Red Light Revolution

We’re told Beijing has more sex shops per square kilometre than anywhere else in the world, a fact summed up during the opening minutes of this oddball comedy from Australian writer-director Sam Voutas. ‘Sex, shagging, making love – whatever you want to call it, nobody does it more than us Chinese,’ says quirky lead Shunzi (Zhao Jun, pictured left). ‘1.3 billion – that’s a lot of people getting it on.’ Shunzi plays a podgy, downcast but oddly optimistic fella with little future in sight. When a dodgy entrepreneur suggests he could make a fortune by opening a sex paraphernalia store, the former cabbie jumps at the chance, even if it means alienating some of the more respectable members of his community. Billed as ‘China’s first sex-shop comedy’, this saucy, irreverent underdog tale plays like a Beijing-set ‘Carry On’, with blow-up dolls, wiggling dildos, cheeky snickering and all. It never takes itself too seriously but it’s undeniably amateurish.