Nudity in Film - East Asian Cinema

East Asian Cinema

Full-frontal male nudity (in which genitals are fully revealed) has traditionally been taboo in cinema from East Asia (and for actors of East Asian origin living outside East Asia), in sharp contrast to the situation in mainland Europe, but similar to the US. A rare example of a challenge to this taboo occurred in Japan in 1976, with explicit sexual scenes featuring Tatsuya Fuji in the historical story In the Realm of the Senses. However, the unexpurgated version of the film has never been shown in Japan, and the film negatives had to be secretly shipped out of the country to France for developing.

However, a number of films from the early 1990s onwards have begun to lift this taboo. Among them are: the notable frequent full-frontal nudity of Hong Kong Chinese females and the brief but particularly notable full-frontal adult male nudity of a Hong Kong Chinese male actor, Chung Lin, who plays the robot version of Japanese scientist Ryuichi Yamamoto, in the 1991 science fiction/comedy film Robotrix (perhaps the first time in Hong Kong cinema that a Chinese adult male's genitals have been fully revealed on camera in a film on general release), the full-frontal appearance of Hong Kong Chinese actor Michael Lam, who was the lead in Bugis Street (1995), as his clothes and underwear are torn off by his lover, fully exposing his genitals; a variety of East Asian actors in The Pillow Book (1996); of Hong Kong Chinese lead actor Sunny Chan in a bathroom scene as he enters a shower, fully revealing his genitals for a few moments, in Hold You Tight (1997); of mainland China lead actor Liu Ye in Lan Yu (2001), whose genitals are shown as he lies naked on a bed; a variety of East Asian actors in Under One Roof (2002); of French Vietnamese actor Steve Tran whose genitals are shown as he walks naked in a high school locker room in Cold Showers (2005); of Singapore Chinese actor/director Zihan Loo, who removes all his clothes, uncovering his genitals, and while waiting to meet a prostitute, masturbates on camera, eventually revealing his fully erect penis, in Pleasure Factory (2007); a variety of Taiwanese Chinese actors who dare each other to skinnydip in Winds of September (2008), and of lead actor Ron Heung and the Hong Kong National Baseball Team, who are shown naked in City Without Baseball (2008), with their genitals fully revealed on camera. South Korean lead actor Song Kang-ho appears frontally naked in Thirst (2009). Hong Kong Chinese actors Sean Li and Osman Hung appear frontally naked in Permanent Residence (also 2009), as do the lead Hong Kong Chinese actors Byron Pang and Hong Kong half-Chinese/half-British actor Thomas Price in Amphetamine (2010), and the full-frontal nudity of numerous Hong Kong Chinese actors in the film Love Actually... Sucks! (2011), including a scene of masturbation revealing a Chinese young man's fully erect penis. These appearances contrast with those nearer the beginning of the decade: the much briefer nude (side) appearance of young mainland Chinese actor Cui Lin (in which his genitals are shown) at the beginning of the shower scene in Beijing Bicycle (2001), and the brief full-frontal appearance of a Singapore Chinese actor in the film 15 (2003), and of Japanese puppeteer Sota Sakuma, whose body and genitals are fully revealed but shown briefly, in a nude beach scene in EuroTrip (2004), and even the brief frontal view of mainland China lead actor Guo Xiaodong in Summer Palace, later in the decade (2006).

The appearances of mainland Chinese teenage lead actor Xu Dialing in Red Cherry (1995), of Lee Kang-sheng in The Wayward Cloud (2005), of Joseph Chang and Bryant Chang in Eternal Summer (2006), of Korean lead actors Lee Yeong-hoon and Kim Nan-gil in No Regret (also in 2006), of Tony Leung Chiu-Wai in Lust, Caution (2007), and of Qin Hao and Chen Sicheng in Spring Fever (2009), are all described as featuring full-frontal nudity, although no genitals are shown.

Another example of nudity (but with simulated genitals) in East Asian cinema is the Japanese film Hanzo the Razor (1972). It is the first part of a trilogy, depicting Officer Hanzo Itami's foiling of a plot by corrupt officials in Edo period Japan. Simulated male and female genitals are shown in various scenes. There are also scenes showing Hanzo using sexually aggressive tactics in order to extract secrets from women who associated with Hanzo's suspects.