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Released by: Vinegar Sydrome
Released on: March 28th, 2017.
Director: Paul Aratow
Cast: Pamela Yen, Annette Haven, James Hong, Tom Douglass, Barry Vane
Year: 1975
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The Movie:
Written and produced by Edwin and Summer Brown and directed by Paul Aratow, 1975's China Girl stars Annette Haven stars as a sexy biochemist named Teresa Hardgrave who works alongside a Dr. Olinski. Early in the film she's asked to work alongside a secret agent named David Chase (Tom Douglass) in hopes that she'll be able to help him get the inside scoop on a mysterious and clandestine organization named Dragon! They'll get to that, but not before they fall for one another and enjoy some passionate bumping and grinding.
Getting back to the story at hand, Dragon, led by Y.C. Chan (James Hong), has a plan to take over the world using sex! We witness this first hand when Dragon agent Madme Woo (Pamela Yen) has a trio of her most alluring female agents take on the lucky/unlucky Olinski in a sex dungeon in the basement of their headquarters. This guy has been injected with a serum that will allow him to enjoy sex but never finish, thus driving him insane! Thanks take an interesting twist when Teresa gets kidnapped by Dragon - it turns out that they want access to a truth serum that she was working on - and is then subjected to a similar punishment with those same three ladies. Woo is amazed when she sees Teresa climax, and then sends in three guys for a second round. Of course, Chase is on the movie
Weird animated opening and closing credits bookend this early starring role for the lovely and talented Ms. Haven. The plot takes a lot of cues from various spy capers and secret agent movies of the sixties and seventies - if you think of this as a low budget XXX Bond film you wouldn't be too far off. No one involved in plotting the thing seems to have been in the least bit concerned with plausibility but it doesn't matter much, it's a fun watch.
The whole thing really is a showcase for Haven. This was one of her first starring roles and Aratow is savvy enough to make the most of her considerable charm and screen presence. While the choice to shave off her eyebrows and draw on new ones is kind of odd, she's otherwise in very fine form here. The camera loves her and she has a lean, lithe sexuality to her that's impressive when put into action. She's also a very solid actress. Granted, this picture doesn't necessarily ask a whole lot of her in terms of character development or serious dramatic turning, but she handles herself just as well clothed as she does when boffing away in her birthday suit. Add to that the screen presence of the inimitable James Hong (in a non-sex role), cast here as the diabolical head of Dragon, and the lovely Pamela Yen as his right hand woman and the picture scores high marks in this regard.
The pacing of the film is decent. Some may be a bit puzzled that the first sex scene doesn't happen until almost a half hour into the film but the events leading up to it hold our interest. There's good camera work here and some nice location photography that takes advantage of some interesting interior and exterior locales. This all works fairly well. It would seem to have been made on a modest budget but it's a fun watch and steamy enough to hold your attention with no trouble (particularly if you're an Annette Haven fan).
Video/Audio/Extras:
China Girl arrives on Blu-ray on a 25GB disc framed at 1.85.1 widescreen in an AVC encoded 1080 transfer taken from a new 2k scan of the film's original 16mm negative. Although the film is naturally grainy in the way that 16mm transfers tend to be, there's very little actual print damage here and the picture quality is impressive. Detail is solid, skin tones look nice natural and there's a good amount of depth and texture to the image. At the same time, this is nice and film-like, never showing any problems with noise reduction or sharpening and remaining free of any obvious compression artifacts.
The only audio option for the film is the original English language Mono track, presented in DTS-HD format. There are some scenes where the audio sounds a little flat but this would appear to be the way that the audio was recorded rather than an issue with the Blu-ray. Either way, there aren't any problems here. The dialogue is clean and clear and easy enough to follow, the levels are reasonably well balanced and any hiss that pops up into the mix is minor and easy to look past.
The main extra on the disc is an audio interview with none other than the film's leading lady, Annette Haven, conducted by Kevin Heffernan. Clocking in at just under forty-minutes, this was clearly recorded via skype and so the audio quality isn't so hot, but the content is pretty great. Here Haven talks about how she got her start in the adult film business, what she tried to bring to some of her performances and more. She also talks about some of the people that she's worked with over the years, including director Paul Aratow, before then going on to share some specific memories from China Girl's shoot and some thoughts on the film itself. Interesting stuff.
Aside from that we get the film's original theatrical trailer, menus and chapter selection. As this is a combo pack release a DVD version of the movie is also included and Vinegar Syndrome have packaged this release with some slick reversible cover art allowing you to display your choice of two different images.
The Final Word:
Vinegar Syndrome's Blu-ray release of China Girl is a good one, presenting the film in very nice shape and highlighted by an interesting audio interview with the picture's leading lady. The movie itself is pretty entertaining and it serves as a great showcase for Annette Haven.
Click on the image below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
