Asia Carrera was a porn mainstay throughout most of the 90s and early oughts. She was (and is) elegant and sleek yet accessible and engaging, and was recognized as one of the industry's smarties. She was known as a feature performer but was not above some classier gonzos throughout that late VHS/early DVD period.

Carrera is in Hawaii this week with her two tots, and still blogs away on her 90's-era HTML website. She is 36, just a year younger than Lisa Ann, but we get the feeling that the softer, self-admitted "socially phobic" Carrera won't be roaring back to Porn Valley for any MILF movies; she'll just stay on the periphery and acknowledge that we still think of her fondly.

· Asia Carrera's Buttkicking Homepage (asiacarrera.com)
· Asia Carrera on IAFD (IAFD.com)
· Buy Asia Carrera's movies (gamelink.com)

. . .

· Pornstar Asia Carrera (pornhub.com)

. . .

· "spaceship fuck" (Megarotic)

· Asia Carrera (Megarotic)

* * * * *

Previously: Flesh Flicks Archives

Read our review after the gap.

- - -

Flashpoint X

Studio: Wicked, Adam & Eve
Director: Brad Armstrong
Cast: Jenna Jameson, Asia Carrera, Brittany Andrews, Jill Kelly, Johnni Black, Misssy, Sindee Cox, Sydnee Steele

Review by Gram Ponante

We are in a coed firehouse with guys who look like fireman and women who look like Jenna Jameson and Jill Kelly. If director Brad Armstrong had pitched me this movie, I would have stopped him right there and dumped money on him.

After firefighter Robert Dunn is killed in the line of duty in Repo Man-adjacent L.A. we are treated to a blinding array of props, locations, and equipment rentals unprecedented in porn movie history. There are fire trucks, at least ten firefighter uniforms, a cemetery scene, and a helicopter (although that might have been a lucky shot), as well as real fire, which Pirates didn't even have.

Unfortunately there is also dialogue more appropriate to a film with a smaller budget.

At the memorial service: "I want to thank Robert Dunn. And the loss to his family."

At the gravesite: "Let it go."/"This isn't over - not by a long shot!"

In the aftermath: "I keep thinking that I signed on to make my dad happy. He's a 20-year veteran of the f- department."

Don't get me wrong; I love and respect porn as an art form and its historic need to get to the sex by any means necessary. But the promise inherent in a movie about a coed firehouse is almost squandered when smart people are made to say stupid things.

Luckily, back at the firehouse Jill Kelly and Sindee are commiserating with one of their co-workers. He tells them, of course, that if they keep complaining they might as well pack it in. It's tough love. Then they have sex. So powerful is the idea that if a man just comforts a woman in a time of sorrow she will have sex with him - and bring a friend - that I applaud the production for bringing this truth to film.

And then an interesting B story starts to develop about a fireman's secret injuries and painkiller dependence. He will not share the news with Jenna because she already ditched a gimpy fireman and he doesn't want it to happen to him. "The minute I can't carry my load," he tells snoopy Jill Kelly, "I'll pack it in."

It also develops that Jenna leaves injury in her wake; at least two people in her past are revealed to have been killed or handicapped. It compromises her work. Will she get it together by the end of the movie?

About this time we wonder how many more fire-related sex scenes we can have. A likely candidate - the grateful rescue - appears when Asia Carrera's friend almost drowns in their swimming pool. We think it's gonna happen, and then - Nope, the painkiller-addicted firefighter has a sexy dream. When in doubt about where the next sex scene is going to show up in your feature porn script, write a sexy dream. Then nothing has to make sense.

Luckily, two heroic firefighters return poolside to cavort with thankful Carrera and Sydnee Steele. Yet a third plot twist about Jenna's possible involvement in a string of arsons threatens to complicate matters, but then more sex happens.

It is a pleasure to watch such an ambitious project, the glamour project of its time, featuring 1998's A-list porn talent. The dialogue keeps it solidly in the realm of porn movies, but "Flashpoint" is a excellent porn movie.

