Starring: Janine, Sophia Santi, Charmane Star, Jamie
Huxley, Scott Nails, Marlena, Celeste Star, Sara Stone, Ben English,
Bobbi Blair, Marie Luv, Jerry, Jamie Lynn, Penny Flame, Tall Goddess
Way of the Dragon is an attempt at an almost Andrew Blake style porn
affair by noted porno director Celeste, with an Asiatic theme. Now,
I must say I usually enjoy the Andrew Blake style of Art core
pornography, but am less inclined to the NinnWorks style.
For the uninitiated, unlike your standard porn movie these artcore
features go for a more cinematic style and use lots of slow motion
shots, intentional misframing of the action and basically making it
lot more like 'art' than 'porn'. Like I say, I'm a bit of fan of
this style, but it has to have some kind of base or theme to really
work as shots of random fucking is still just random fucking in slow
motion, soft focus or otherwise. The promise of Japanese style
torture/bondage sex is very, very unfulfilled, and as anyone who's
seen any of that genre they'll understand why it wouldn't work in a
U.S. production. Fans of the Asian style best stick to their
personal favourites and leave this well alone, but everyone else
please read on!
Way of the Dragon has no dialogue, but has very brief vignettes to
set up the action and some nice costuming but it drops the ball when
the action starts, passionless workmanlike fucking is hard to dress
up as anything but what it is, but the Asian gimmick is used
successfully about half the time to enhance the action. The
occasionally scene where the chemistry works elevates the
production, but these are sporadic at best.
The presentation of the action is very nice however, rich colours
and some great detail contribute to a solid HD image that is without
any harsh filters or excessive softening to lose any picture
fidelity, the Penny Flame/Scott Nails scene is marvelous with a
sweating Penny captured in glorious HD.
Audio is technically passably, but the actual music is minimalistic
and highly repetitive, which can grate, the lack of any other audio
is regrettable, in this man's eyes, but it's an obvious stylistic
choice.
Picture: 8/10 - High detail and the lingering slow-motion shots make
for a great picture that has no problems with poor lighting or any
compression.
Sound: 4.5/10 - Hacky, Asian-inspired minimalist soundtrack that
isn't conducive for the use pornography is intended for. Technically
fine however.
The movie opens with a nice little dance by Sophia Santi waving a
samurai sword about while the credits go by, leading into a
girl/girl scene with Sophia Santi and Janine. There's a modicum of
rope bondage around Santi's boobs and they both wear some Japanese
style wrap clothing, which is already pulling a long tooth for the
Asiatic theme. The action purposely slow and attempts to be sensual,
but comes off as half-arsed. There's some chemistry between the two,
but the scene can't decide if it's being teasing and sensual or
explicit and hardcore. Thankfully the scene is very short and
although it is neither here nor there, its not terrible.
5/10
Next scene is a 3 way with Charmaine Star, a lightly tied up Jamie
Huxley and Scott Nails. I thought I accidentally hit the 'skip'
button as this scene is very short and does some nice 69/doggie
positions but it's all over pretty quickly and the result is a bit
of a 'nothing' scene that I be hard pressed to find useful. The
bondage is again hinted at but never used to any ends that affect
the scene.
5.5/10
Sophia Santi returns with Marlena in traditional Asian straw,
conical hats and heels with Marlena in torn red pantyhose for
another slow, but more successfully, sensual scene. Sophia does one
of my least favourite porn moves by sucking on Marlena's strap-on
for a while before Marlena quickly fucks her with it, followed by
some more light dildo play and kissing. Again, another short scene
but it seemed to work better than the first girl/girl scene. 6.5/10
Celeste Star gets the Asian props to seductively play with next,
being a pair of sais that she kisses and moves around her body. I'm
not sure if this martial arts weaponry being used as a sex toy lands
with me, but at least this doesn't look too dangerous. Celeste does
the cool eyed stare wonderfully. Dressed in a see-through tight lace
dress and long red boots all her curves are captured beautifully on
the screen. The posing and body shots continue briefly until she
sits down and does a classic porno/stripper masturbation scene.
Nothing too out of the ordinary, and any Asian theme to the scene
disappeared with the sais a couple of minutes in, but hey, a good
chick wank scene is always welcome in my books.
