Emanuelle in Bangkok (1976)
Umbrella DVD (region 4)

d. Joe D’Amato; scr. Maria Pia Fusco; ph. Joe D'Amato; m. Nico Fidenco; ed. Vincenzo Tomassi; cast. Laura Gemser, Gabrielle Tinti, Ely Galleani, Ivan Rassimov, Debra Berger (91 mins)

In the 1970s there was an interesting confluence of factors affecting European erotic cinema, turning it into a dynamic field of sexual adventurism, both enticing and provocative. 

At that time, diminishing censorship regulations and the increasing legitimization of pornography led to increasingly explicit soft-core movies termed “sexploitation”.  The most popular and sophisticated of these was Emmanuelle starring Sylvia Kristel.  Its blend of travelogue and soft-focus sexual spectacle proved an irresistible combination and in its wake followed a number of similar films which merely changed the spelling of the title name to infer different characters.  One such was Black Emanuelle, played by yellow-brown skinned Eurasian beauty Laura Gemser.  After this hit made her a star and sex symbol in Italian popular cinema, Gemser would subsequently play the character in a series of progressively explicit erotic adventures directed by Aristide Massacessi (known also by his regular alias Joe D’Amato) and beginning with Emanuelle in Bangkok.

Massacessi and Gemser would here form a close working relationship, remaining friends for the remainder of their lives.  It is this germ of both a fruitful working collaboration and a rewarding personal relationship that is showcased in Emanuelle in Bangkok. 

The camera here simple relishes Gemser’s perfect physique, following its every touch and motion as she convincingly plays the title character, a photo-journalist sent on an assignment to Bangkok to investigate its erotic underground and archaeology only to be stranded when her passport is stolen.  Massacessi would perfect the plot formula of journeying from location to location in search of sexual adventure and exploring the world’s sex cultures in their most erotic, ambiguous and disturbing facets in Emanuelle Around the World but it is in Emanuelle in Bangkok that he first gets a true feel for the material that would result in one of the finest bodies of work in erotic cinema.  Hence, a directorial search for character, style and sexuality are evident in this film’s skilled craftsmanship.  It’s leisurely paced and playful rather than gripping though: a sexual travelogue through Bangkok showcasing one of the most talented and gorgeous actresses ever to work in the sexploitation field.

Emanuelle in Bangkok is less revealing of Massacessi’s often problematic tendency towards the disturbing moral ambiguities of sexual behaviour in the age of permissiveness than his later erotic films.  Thus, it is less risk-takingly provocative than the embrace of hardcore sexual violence in Emanuelle in America and of graphic cannibal horror in Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals.  As Gemser makes her way through Bangkok’s sex underground, Massacessi explores it with relish, lingering for strip shows, much fondling and tourist-photo type snaps of the pretty locations.  Rich playboys, alluringly beautiful women and nude dancing concern Massacessi here more than plot details, which are all but forgotten in the film’s first half.  With a rock score nicely evocative of dreamy sexual aspiration, Emanuelle in Bangkok is erotic escapism at its most beguiling.  Later films would put the title character in terrible sexual peril, but here Massacessi is keen to establish Gemser as a modern, liberated woman.  Indeed, Emanuelle in Bangkok is remarkable in its ability to combine the sexploitation film’s emphasis on revealing (or exploiting?) female sexuality with the ethos of the then-burgeoning feminist movement.

The exciting travelogue nature of Emanuelle in Bangkok allows director Massacessi to explore differing cultural manifestations of sex, contrasting Western liberty with Oriental tradition. 

The constant juxtaposition of behavioural codes coalesce in Gemser as a promiscuous career woman who fearlessly seeks out sexual pleasure.  Massacessi delights in these sexual escapades as fulfilling self-expression and it is the erotic film which drew out his finer sensibilities as artist in contrast to most of his comparably hack horror work.  Here, his interest is in the opportunities offered women by sexual emancipation and the sheer spirit of sexual freedom in his films with Gemser is infectiously gleeful.  Although this spirit would reach a dark side in the snuff-film LSD trip experience of Emanuelle in America, wherein Massacessi revealed a cynical and exploitative delight in sadistic voyeurism, Emanuelle in Bangkok is perhaps the most innocent and charming of his films with Gemser, despite a vivid gang rape sequence which suggests the dangerous nature of Eros that would later obsess the director.

The plot here is less than engaging however and it is only in the second half, when Gemser loses her passport and gets embroiled in royal intrigue taking her outside of the city that Massacessi injects any narrative momentum.  As a result, the film is unbalanced, an entertaining try by collaborators as yet unable to work as firm a storytelling grasp into the material as they have an erotic one.  Massacessi and Gemser would strike the perfect balance for the subsequent Emanuelle Around the World; of their films, it is Emanuelle in Bangkok which best encapsulates the freshness and vigour of the character and is full of promise.  Indeed, Gemser is a mature, sexy woman who expresses her gender’s hard-won sexual freedom with unrestrained pleasure and Massacessi delightfully establishes her as a feminist heroine who can bed any man she wishes, has a dynamic career which takes her around the world and leads the exciting life of her choice regardless of often morally ambiguous consequences. 

The result is a delightful erotic adventure, making it easy to see how Gemser found an enduring cult. 

The DVD transfer here is vibrant, capturing vivid location work, stylized editing and gleeful sense of set decoration that proliferated in the Black Emanuelle films; and in original widescreen fully demonstrates Massacessi’s fine compositional sense, at its best in the zesty turn-on of erotic scenes more playful than lurid.  Although there are no special features other than a trailer, Emanuelle in Bangkok is well worth a look.  If you are interested in the field of European erotic cinema, this is an entertaining film to sample although not as effective or vibrantly provocative at globe-trotting sex fantasy as is Emanuelle Around the World (released simultaneously also through Umbrella DVD in their continuing attention to 1970s erotica).  Still, from sex scenes in an opium den to Asian strippers dancing with ping pong balls between their legs, this was once pioneering escapist erotica, bringing to the sex film travelogue the intent often found in the Italian “mondo” movies made around the same time in such as Shocking Asia.

Fans of Laura Gemser should be aware of another concurrent Umbrella DVD release – Private Collections.