Bare Naked Desires (2006) (V)

Director:

J.W. McHausen

Writers:

Henry Rhodes (writer)
Spencer Tomson (writer)

Release Date:

25 September 2006 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Cast

Kaylani Lei	...	Misty
Mercedez	...	Willa (as Nina Mercedez)
Mika Tan	...	Tamiko
Marcus Leland	...	Derek Mason
Joe Souza	...	Derek Mason (as Marcus Leland)
Sean Juergens	...	John
Jasmine Byrne	...	Flower
Gianna Lynn	...	Ginger
Ray Balboa	...	Sunjin
Jack Lawrence	...	Detective Norton
Marianne Kamben	...	Waitress
Martin Chan	...	Joobin
Shoehead	...	Detective #1
Jay Fontaine	...	Detective #2
Beth Ann	...	Dee

Runtime:

USA:98 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

USA:TV-MA

Company:

MRG Entertainment

Mercedez as the bad girl was the highlight of the movie.....A-

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

"Bare Naked Desires" is a rather unusual flick. How so, you ask? Well, on top of the hot women and the great sex scenes, there was a surprisingly good story. I didn't think the plot would be that good, but it really was.

We begin with Misty (Kaylani Lei), a call girl working at a cathouse run by Tamiko (Mika Tan). Tamiko runs her house like a mini-dictatorship, making all the girls follow a strict set of rules: No boyfriends, no orgasms, no taking tips, etc. Misty is the top girl in the house and is making the most money. Tamiko does her best to keep Misty in line, however. "You aren't getting any ideas, are you?" Tamiko asks, sensing Misty may be thinking about starting her own house. Of course Misty denies it, but she really wants more....especially when she finds out the customers are paying $100,000 a year each in membership fees--which the girls don't see a dime of.

After she finds out about this, Misty quits and joins her "friend" Derek (Marcus Leland, aka Matt Dalpiaz) in opening The Red Geisha, a new house. The Red Geisha is the antithesis of Tamiko's house--no tyrannical rules, and the girls have the freedom to do what they want. This entices two more of Tamiko's former girls, Flower (Jasmine Byrne) and Ginger (Gianna Lynn) to join up. So far, so good, right? Well, this isn't sitting too well with Tamiko, who vows to fight back with her hired police contact, Norton. She asks him to send a little message to Misty, which results in the death of Ginger. Of course, that calls for retaliation from Misty. It becomes a nasty gang turf war of sorts, only the gangs are made up of hookers. Go figure.

The wild card in the fight is Willa, played by Nina Mercedez. She's an independent escort, and is the new girl in town. She used to work in Vegas with Misty, and just joined up with Tamiko's house. When she finds out how much cash Tamiko is raking in, she decides she wants a cut, or else tell the other girls how much money they're NOT getting. When Misty quits, Willa proclaims herself the top girl. Willa plays both sides, however, as she shows up on Misty's doorstep, saying she wants to join her. Willa is only out for Willa, as we find out later.

I will say this--the casting was outstanding. A nice mixture of Hispanic and Asian porn stars fill the female roles, something not usually seen in these kinds of flicks. Thumbs up for diversity. Kaylani Lei, who has done a few of these movies before, was pretty good as the protagonist Misty. Jasmine Byrne and Gianna Lynn were okay in their supporting roles as the naive call girls, but the heavy lifting was done by Mika Tan and Nina Mercedez--the "bad girls" of the movie. I haven't seen Mercedez in a hefty role like this in her previous softcore outings, but she was quite impressive. Mika Tan was believable in her role as well. All in all, I thought this film was pretty good. Definitely tapeworthy.

Women: A+ (Way to mix up the casting and use the Hispanic and Asian women exclusively. Usually there's only one of them each in a film. Jasmine and Gianna were fine in their small roles. Mercedez was very good as Willa. She's welcome to do more of these if she likes. Mika Tan was great as the domineering Tamiko. Kaylani Lei was good, but I know she can be great. I've seen it.)

Sex: A- (I would've liked to see a few more sex scenes out from Mercedez, but overall what I saw wasn't bad. It seemed that Gianna and Jasmine were in the film just to have sex scenes with each other.)

Story: A- (A solid story. It had killing, it had a couple of plot twists, and it left enough room for the women to get naked a couple of times each. Can't say anything bad about that.)

Overall: A- (I liked "Bare Naked Desires." It's one of the better flicks to come out of the MRG pipeline in a while. Mercedez surprised me with how good she was as Willa, as did Mika Tan as Tamiko. They showed some genuine acting ability. Not great by any means, but good enough for the genre. Good film overall.)