Emmanuelle 5

Penthouse queen Monique Gabrielle stars in this low budget Andy Sidaris style 'thriller' as an actress lured to some fictional middle eastern kingdom to be a sex toy for its cruel ruler. With that plot line it had exotic (or at least lurid) potential, but the final product lacks the conviction of its cheesy exploitativeness. Even the nude scenes are boring and tame, and the whole thing looks about as authentically middle eastern as a set from Harum Scarum. What make the other Emmanuelle movies appealing is the way they drip with local color and jungly Asian atmosphere, not to mention steamy hothouse sex, and the previous installment (Emmanuelle IV) was still churning this out.

This is yet another series that went on too long. Avoid.

For Monique Gabrielle, "Emmanuelle 5" did not become a long lasting breakthrough, but kept her in business. The story is pretty straight: Emmanuelle is kidnapped by Rajid who locks her up in his harem. Rajid behaves like a dictator and snores: "Women are weak", so he obviously didn't get to know Emmanuelle well enough yet. Friends of Emmanuelle want to rescue her, but wait until plenty of women inside the harem have been filmed long enough ;-).

Director Borowczyk was celebrating the character of Emmanuelle: "She is free, without prejudice, and she has confidence in herself" (quoted from "Cinema" 4/87). And she even gets a machine gun this time which makes confidence easier, I bet... Even though is has very little to do with the original Emmanuelle, Vol.5 is at least fun, moving faster than any other contribution to the series. The scene which sticks to everybody's mind is right at the beginning, when an enthusiastic crowd tears Emmanuelle's clothes off at a film festival, so her only escape is a jump on a yacht whose owner is understandably bewildered. I voted 7/8/6/4/6/7 for the six cinema films of the series.

(Edit 2017) Nine years after my review above, I got a copy of the German version to watch. We are talking about an entirely different movie here compared to the US version. In the German version, which also includes censored remains of a French video version, there is hardly a linear story and the editing is experimental, to put it mildly. I am not surprised that the American distributors decided to shoot additional scenes and re-edit the whole mess to make it more commercial - less art maybe, but a lot more enjoyable.

If your thing is frequent viewing of all varieties of colossal mammillae and the constant fornication the heroine engages in with every Tom, Dick and Harry (and I emphasize Dick.) don't miss this movie!!! If you have an IQ anything above moron, avoid it like the plague. The acting is beyond atrocious . The story line? You mean there was one? This film is such an accumulation of excrement that no professional would review it .All the participants must have used phoney names. If anyone was paid , it was an abomination! To be fair though, Dominique Gabrielle does have one hell of a figure. It is the crime of the century that they made her act.

Let's be honest, one does not watch a movie such as this for the intellectual kind of stimulation. It is softcore porn, and is closer to that genre than film. As such, the acting is near always amateurish and unrealistic; story line ridiculous if even existent; and most importantly, its structure is segregated into sex scenes with filler space between them to fake a movie format. A good softcore movie has many great sex scenes, and somewhat entertaining if imbecile filler space. "Emmanuelle 5" has only 4 sex scenes, mere 2 of which are decent, and 1:40 of BAD filler space. These numbers mean it's poop, don't waste your time.

Emmanuelle 5 (1987)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Emmanuelle (Monique Gabrielle) is at Cannes showing off her latest film, which is bought by an Arab prince. Emmanuelle goes to his small country for the premiere but soon she is held captive by the evil ruler who won't even allow women to show their legs or touch themselves but that's not going to sit well with our star. Apparently there are three versions of this film; the original European version, an American edit and an alternate hardcore version. I watched the American edit, which features some newly shot scenes as well as outtakes from the Euro version. I've never been a huge fan of the director but I might go as far to say this is the most entertaining film I've seen from him. If you've seen any of the Emmenuelle movies, whether the original series or the Black Emanuelle movies, then you know what to expect. Gabrille isn't much of an actress but she does have a great body and shows it off enough to keep the film moving. The supporting cast includes Crofton Hardester and Dana Bruns Westburg but they don't add a whole lot to the film. The biggest problem is the studio subplot dealing with the evil ruler who won't let women be free but of course we all know this movie was made to show women naked so the political message just comes off silly and rather stupid. Apparently fans have called Borowczyk a sell out for doing this film but there's still plenty of "art" here to where he can call it his own. I doubt his die-hard fans are going to give this film too much credit so I'd say those seeking cheap nudity will be the ones to enjoy this the most.