Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak, The
Entry updated 2 September 2024. Tagged: Film.
French film (1984; vt Gwendoline). Parafrance Films. Written and directed by Just Jaeckin, based on the Comic The Adventures of Sweet Gwendoline by John Willie. Cast includes Brent Huff, Tawny Kitaen, Bernadette Lafont, Jean Rougerie and Zabou. 106 minutes, cut to 87 minutes for US release. Colour.
Mercenary Willard (Huff) rescues Gwendoline (Kitaen) and her maid Beth (Zabou) from Slave traders at a Chinese port. Gwendoline bribes Willard to take them to the land of the Yik-Yak, where she is searching for a rare butterfly on whose existence her father has staked his professional reputation. After an encounter with a cannibal tribe, they find the butterfly but Beth is kidnapped before they can capture it. Gwendoline and Willard follow her captors into an Underground lair, which turns out to be the supposedly legendary lost City of Pikaho, a diamond mining centre swallowed by an erupting volcano in the twelfth century. Shortly afterwards the entire male population was killed by disease, leaving the city to be populated entirely by women, many of whom are enslaved and forced to run the city's machinery. Combats between the women give the victor the right to mate with any captured men in order to ensure the city's survival. Gwendoline disguises herself as a warrior, and wins the battle and the right to mate with Willard, who has also been taken prisoner by the Queen (Lafont). After Beth is rescued by Gwendoline, she teams up with the queen's henchman D'Arcy (Rougerie) to escape, which they are able to do when he activates the volcano while the queen watches Gwendoline and Willard mating. The entire city is destroyed, with only Gwendoline, Willard and Beth escaping. They capture the butterfly.
This adaptation of John Willie's notorious comic from the director of Emmanuelle and The Story of O has two good elements: French New Wave veteran Lafont clearly enjoying hamming it up as the Queen, and the production design of Pikaho by Belgian comic book artist François Schuiten. Otherwise it is an excuse to show as much flesh as possible, with pretty but bland leads, poor dialogue and fairly inept action sequences. The port scenes depict Chinese people as thieves, slave traders and gambling cheats (see Race in SF; Yellow Peril). It was not a box office success and Jaeckin never directed another feature. [CWa]
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