7/10
Next up we have large breasted Sara Stone with her boobs tied up and
blindfolded with a piece of gauze before Ben English start man
handling her and then gets quickly sucked off before going into some
full steam ahead fucking. Nice action here, the brevity of the
scenes works for this one. The scenes gimmick is that it opens with
Sara bound and wrapped up lying on the floor, the scene cuts back to
this image often to convey the action is in her memory, or
something. It's a nice attempt at adding something to the scene but
the action is pretty rockin in this scene and the gimmick isn't
really necessary. Sara's big tits are nicely shot flailing about as
she gets mercilessly fucked and Ben eventually squirts an ample load
of cum onto Sara's ample boobs. Good scene all round.. but take the
rope out of the scene and there's no sign this was supposed to have
an eastern theme.
7.10
More lesbian action next with Sophia Santi and Bobbi Blair. They've
both got some interesting hairstyles with cloth weaved into plaits,
it's a good look with Bobbi fanning the reclining Sophia dressed in
a wide open Asian style robe. The photography is really nice in this
part of the scene, lots of fan service of Sophia's body and the slow
motion works well. Bobbi gets on her strap-on and Sophia pointlessly
sucks it before she straddles Bobbi for some brief fucking. Some
more dildo play on Bobbi concludes the scene. Nothing extraordinary,
yet again, but a pretty serviceable scene that's nicely shot.
6.5/10
It's about this time that I realised there'd only been on Asian porn
star in this Asian themed porno thus far. I'm not sure if that's
misleading or an intentional quirk, but nonetheless some my find the
lack of Asian girls in this title disappointing. To move onto the
next scene, we find Marie Luv twirling a nice red eastern umbrella
in a blue swimsuit in front of an awaiting Jerry. Some brief
foreplay culminates in a great head job by Marie, which is obviously
one of her porno fortes. She then takes it up the arse while finger
fucking her pussy before being finished off doggie style and Jerry
cumming on her tits. Good pace to this scene, nice stuff.
7.0/10
More solo masturbation next with Jamie Lynn dressed in a kimono and
posing with a ninja sword. Again the weaponry is run along various
parts of Jamie anatomy and I cringed once when it was dragged across
one of her boobs. But the following part of the scene attempted (and
failed) to seductively use chop sticks made me chuckle; so it all
evens out in the end. Average porno wank scene, but nicely shot and
the Asian gimmicks were used pretty well.
7.0/10
Next up we have Penny Flame in a hot and sweaty scene with the amply
penised Scott Nails while a bound up Sophia Santi watches on. Good
chemistry and some rougher action in this scene keeps things
interesting. It provides a nice contrast to the other scenes, but it
feels a bit too late into the movie for such a change in the action.
Still, there's some good hard fucking and Penny's work is great
throughout. I've got a weak spot for legwarmers too and Penny's got
some on in this with makes for an extra enjoyable little scene, from
my perspective. This scene seems a little longer than the others,
maybe because I was paying more attention due to the legwarmer
service, but it still was the high point scene so far as far as
chemistry and good wanton fucking goes.
7.5/10 (8/10 if you're partial to legwarmers)
The final scene begins with Sophia tied up to some form of bamboo
rack and gagged while Tall Goddess begins some light B&D/S&M work.
This mainly consists of some slow motion tit slapping and hard
groping and about half way through the scene it looks like Tall
Goddess has run out of ideas and just repeats the same stuff from
behind Sophia. The chopsticks make an even more ludicrous return in
a true movie highlight where Tall uses them on Sophia's tongue then
licks it like some pink/alive piece of sushi. I don't know if I got
turned on by it, but it was vastly entertaining. Some light frottage
through Sophia's skimpy blue panties ends the scene. Odd, but still
great fun.
8/10
As a movie marketed as an artistic odyssey into Asian bondage and
fetishism Celeste's Way of the Dragon fails pretty dismally. If
you're a fan of the Japanese/Asian style this is based on then this
is like really average re-imagining. But if you want some playful
fucking and are a fan of Sophia Santi, then it's worth a look. The
artcore style isn't overly used to the point where it would alienate
people unaccustomed to it, but the soundtrack isn't helping the
presentation a lot.
However the brevity and sheer number of scenes means you'll probably
find something you like, but unfortunately by the time you're into
it; it'll probably be over.
7.5/10 - Fans of Sophia Santi and those without predilection to Asian
porno will find this enjoyable if a tad undercooked.
Special Features
*
Chapter Index
* Behind the Scenes
* Photo Gallery
* No Regional Coding - Playable Worldwide
* Trailers
* Slide Show
* 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround Sound
* Biographies
* 16 X 9 Widescreen Format
Review courtesy of
www.digitalplayground.com
