In this day and age of internet-based smut, where any and every means of peversion is available at the click of a mouse, erotic softcore films like 1991's Category III entry Madame Bamboo might seem a bit quaint. Well, that is until you realize that the picture is named for a woman that like to "satisfy" herself with an oversized slightly phallic looking piece of bamboo. And that's not even the strangest bit this movie presents to the viewer.

That part is essayed by a little moppet named Yan. Yan is eight years old, and according to the "book of worldly wisdom", that means he's old enough to have sex. Creeped out yet? If not, you will be after a scene where he is given the details of the facts of life, including the positions he should use on his wedding night. And once that wedding night hits? Well, Yan gets the old-fashioned cuckolding treatment and gets to watch as his wife's cousin comes in to take the bride's womanhood. Pardon me, I just threw up a little in my mouth, and for once, it's not from over-ingesting Jagermeister.

So what does the rest of the plot revolve around? It's your usual period-based naughtiness (not that kind of period -- get your mind out of the gutter) concentrating on two women in a brothel telling the stories of how they got there, which mainly consists of a lot of scenes of people awkwardly thrusting their hips into each other, with their privates strategically covered, while spouting badly-translated dialogue like "it's so cool". Cool? What the hell?

Anyway, there is an audience for this type of smut out there, but really, I haven't been into this sort of stuff since the days of trying to watch the latest episode of Red Shoe Diaries via Scramblevision. If you are a fan of the more tawdry side of Hong Kong Category III films, Madame Bamboo does its' job well enough for what it is -- a cheap excuse to shove lots of T&A into the viewer's ocular orifices. You still might want to have the fast-forward button handy for when young Mr. Yan pops up on the screen, though.

RATING: 5