Pleasure or Pain
A young designer falls under a man's erotic spell and is drawn into a world of sexual abandon from which she may never return.
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- Cast：
- Malena Morgan , Christos Vasilopoulos , Daniel Sobieray , Kayla Jane , Elle Alexandra , Hayden Hawkens , Aubrey Addams
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Reviews
A different way of telling a story
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
That's for the characters involved of course. The viewer might feel different while watching this. Malena Morgan is a beautiful woman there are no doubts about that. Her acting talents on the other hand may be discussed (or disqualified if you are not enticed one bit by her beauty). And while this is not the best movie ever (it's mostly a build up to sex scenes, though they are all soft core in case you were wondering), this is still way better than 50 Shades of Grey. It may be more a "9 1/2 weeks" rip off, but the way the male is "playing" with our female "hero" can be interpreted into the "50 shades" category.Having said all that and maybe writing too much for a movie, that doesn't have a plot other than the moral message that addiction and overdoing something is bad, the movie will certainly find its audience.
A woman is telling her story on the radio of a marriage that is quite out of the ordinary. This movie plays out as softcore pornography with a gripping story.First of two middle/upper class Californians meet in a store, they have days and days of endless sex before suddenly getting married. He then makes her watch him having sex with other women, and she gets off on him cheating right in front of her face.There are plenty of interesting scenes and plots twists that kept me watching intently for 100 minutes, like the sudden and tragic ending to it all which I wont spoil for anyone.It does raise the question however, what is the point in marriage if its just about sex? I was going to switch off after 15 minutes, as I am not a fan of romantic films, but I'm really really glad I kept watching. It didn't play out to be cheesy, boring and lame.
Directed by Zalman King...who's that you ask? He brought us Two Moon Junction, Wild Orchid, Red Shoe Diaries and assisted Adrian Lyne in making 9,5 weeks. So you get the theme: he's into making erotic films. Pleasure or Pain is his last directorial effort before he croaked (he made it to 69, ain't that fitting). Contrary to his other films this one stars real life pron stars like lava-melting-hot Malena Morgan and also Elle Alexandra, Hayden Hawkens, Kayla Jane and Aubrey Addams. Now you might be thinking this fact would mean that it's a LOT more explicit than say 'Fifty Shades of Grey' but it certainly is not. The sex scenes are pretty short and you hardly see anything like in most other soft-porn movies (to which you could count his previous work I guess). Worst of all is that they aren't very erotic either which should at least be the point of this film but there it falls short. Though she looks gorgeous Malena is not a great actress. Well nobody in this film is. But they're better at other things lucky for them. Overall I found the story pretty boring, slow moving and poorly written as is the dialogue btw. Some credit to the DP who did a fairly good job with the lighting and such but it doesn't matter. This film is hardly worth watching because it is neither a good plot based film nor a good erotic film. Skip it!
Why not just call this movie what it is. Soft-core porn. Like the older 'Emmmanuelle' films of the 70's, the goal isn't to provide insights into the human condition, but to offer sexual-role playing propaganda. Wealthy, dominant, sexually irresistible & handsome male (typically, as in this case, of a euro persuasion), gets to be worshiped by all the attractive, young, but naive,purpose-less women he encounters. There's no sense of reference. Where do these women come from? Who is the guy they all worship and why is he in the social economic class that suggests he can afford anything his fantasies desire? Finally, we've seen the same concept in so many films and stories before and there is nothing that stands out other than sexual content. In other worlds, the plot is predictable and contrived. Without purpose, the movie, at least,shows skin in a very sexy way and for that. it gets a few stars. Maybe we can create a new film class, rated P for 'porn with purpose'.
