Movie review: ‘3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy’

A massive hit when it was released earlier this summer in Hong Kong, “3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy” at least partially passes the truth in advertising test, as this soft-core erotic film designed to be projected in 3-D hurls all manner of objects, fluids and indescribable what-nots toward the screen. (Whether it provides any ecstasy, extreme or otherwise, will be up to the predilections of the individual viewer.)

Now please adjust your irony-meter: “3D Sex and Zen” is not opening, at least initially, as a three-dimensionally projected film in Los Angeles; it’s only playing in regular 2-D. While obviously taking something away from the experience, for better or worse this allows the viewer to focus more on the (ahem) storytelling as a newlywed husband is tempted by a decadent prince and drawn into all manner of debauchery.

It plays more as pretense than plot, since no one, anywhere in the world, really cares about the story of the naughty 3-D film.

Careful not to challenge anyone’s notion of sexual identity, the film comes from a clearly straight male point of view, so that the men are with multiple female partners and there is a bit of lady-on-lady titillation.

For all its sophomoric humor and prim prurience, in the end “3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy” finds it is love, not sex, that rules the human heart, a sweet and conventional idea regardless of the technology of the film’s projection.

“3D Sex and Zen: Extreme Ecstasy.” No MPAA rating. Running time: 1 hour and 53 minutes. At Laemmle’s Playhouse 7, Pasadena; Laemmle’s Monica 4-Plex, Santa Monica.