Emanuelle in Bangkok (1976)

AKA Black Emanuelle 2

Emanuelle is sent to Bangkok on an assignment to interview and photograph the king.  She is met by a prince, a cousin of the kings who is bizarrely played by a white man. $1000 he can introduce her. Though for him this isn’t enough, he wants to get to know her more. And here begins Emanuelles erotic Thai journey. He wants to show her the Thai ways of pleasure and what better way than to send her to a spa that specialises soapy massages. A true delicacy of Thailand indeed! He assumes that of course she wouldn’t mind another woman rubbing her naked soapy body against hers. And he would somehow guess right. Perhaps he saw the first film or perhaps that’s just the notorious nature of Emanuelle that she is famous for. It certainly wouldn’t be last time we see her enjoying the pleasures of the female flesh.

A typical Thai prince.

One sexcapade leads on to the next and she soon finds her life in danger. Her hotel room has been ransacked and her films and passport have been stolen. The prince was actually trying to overthrow the king. She is told she must leave the country immediately. With no passport she seduces the immigration officer and soon Emanuelle is no longer in Bangkok. This pretty much sums up the first half of the film, in the second she finds herself in Casablanca where she sleeps with many a man and woman.

Emanuelle in Bangkok is the first sequel in the Black Emmanuelle series. Taking inspiration from the French film Emmanuelle this is one of many films that cashed in with the success. The original film itself had a long line of sequels still going today with straight to video titles and even a TV series. There were many unofficial titles, a lot of which avoided legal trouble by simply misspelling the lead characters name. Along with the Black Emanuelle series, we saw Yellow Emanuelle, the British Emmanuelle in Soho and the parody Carry on Emmanuelle.

Bathnight!

Starring the goddess of softcore that is Laura Gemser, the Black Emanuelle series even fell victim to having its own unofficial sequels. Many films staring Gemser were renamed in some regions to appear as part of the series.

This foray to Bangkok is a typical erotic journey of the beautiful woman living the high life, flying first class, staying in luxury suites in exotic locations and floating through the gritty native land like an instagram influencer trying to show how down to earth they are. All whilst sleeping with a bevy of young woman and bizarrely all middle aged, rugged men who no doubt retch of old spice. Journeys such as these could never take place flying economy and staying in Travelodges.

And she does indeed sleep with a lot of people. A surprising amount. And a lot more lesbian encounters then I expected, although a lot of them seem quite short. I wasn’t sure whether this was intentional or just because my DVD appears to highly cut. I watched a UK DVD that has been sitting on my shelf for quite a longtime. Looking at the time listed online and whats on the back of the case it appears 20 minutes is missing. Some of which I won’t miss, apparently there was a rape scene and some animal on animal bloodshed. Though one scene featuring a stripper in a dingy bar cut just as she picked up some ping pong balls. Leaving me left to wonder what on her earth she was going to do with them. Either way it left me wanting a game.

The Bangkok of the title is only relevant for the first half. It would have been nice to explore the seedier side a bit more though she did go to a massage parlour and get cleaned up, though as I stated before this seemed to have been cut short. The Casablanca half doesn’t really offer much in the way of story, but just takes us from one encounter to the next until Emanuelle meets up with boyfriend that we meet in the first half. When they reconnect through the language of coitus and are watched by a female admirer of Emanulles, we discover that he doesn’t take to any of that girl on girl nonsense. They break up and off she trots to the next exotic location.

Airplane WC: That's definitely not economy here.

The film is directed by Joe D’Amato. No stranger to smut, jumping back and forth both soft and hardcore throughout his career. He worked with Gemser on many occasions after this, including many more of the Black Emanuelle films which progressively tilted towards more violent themes as they went on.

Emanuelle in Bangkok isn’t a standout film in the genre but it isn’t dull either.