[McCrutchy]

I watched all four parts and the documentary The Emmanuelle Effect today, saving the director's cut for tomorrow.

First of all, all four films, including both cuts of Emmanuelle, have English subtitles. A big thank you to Koch Films for going to this trouble, especially since their main market is German Europe. To that end, I must point out that I'm not qualified in German in any capacity, so all of the German options went untested by me. I watched all four films in French and this is what the English subtitles are timed to.

For the theatrical cut of Emmanuelle, this appears to be the same master that StudioCanal has put out several times. On my Optimum UK BD, there are frame skips at 55 minutes and 69 minutes that are also present on the Koch BD. However, the English subtitles on the Koch are bigger and I prefer them to the StudioCanal ones.

Unfortunately, I can't comment much on Emmanuelle l'antivierge and Good-bye, Emmanuelle, because I haven't seen the previously released StudioCanal discs. However, the presentations look fine overall, though I noticed some strange colored strobing during the opening and closing credits of Good-bye, Emmanuelle. I don't know if they were optically printed incorrectly or if this effect was accidentally introduced when the HD master was prepared, but I lean more towards it being an inherited problem. Hopefully, it will be fixed and the credits sequences rebuilt if and when the film is remastered in 4K.

Emmanuelle 4 has been newly remastered and looks fabulous, with the exception of color, which is too yellow, again (to be clear, this is not Koch Films' fault, but the fault of the, probably French, lab that completed the 4K master). This is bittersweet because it is far and away the worst film in the set. I had never seen any of the sequels before, and while the second film is about on par with the original and the third is a step down, Emmanuelle 4 is bad on another level and was actually quite boring. Coming from me, that is quite shocking because I really love erotic films and usually if ladies are naked for large amounts of screen time I am happy, but lately I might be becoming more discerning.

There are a number of frustrating things about Emmanuelle 4. First and most importantly, Koch were right to include it because it has Sylvia Kristel in her final performance in the series until 1993. However, she isn't playing Emmanuelle, but "Sylvia", a woman desperate to get away from her ex-lover Marc (Patrick Bauchau) who has found her in Los Angeles (a real location shoot in LA), so in an absurd plot device, she goes to Brazil and has super-advanced plastic surgery to "become" another, younger, woman who calls herself "Emmanuelle". This is nothing more than a cheap contrivance to pass the nude torch to a different actress, Mia Nygren. Ms Nygren is supposed to be even more beautiful than Sylvia and quite frankly, she isn't, so it's hard to be very enthused about her immediately. With her hair down, she looks much better (in my opinion) but she also seems a bit shy and not at all as sensuous as Sylvia, either. With so much time having passed since the last film, this 1984 entry seems to have less nudity, less sex and less explicit content than even its 1977 predecessor, which itself seemed slightly less spicy than the first two films. What little plot is present is scattershot and the sex scenes with Mia are pretty chaste. Also, in this entry, almost everyone is speaking English on camera, however, Sylvia is dubbed again, even though Patrick Bauchau got to loop his lines and dub himself in French, too. This makes watching the "original" French audio annoying, since only one minor character appears to actually be speaking French on set. Apparently an "official" version of Emmanuelle 4 with hardcore inserts was produced for the French market, although that isn't included here even as deleted footage. However, there is one brief shot in the film of a briefly-seen female character with her mouth on the tip of a man's erect penis, so I assume this is a truncated version of one of those scenes. I hope a future French release could include that version remastered, because this film needs hardcore sex to sustain any interest.

Also included on the disc with Emmanuelle 4 is an anaglyph 3D version of the film, which appears to be the exact same cut but with additional end credits for the 3D process. Again, it seems to be a gimmick done to get people into theaters, but the film has no footage primed for 3D and in fact, one of Mia Nygren's sex scenes is in 2D anyway. This extra is in SD PAL resolution and curiously is in French only with no German audio or subtitles.

Also on the same disc is a charming excerpt from Brinkie Stevens about her very brief appearance in the film, as one of the nude women with Sylvia in her final scenes in the film. This looks like an additional interview segment from the new documentary The Emmanuelle Effect and is in 1080p.

Speaking of The Emmanuelle Effect, I enjoyed it. Clocking in at over 94 minutes, it is longer than most of the films and is presented in 1080p resolution and entirely in English, with optional German subtitles. I learned a lot here, especially from David McGillivray and Kim Newman, but it was also great to see Christina Lindberg (adorable), Brinkie Stevens and even Lori Morrissey (from Emmanuelle in Space!) There is a long diversion into the Black Emmanuelle series and Laura Gemser, with a particular focus on the differences between the original French series and the Italian one, with clips from the Gemser films that Koch has also put out. Unfortunately, the subsequent French sequels only merit a few brief mentions. I hope they are remastered someday because I would really like to see them all, especially Emmanuelle 5 with Monique Gabrielle, but that one has about 4 different versions and only a couple are even on DVD, let alone in good quality. Bonus points go to Calum for expressly pointing out George Lazenby's starring role in the 1993 series of TV films with Sylvia and for admitting that he watched Emmanuelle in Space. I'll be tracking those DVDs down to re-visit soon.

I didn't get to go through the other extras, however, those not already mentioned seem to be in largely in French or German and have only German subtitles, if necessary.

The packaging is gorgeous and absolutely huge compared to what I was expecting. I was thinking that the whole box would be about DVD size, but instead it's about the size of a small board game, made of thick, heavy cardboard with a lift-off lid. Inside is everything pictured above, the glossy oversize booklet is full-color with plenty of photos and German text. The stills are heavy card stock. I haven't opened the posters because of my fine motor skills, but I glimpsed at them and they look nice. Most importantly, the discs are housed in a glossy tri-fold digipack that has six slightly overlapping disc hubs--a great combination of packaging that is both beautiful and functional.

I'm really pleased with this released and I greatly enjoyed watching the films and the new documentary. Thanks again to Koch Films for including English subtitles for the original audio on all the films and I can't wait to watch the director's cut of Emmanuelle later today to fully check out the new 4K master. A fantastic release!