Sex Down Under

Here's a review by an old friend of The Mission.

FELICITY

• RELEASE DATE: Available March 29th on Blu-ray
• WRITTEN BY: Diane Lamond, John D. Lamond
• DIRECTED BY: John D. Lamond
• STARRING: Glory Annen, Chris Milne, Joni Flynn

 Today we turn our gaze upon a sheltered young woman finding her way far away from home in the big city as she attends a prestigious university and discovers all the laughs and tears that life has to offer. What’s that? I’m not reviewing beloved J. J. Abrams series FELICITY? This is an Australian erotic flick that would be right at home playing on 42nd street in the grindhouse era? Thank Dagon. I hated that dog’s arse of a series, but I love nakey flesh which apparently this flick has in spades, so let’s hop into the sack with FELICITY!

 Felicity (Annen) spends her days as a student in a draconian monastery; a dire existence made a bit better by near constant soapy hot showers, leering at her naked friends, and much Vaseline-lensed strippery. One fine day a letter from her sister arrives beckoning her to Hong Kong; and one ultra-horny plane ride later she arrives.   Before long she is on a non-stop erotic tour of the exotic locale courtesy of her guide Me-Ling (Flynn), a woman who is about as Chinese a plate of Bratwurst. Constant nudity ensues.

 More a series of sexy vignettes than an actual narrative, FELICITY is never the less an engaging flick. It’s gorgeously shot, and well-acted to boot, but its main drawback, for me at least, is that it’s basically a soft-core porn flick, and I’ve never understood the point of those. I mean, if you are in the market for that kind of “entertainment”, why not just go all in and travel the hardcore highway? But that’s all subjective of course.

 Now that we’ve seen what the feature has to offer let’s lay bare the extras included with this hot tamale! I have to just come right out and say it; Severin really loves their customer base like no other! Seriously, the bonus content on here goes above and beyond; you get a commentary for FELICITY, two additional full-length flesh flicks from die-rector Lamond (both with commentary tracks as well), ABC’S OF LOVE AND SEX…AUSTRALIA STYLE (a porntastic documentary that runs through the alphabet of carnal delights), and AUSTRALIA AFTER DARK (a mondo style documentary of all that was wicked and wild in Australia four decades ago).  Rounding out the package are outtakes concerning the work of Lamond from the documentary NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD, and some trailers.

 In short, if you dig on other exploitation erotica of the time period such as Jaeckin’s EMMANUELLE or STORY OF “O”, then FELICITY (especially this edition of it) will be a worthy flick for you.

Daniel XIII