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Together with her useless maid Beth (Zabou), sweet, innocent and
endlessly naive Gwendoline (Tawny Kitaen) has come to the Far East as a
stowaway to find a rare butterfly and name it after her dead father. Soon
enough though she is made prisoner by a bunch of sailors and needs
rescueing from he-man Willard (Brent Huff), who just happens to be around
in search of a quick buck.
Somehow, Gwendoline and Beth manage to trick him into becoming their
guide to the fabled land of Yik Yak, where Gwendoline expects to find the
butterfly in question.
Being only a few feet into the land of Yik Yak, our trio is already
captured by a savage native tribe, the Kiops, who rather naturally want to
sacrifice them. Somehow though our heroes manage to escape and make good
their getaway when they proceed into a desert where the Kiops don't dare
to follow.
Somewhere in the desert, our trio finds the butterfly in question ...
and a secret entrance to the underground empire Pikaho, populated (almost)
solely by females in fetishistic outfits. Now our heroes didn't even want
to enter Pikaho, but before long, Beth is captured by its female guards.
So Gwendoline and Willard have to come to the rescue ... and of course get
captured themselves.
From the queen of Pikaho (Bernadette Lafont), Willard learns his fate:
He is to procreate with the fiercest warrior of the empire (who will have
to fight for him in the arena), then he will be killed. Gwendoline though
learns that D'Arcy (Jean Rougerie), the impotent head scientist (and only
man) of Pikaho is secretly opposing his queen, and plans to make the
volcano on which the empire is built erupt, to get away as sole survivor
with the diamonds of Pikaho ... and with Gwendoline whom he has fallen in
love with.
With the help of Beth though, Gwendoline makes an escape, but dresses
up as one of Pikaho's warriors and fights for the right to have sex with
Willard ... and wouldn't you know it, she wins, too.
But while Gwendoline and Willard are at it (in front of the queen,
actually), Beth finds out that D'Arcy has already set the wheels into
motion to make the volcano break out, so when Gwendoline and Willard reach
their climax, the earth begins to shudder (in the very real sense of the
word), and only thanks to Beth can they make their getaway in the end,
being the only 3 survivors of Pikaho - and Willard has even managed to
bring the butterfly that started it all with him ...
First and foremost, director Just Jaeckin is known for his erotic
dramas like Emmanuelle, Story
of O and Lady Chatterly's Lover, all glossy productions
that gave Jaeckin a certain cult status that is more based on the box
office success of these films than on their quality - actually, despite of
numerous sex-scenes these films take themselves way too seriously and as a
result are rather boring ...
The same however, can not be said about Gwendoline, which is
basically a comic-strip come to life, and not only in the literal sense of
the word.
The film is full of far-out ideas, over-the-top sets, fetishistic
outfits and an anything-goes storyline that is pure comicstrip - and
what's more, the film is loads of (intentional) fun. It's a bit like a
1920's or 30's serial crossed with 1970's or 80's style (s)exploitation
(though the sex is rather tame) and garnered with a bit of fetishism ...
and Tawny Kitaen is immensely cute in this one.
Highest recommendation !!!
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