David Aaron Clark’s “Legend of the Oriental Luv Motel!”

July 19, 2007
GPONATE2

"All Oriental women are odalisks," David Aaron Clark quotes Flaubert in the opening of his "Legend of the Oriental Luv Motel". Odalisk is a Turkish word, referring to the girls that weren't yet refined enough to be in the sultan's harem. The French later added their refinements to the word and it has since become synonymous with a lounging, long-ribbed sybarite, but Clark revels in the first meaning.

Regardless of how Clark feels about their station, however, the women are in control in this movie. Read our review after the gap.

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Legend of the Oriental Luv Motel!

Studio: Madness Pictures
Director: David Aaron Clark
Cast: Mae Yung, Lucy Lee, Sin Nye Lang, Kylie Ray

Review by Gram Ponante

Clark describes this work, shot over three years from 2002 to 2004, as "horribly artsy and self-conscious", even "grandiose", but his proactive acceptance of the most likely criticism dovetails nicely with the subject of this film, Clark himself, playing a character named Mr. Hentai who rents prostitutes at a Ventura Blvd. motel whose name he can't reveal due to the "dire consequences for myself and others."

It is my impression that in recent years frat and corporate culture has made the taking of prostitutes cool. Clark does not live in that world. His Mr. Hentai is both imperious and submissive; the only power he has over these ladies is what's in his wallet.

And this makes watching this movie both creepy and intriguing, because it gets to one of the many hearts of the sex-for-cash experience; it's not really about the girl.

He seemed okay down at the bar, so I went to his room when he offered to pay. Then he asked me to put on the dress.

Mae Yung (or Young, depending on which of the credits you put your round-eye faith in), admires herself in a mirror. She is wearing a dress the title card tells us she was directed to put on, and her slack look puts us in the frame of mind of hookers, a canvas mostly finished but who require just our input to make them "perfect".

Clark's love of Asian women, the more off-the-boat-seeming the better, often translates into our love for them, too. This first scene is a point of view (POV) scene, so we know Miss Mae is particularly here for Clark's benefit. It is his challenge to make us like his new girlfriend because it's his show - she, for one, doesn't look at all comfortable in the silk dress and high heels he's got her up in.

It does not seem the exchange goes well. The load delivered is not substantive. Then the title card puts Clark's words in her mouth. "I never saw him again. But he took the dress with him."

A pre-boob job Lucy Lee is next, poring over a querulous volume of forgotten lore and absently touching herself in the process.

Clark actually appears in this scene, and it is a triumph. He looks like a portly Cenobite, and he should be the poster-being for all those who claim to be sex-positive, since the meaning of sex positive has lately morphed into late-nite Cinemax. He does not look Porn at all, just a little dangerous, and of a Los Angeles that probably never existed (and it's sad that it didn't).

Clark is saying things to Lee as he fondles her. He is saying something about her smoking, but the sound is so bad the words get lost. It doesn't matter. Their exchange is as real as it gets, and the reality depicted is the satisfaction of commerce.

Finally, bachelorette number 3, Sin Nye Lang, arrives. "What would you like me to do for you today?" she asks.

"You're such a beautiful young woman," Clark says. "But you probably hear that all the time."

"Yes," she says, "but it's never enough."

"It never is enough for your type, is it?" he replies, and this gets a laugh out of her. This is short-lived, as she later plays at his cock with a straight razor.

A bonus scene features Kylie Ray in her first porn outing. The vignette begins outside, so already it is of a different mood than the others. But it is, again, a hooker scenario and Ray is a little more vivacious and accessible than her predecessors.

This movie is a series of scenes shot over several years, no real flow between them, but they do paint a vivid picture of Clark and what he likes, and who he is. It is fair to say there are people like him who don't have the guts to assert themselves, or at least to wear that leather trenchcoat in the Porn Valley heat.