This is Albertini Bitti's follow-up to "Black Emanuelle" which he made after his star Laura Gemser had moved on to much sleazier pastures with the infamous Joe D'Amto. Bitti went in the exact opposite direction by trying to make a film that resembled the pseudo-classy "official" French Emmanuelle films with Silvia Kristel. Technically though, this is not an Emmanuelle film--its Italian title roughly translates to "The Sensuous World of Emy Wong" and there is no "Emanuelle" to be found anywhere in it--but it was re-titled "Yellow Emanuelle" for its English-language release, which is not only blatantly racist but is also pretty confusing as the Javanese Laura Gemser is every bit as "yellow" (i.e. Asian) as the Chinese star of this one, Chai Li (whose character is named Emy Wong anyway, not Emanuelle").
The movie itself is pretty strange too. Rather than wallowing in sleaze and European-flavored absurdity like the "Black Emanuelle" series it tries to be a serious melodrama, but winds up just as absurd in its own soapy way. An English airline pilot (played by an obviously Italian actor)is mugged in Hong Kong and winds up in the hospital where falls in love with a Chinese female doctor. After she loses her virginity to him, he ends up re-assigned, and though he is supposedly deeply in love with her, he can't seem to be bothered to make a long-distance phone call to Hong Kong. Forlorn, the respected doctor ends up becoming a prostitute! And if all that seems pretty preposterous, just wait until the end which somehow manages to combine the plot of the greatest love story of all time, Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", with the absolute worst, the Ryan O'Neil-Ali McGraw tear-jerker "Love Story".
There's not nearly as much sex as you'd expect from a film with "Emanuelle" in the title, but there are some nice nude scenes from both Lee and from everyone's favorite member of Italian parliament, porn star Ilona "Ciccalona" Staller (she plays a jealous secretary who sabotages the couple's relationship). For me though, that wasn't really enough to paper over the ludicrous premise and the giant cracks in the allegedly serious plot.
The movie itself is pretty strange too. Rather than wallowing in sleaze and European-flavored absurdity like the "Black Emanuelle" series it tries to be a serious melodrama, but winds up just as absurd in its own soapy way. An English airline pilot (played by an obviously Italian actor)is mugged in Hong Kong and winds up in the hospital where falls in love with a Chinese female doctor. After she loses her virginity to him, he ends up re-assigned, and though he is supposedly deeply in love with her, he can't seem to be bothered to make a long-distance phone call to Hong Kong. Forlorn, the respected doctor ends up becoming a prostitute! And if all that seems pretty preposterous, just wait until the end which somehow manages to combine the plot of the greatest love story of all time, Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet", with the absolute worst, the Ryan O'Neil-Ali McGraw tear-jerker "Love Story".
There's not nearly as much sex as you'd expect from a film with "Emanuelle" in the title, but there are some nice nude scenes from both Lee and from everyone's favorite member of Italian parliament, porn star Ilona "Ciccalona" Staller (she plays a jealous secretary who sabotages the couple's relationship). For me though, that wasn't really enough to paper over the ludicrous premise and the giant cracks in the allegedly serious plot.