenes of the city’s once-famed adult movie industry, offering insight into the nature of artistic compromise

Vulgaria (2012) is a hilariously crude and ironic look at directors and producers labouring in the lower echelons of Hong Kong filmmaking

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Shu Qi in a still from Viva Erotica. The 1996 satirical movie depicts life behind the scenes of Hong Kong’s once-famed Category III adult movie industry. Photo: SCMP

Published: 7:15pm, 14 Apr 2024

Hong Kong’s often crazy adult films provide much raw material for satire. Here we look at two very different feature films that lift the lid on the city’s Category III scene.

1. Viva Erotica (1996)

Viva Erotica depicts life behind the scenes of Hong Kong’s once-famed Category III adult movie industry, which was fading when the film was made in 1996.

Directed by Derek Yee Tung-sing, one of Hong Kong’s most respected directors, the film is a clever light drama that offers insight into the nature of artistic compromise, the differences of perception between producers, directors and investors, and the daily life of Hong Kong’s low-budget filmmakers in the 1990s.

Along with big names like Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing and Karen Mok Man-wai, the cast featured Tsui Kam-kong, a burly actor who had appeared in a range of sex films such as Ancient Chinese Whorehouse; and Shu Qi, who had made her name as a sex symbol a year earlier in the erotic comedy Sex and Zen 2 and was in the process of transitioning into the role of a regular actress.

A racy drama like Viva Erotica – which was bluntly titled Sexy Men and Women in Chinese – was an unexpected offering from Yee, a former Shaw Brothers acting star who had made his name as a director with the sensitive commercial romantic drama C’est La Vie, Mon Cheri in 1993.

Yee was inspired to make the film after talking to his friend, fellow director Bosco Lam Hing-lung, who had made five sexy Category III films for super-producer Wong Jing (including 1994’s A Chinese Torture Chamber Story), but was too embarrassed to mention them to his family.

How Hong Kong’s Category III adult film industry is laid bare in 2 films that offer a different perspective

Viva Erotica (1996) depicts life behind the scenes of the city’s once-famed adult movie industry, offering insight into the nature of artistic compromise Vulgaria (2012) is a hilariously crude and ironic look at directors and producers labouring in the lower echelons of Hong Kong filmmaking

1. Viva Erotica (1996)

Viva Erotica (1996) depicts life behind the scenes of the city’s once-famed adult movie industry, offering insight into the nature of artistic compromise

Vulgaria (2012) is a hilariously crude and ironic look at directors and producers labouring in the lower echelons of Hong Kong filmmaking