The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak

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Starring Tawny Kitaen, Brent Huff, Zabou Breitman, Bernadette Lafont, Jean Rougerie
Directed by Just Jaeckin
Produced by Jean-Claude Fleury
Distributed by Image Entertainment Inc
Released 1984
IMDB Info 0087903 on IMDb
Buy it from Amazon.com on VHS

The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak (original title Gwendoline) is a Film released in 1984, directed by Just Jaeckin. Gwendoline (Tawny Kitaen), accompanied by a soldier of fortune, Willard, and her French maid, journeys deep into the jungle and desert to capture a butterfly that has eluded her late father's scientific quest. They eventually discover the lost underground realm of the Yik-Yak, an all-female society ruled by a queen who plans to kill Willard after he mates with a female gladiator champion.

The film is loosely based on the bondage-themed comic book of John Willie and on the figure of Sweet Gwendoline. François Schuiten worked as a graphic designer for the movie.

IMDB Reviews

  • frankfob 3/6/2003

A beautiful woman hires an intrepid adventurer to help find her father, who has disappeared in the jungle while searching for a rare and priceless butterfly. Along the way they run into cannibals, a race of Amazon warriors and all the usual attractions one would expect to find in a lost jungle. That's pretty much all you have to know of the plot, which is mainly an excuse to show off scads of beautiful naked women, gorgeous Filipino scenery, some almost competent action scenes, and Tawny Kitaen. That about covers it. Director Just Jaeckin apparently put a fair chunk of the tons of money he made off his "Emanuelle" movies into this one, and it shows; the film doesn't look cheap, at least, and Jaeckin's photography shows off the film's best assets--including Tawny Kitaen's--to their best advantage. Go at it with the right attitude and this film can be a lot of fun.

  • rosscinema - 4/14/2004

This film has grown into a real cult classic and one of the reasons is the difficulty finding a copy to view. Story is about a young and beautiful damsel in distress named Gwendoline (Tawny Kitaen) who along with her maid Beth (Zabou) ships herself in a crate to China in search of her Professor father who has disappeared. She gets into trouble with the local Chinese mafia but is saved by the sweaty sailor named Willard (Brent Huff) and she convinces him with $2,000 to help her find her father who was last scene going to the legendary land of "Yik-Yak" chasing after a rare black butterfly.

Gwendoline learns that her father was killed but she is determined to find the butterfly which she wants to name after him. The three of them travel by boat and after encountering pirates they head down river and end up hacking their way through a jungle on foot and finally they are forced to trek through the desert. They are almost killed by some natives but escape and reach "Yik-Yak" but find an underground civilization run by Amazonian women in leather. They get caught and the Queen (Bernadette Lafont) has plans for them which will result in their deaths so they must figure out how they can escape.

This film was written and directed by Just Jaeckin who was also responsible for the first "Emmanuelle" film and "The Story of O" and here he creates one of the cheesiest adventure films ever and it's loaded with images of B&D. This is based on the illustrated stories by John Willie in the 1940's and that also had Gwendoline frequently being tied up. Those of you into the B&D scene will especially enjoy the chariot scene where they are being pulled by topless female slaves adorned with leather! Part of this film was made in the Philippines and maybe Morocco but the scenes that are suppose to be China are easily shot on a soundstage. This film presents the worst job of dubbing since those "Godzilla" movies came out in the 50's and 60's. Most of the time their mouths are saying one thing but the words being spoken don't match. There isn't much acting going on and Huff sweats continuously from his appearance until the very end. In fact, all the actors sweat through this film and I'm sure they could all tell stories about the horrid working conditions. As much as I love Kitaen (And I do) she isn't given much to do here except find herself in various states of being topless (Thank you God!) but from an exploitation level this is part of the charm of this low budget and sleazy film. At one point in the film it starts to rain and Huff yells "It's raining, take your clothes off". Is this terrible? Of course. Is it watchable? Yep, And for the reasons I just mentioned and one can't help but be fascinated by something like this. If your into cheesy exploitation films than you probably already know about this cult classic.


External link

See also Sweet Gwendoline

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