Now for the extras. "Flashpoint X" comes with three additional DVDs, including all the commentary you would like about this movie, storyboards, and lots of Jenna Jameson. Jameson and Wicked became famous together, so Jenna is all over the extra footage, and Jameson fans probably need no other impetus to purchase this package.

While this was a Wicked movie through and through, co-producing credit goes to Adam & Eve. As they did with Digital Playground's Pirates several years later, Adam & Eve split the bill for this mega-production. Flashpoint is just as good, if not better, than Pirates,and earns extra points for not calling itself "Crackdraft".

· Wicked (wickedpictures.com)
· Buy "Flashpoint X" (cduniverse.com)

* * * * *

Previously: Porn Reviews Archive

This box set of four movies is a hit or miss collection that nevertheless captures Asia Carrera and her generation of porn talent in the crazy late 90's when, coincidentally, Toyota's RAV 4 was first becoming popular.

Carrera shares the long-leggedy exotic look of current stars Tera Patrick and Sophia Santi, but Carrera was a little softer, too, and in several of the movies in this collection she shows off some formidable (considering the competition) acting chops.

Read our review of "Asia Carrera 4 on 1" after the gap. - GP

- - -

Asia Carrera 4 on 1

Studio: VCA
Director: Bud Lee, Henry Pachard, Justin Sterling, Nic Cramer, Wesley Emerson, others
Cast: Asia Carrera, Joel Lawrence, Steve Hatcher, Jonathan Morgan, Gwen Summers, Bridgette Kerkove, Alexandra Silk, Christi Lake, Crystal Gold, Brian Surewood, others

Review by Gram Ponante<<br clear=all>

The first movie, "Hollywood Hookers", is really a Christi Lake movie with an Asia Carrera scene in it. That's OK, because we get to see the sassy Crystal Gold and Lake tooling around in a DeLorean and Brian Surewood before he became a pirate. Carrera's scene amongst the desert rocks is very tasty, but the collection doesn't kick into high gear until ...

... the second movie, "Betrayal". This film, directed by Bud Lee and shot this week exactly ten years ago, is reason enough why Lee, once Carrera's husband, is considered one of the great porn directors. Filmed from a smart and efficient script by Dow Jones and George "Fozzi" Kaplan, "Betrayed" stars Carrera as a woman whose husband won't pay attention to her until she fakes breast cancer.

While it is strange to see what was to become a masturbation scene begin with a breast lump exam, the movie features believable performances from Joel Lawrence (now the owner of Goldstar Modeling, an adult talent agency, and Steve Hatcher, who in this movie looks like Nick Drake, had he lived.

The dialogue is thoughtful ("Maybe I should be sick all the time," Carrera says as she takes advantage of her sickness to lay her girlfriends, the carpenter, and Hatcher's best buddy, played by current Wicked director Jonathan Morgan), and the only thing that took away from an otherwise exemplary porn feature experience was the lite classics soundtrack.

Though possessing a less-tight script than "Betrayal", the final movie of the set, "Asia Is in Too Deep", written and directed by Wesley Emerson, features the best performances and the most eye candy. The only movie of the four with a moral (Be careful what you wish for), "Deep" tackles the issue of husbands wanting to see their wives with other women and what happens when the wives like the other women better.

Featuring juicy performances by Gwen Summers, Allysin Chanes, Bridgette Kerkove, and Ava Vincent, as well as solid acting from Herschel Savage, this movie pushes Asia off to the side a little. By this point in her career, she had developed a strange Gillian Anderson method of elocution that involved a lot of teeth.

Still, though, it was a pleasure watching these features, and there is no doubt why the beautiful Carrera was a star, eclipsing the fame of the Hollywood celeb (Tia) she took her porn name from. Top that, Britney Rears; Carrera is one of the stars in the porn firmament.

Though I enjoyed "Hollywood Hookers", the real gems in this collection are "Betrayal" and "Asia Is in Too Deep". But Carrera is the type of person you could watch fold laundry and it would still be worthwhile.

· Asia Carrera (asiacarrera.com)
· Hustler (hustler.com)
· Buy "Asia Carrera 4 on 1" (gamelink.com)