Sex Around the World: New Zealand Review

Running Time: 85 min.

Production Date: 7 / 22 / 2002

Director: Jon Yuma

Cast: Holly Watters, Jodie Cahill, Savannah, Kay Wolfe, Geneve Wai, Andy Wild, Mike Cahill, Harry Corne, William Money, and Steve Parnell

Initial Expectations: Jon Yuma has impressed me behind the camera in the past. I’m really curious to see what he does here.

Initial Reaction: It tries merging artistic direction with amateur porn with weak results

Who Should Watch It : Anybody who wants to watch first timers with an artistic movie

Who Should Avoid It: Anybody who wants their sex a bit more straightforward

Audio /Video Quality: The audio is okay at best. There are a few background noises, such as the cameraman sniffing, and the actual sex is often a bit on the soft side. The video has a soft feel that approaches film slightly, which I think is deliberate as Jon Yuma has a reputation for being a bit artistic in his approaches. There are also frequent split screen views and a bit of non-anamorphic widescreen which furthers the artistic feel of the scenes. Some color is bleached out in some scenes because a lot of natural light is used, but shadows are rarely a problem.

Music: The music is pretty typical porno music, and it has a balance that’s all over the place.

Menus: The menus are pretty plain. The main menu is unanimated and the chapter menu lets you choose a scene based on a small clip of each scene.

The Feature: Sex Across the World: New Zealand, the first adult movie to be shot in New Zealand, focuses all on amateurs. Everybody here is fucking for their first time on camera. Each scene has a small lead-in that doesn’t really do anything for the scenes one way or the other.

Holly Waters, a cute and bright eyed brunette with a great body and several tattoos, and Andy Wild, an older guy with a shaved head, start things out with Andy apparently trying to sell Holly an apartment. Holly, however, seems to be more interested in what possibilities the apartment offers, and soon drops to her knees to start sucking Andy. She lets Andy tongue and finger her to warm her up before riding him and letting him fuck her from behind. Holly finally finishes things taking an impressive pop from Andy all over her face and tits. It’s an okay scene, but Yuma seemed to be trying to make it much more artistic than it needed to be which interfered with things quite a bit. There were frequent cuts, and you never got to see a decent position change, which I always like to see. Holly looks like she’s into it pretty good, which is always a good thing, but the style really held this scene back.

Kay Wolfe, a cute bleached blonde, and William Money, who looks a lot like your stereotypical young stud, hook up for the next scene. Kay happily lets William explore her nicely natural body with his tongue and fingers before turning serious and sucking his cock. She rides him with both cowgirl styles before letting him bone her from behind. Naturally Kay finishes things with a facial, and seems to enjoy every last drop. Sadly, the great feeling this scene started with withers away a bit as the scene goes on. It felt like it could have used a little tighter editing, and ends up just slightly above average overall.

Heavily tattooed Jodie and Mike Cahill are next, and decided to have sex their own way rather than letting Jon direct them. Jodie gives Mike a bit of a blowjob before letting him fuck her from behind, and then gives him a few more hummers as they proceed through several other positions. Mike gives her a little oral pleasure between positions as well, and finishes things up popping on Jodie’s face and entire front. There’s great chemistry here, but the camera work frequently seemed to be a bit off. I couldn’t help but think that this was due to Mike and Jodie wanting to do things their way, and for one reason or another Jon not being able to get the shots he wanted. Despite some very good chemistry, this one didn’t do much fo anything for me. The shots were often off, there was next to nothing for audio, and they frequently didn’t look like they were enjoying themselves which left me bored with the scene early into it.

Geneve Wai, an average looking Oriental with her hair half dyed red, a few tattoos and piercings, and a great bod, and Steve Parnell get busy in the penultimate scene. Geneve kisses her way down to Steve’s cock to work it over before he returns the favor as she lays back on a four wheeler. They fuck doggie style on the wheeler before spooning on the couch before Geneve gets a pearl necklace to finish things up. This scene didn’t do much at all for me as it had all the chemistry of a bag of potato chips. Geneve and Steve go through the motions just fine, but they all seem completely empty.

Savannah, a kinda cute and tastefully implanted brunette, brings things to a close with Harry Corne after she straightens things up a bit in the adult store Savannah works at. They exchange oral favors nicely before fucking reverse cowgirl, doggie style, and spooning. Of course, Savannah finishes things with a nice facial, and tries gobbling up every last drop as she sucks it afterwards before trying to catch a second pop from Harry. It’s a pretty good scene that lands just above average. Savannah gets into things nicely, and although she doesn’t look to be enjoying herself a lot, you normally don’t seem to see a lot of smiles from first timers as they boink.

Sex Across the World: New Zealand is an okay fuck flick that comes close to meeting what most people expect from amateur porn. The girls vary from below average to pretty good looking, but are heavily tattooed and pierced, while the guys are pretty average looking and amazingly have the ability to pop. Regardless of their looks, they all look like they’re having fun getting their groove on for the camera. The main thing that sets this feature apart from others is Jon Yuma’s direction. I haven’t seen much of Jon’s direction in the past, but what I have has had some nice artistic direction. That hasn’t changed for this feature. As much as I love the care and the thought to try to bring amateur porn up a notch, it seems kind of out of place and gives the feature an odd feel that normally doesn’t quite work for the feature. I think that people expect a fairly basic approach with amateur porn, and you can see some of that throughout the movie. You can tell there are numerous cuts through some of the scenes, where I would figure there were minor problems from first timers trying to get things right. Much of the time I feel like Yuma’s artistic stylings were added here to try to cover some of those problems up, but instead they had the opposite effect. They ended up drawing attention to many of the little problems that might have happened during the scenes, and brought each of the scenes down a notch or two because of it. It’s kind of like trying to make somebody forget they’re getting a Big Mac by surrounding it with a five course meal, a cloth tablecloth, a ton of silverware, and a full wait staff as you eat your meal. No matter how much you polish it, you’re still having a Big Mac, and all the polish only makes it look worse. Sex Across the World: New Zealand has a good start, but it just doesn’t mesh well enough to be really memorable.

Extras: The slide show lasts about a minute and a half with about five seconds per nice looking snapshot or full screen photo. There’s also credits for the DVD.

Themes: Straight and amateur

Raincoat Factor: High

Condom Usage: None

Overall: Currently, most of Nasty Pixxx’s DVDs can be found online for between $8 and $25 with only a couple stores offering them near the low end. I’d suggest renting this one before you’d buy this one despite its low price. The movie tries blending amateur porn with artistic direction without the best results, the transfer is a bit weak, and there’s nothing worth mentioning for extras.

Note to Nasty Pixxx & Jon Yuma: Although I love the idea you tried here, I hope you go for a much more straightforward approach in the future. It’s great that you’re keeping your price down, but a few decent extras would really help out the overall package here.

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