Top 10 Greatest Asian Movie Sex Scenes

What makes a good sex scene? Well, in Asian cinema, what makes a good sex scene – according to this list – is relevance. The purpose isn’t to sexualise some actress but provide vital expressions of character and advancements of plot. But even after all that ranking, weighing and debating, we’d be hard pressed to define exactly what it is that makes a sex scene great. After the team hit the roundtable we found quite the eclectic list ranging a 40 year span of cinematic movie magic. Read below to see our picks and our reasoning behind starting with the number 10 slot:

The love story among a grow up woman and an under aged guy. The movies starts from the moment she is released from jail, and follows the next steps of the love, and sex, affair. I only wish that Lifetime movies dealing with forbidden sex were this insightful and stimulating, but that would be like wishing for Hollywood to stop remaking Asian films. It centers on the progress of that relationship from a sexual-oriented love affair to a love relationship.It has entertaining sex scenes and enough emotion to land on the list.

I knew I had to watch this movie alone since it is probably laden with sex and violence. The latter is true, the former not quite true since there is probably only two of such scenes, one not so obvious, one very obvious. The sex scene was nothing much until you finished watching the movie, then in retrospect that very scene made me feel sick to the core. In most cases this would be bad, but the movie unravels in such an amazing fashion, it just makes the film that much better.

Yellow Hair tells the story of two “lost” young girls with yellow and orange hair who are looking for love.  There are some longer erotic scenes, especially at the beginning, but they only show the greed for tenderness of these outsiders. If you want to see something about human beings who find no real place in a cold city-world, this is for you. Of course these human beings are sexy young females, but they are no sexual objects for the camera. This is not about the joy of sex, this is a very sad story with a consequent and artistically satisfying ending. Certainly its infinitely better than most of the American and Euro crap that shows up late on Friday and Saturday nights on stations like Cinemax on their “adult” movie blocks.

During the sex scenes I was holding my breath. Lee’s slow burn toward these instant classic scenes was like foreplay leading to an explosive climax. Lee’s themes of repression and double lives continue in Lust Caution. I think this is a very personal film for Ang Lee – betraying his private thoughts on his homeland, on sexuality, on truth, on love. I felt like these sex scenes really brought out the lust in the characters. This was especially true for Tony Leung’s character, whom many viewers seemed to feel was underdeveloped and one dimensional. The real meat of the film, however, was within Ang Lee’s direction, Tang’s acting, and of course, the intense sex scenes that powerfully depicted lust, no holds barred, with anger, frustration, hate, and all the other negative emotions associated with it.

Spring, Summer, Winter, Autumn …and Spring is something of a self conscious art-house film. Possibly Kim Ki-duk is trying to work off his reputation for making movies replete with violent sexual imagery, but he’s not fooling anyone. Once again the calm and the silence of the Korean director are back: a “holy man” and his pupil live completely isolated, far from modern world, and we’ll see how that child becomes a teenager, discovers love, sex, but I like the way the movie shows how love makes one to be blind and to betray his principles. I look at it as a different approach to the story with all kinds of messages that emphasize the importance of spirituality and the dangers of lust and sexual obsession.

The story is a tale from the late 1940s/early ’50s when Chinese were first allowed to bring their wives to the United States after being barred from doing so for years and years. At times you feel like a voyeur, looking in on this couple and wondering what will happen next to them. For the chinese in this film; mostly men, as they have moved to New york to send back money to china, a woman is seen as a much needed asset, an asset that enables the continuing of their culture and their family in their new found land. the woman, has this pressure put upon her and so does the man, ben loi, the man impotent, and the woman cuckolds him to make the rest of the family happy, This film is a great insight into the Chinese and the idea of an alien in a foreign country, both with ben loi going back to china to marry and his wife to be coming over to America. The intimacy only adds to the film.

Kurosawa’s Rinko is still quite sexy, and becomes more so as the film progresses, partially because of her behavior and partially because of a subtle physical transformation she undergoes.  What makes the film so controversial, aside from its somewhat twisted sex scenes (which are primarily masturbatory), is that the positive character developments are through Sadean, non-consensual, felonious actions including or bordering on rape, murder, blackmail, false imprisonment, and so on. This isn’t a film for the weak of heart, or for anyone who dislikes gray morality. Far more linear than some of Tsukamoto’s previous efforts, there’s still plenty of hallucinatory imagery to comprehend, most memorably the sex show dream sequence accenting the themes of voyeurism and the contrast of viewing the organic through circles. Although the themes are sexual in nature the film never feels like exploitation.

It’s rare that movies with a sexual component are both interesting on the human level and interesting on the sexual level. Most directors seem to crank out indifferent stories that are merely excuses for bad soft core sex. Scorpio Nights on the other hand is completely different as it has hot encounters but more importantly people you care about. Best of all its not sexy because its sex, its sexy because its two real characters who we know and understand.  There’s a moment where the woman looks up at the ceiling with desire, yearning for her lover, he sees this and pushes his fingers through the holes in the boards. She then reaches for his fingers with an almost unearthly hunger…so he opens up a small door in the floor and extends his arm… Who needs graphic sex?

Truly romantic films are so rare these days, while films that include plenty of sex and nudity (which are often portrayed in a smutty and gratuitous manner) abound. Almost everything is hinted at here, requiring a high degree of concentration from the viewer if they are to be rewarded with any kind of insight into the both the sexual and sociological elements with which the protagonists struggle and the irretrievable sense of loss that is the reward of those who lack the strength and courage of their emotions.  A love can exist without sex of course, but this couple gives us the impression that they only don’t have sex, not because they actually want a relationship like that and are satisfied with intimate sharing of thoughts and moments, but as if they are only forcing themselves to refuse it in order to despise the unfaithful couple.  It’s not the mechanic of sex, it’s the mechanic of desire and dream. The sex we do see in the film only adds to the overall power of this truely remarkable film.

The 70′s were the decade where the boundaries of screen sex were repeatedly stretched. In fact, if you see an uncut version of this film, you are in essence watching pornography. That is, you are watching incredibly graphic sexual content that simply would not be allowed in an American film. The characters are so self-destructive and dangerous that the sex (one of the most inherent of all human practices) becomes an expression of their inhumanity. This is not easy stuff. Is the sex meant to cause arousal? Sada looks sultry during the sex scenes – the pouting lips and dangling hair make it look attractive. Indeed, would there be any point in depicting it graphically if was meant to be dull? Nobody likes dry sex. On the other hand, neither does it play like a porno movie. The sex is intense rather than intimate, and often has disturbing undertones. Various onlookers who witness the couple’s performance remain unconcerned at the sight of it. The sex therefore arouses the viewers’ senses rather than the libido. This makes it a very sophisticated film indeed. This is art, and the true essence of adding sexual scenes in nature to heighten a film to the next level.

Agree? Disagree? Feel like we missed an important film? Let us know in the comment section below!