Temptation of Eve (2007)

Gritty, twisted and unapologetic!

I needed a drama for my Back To The Past challenge, and this one seemed interesting with the added bonus of being short.
Well, this was something different, definitely not what I expected to watch though when I found the first episode on a porn site, I should have started wondering.....

Thank you, ParkMin for the title: I borrowed it from your short and to the point comment!

Temptation of Eve is an OCN anthology series of four feature length (90min) independent erotic thrillers featuring stories about the fascination women provoke in men and the lengths the men are willing to go for them.

The Good Wife - a wheelchair bound man asks a friend to follow his wife, suspecting her of cheating.
Kiss - a photographer is intrigued by the strange behaviour of the new neighbours, suspecting abuse.
Her Own Technique - a plastic surgeon, valuing beauty above all, is fascinated by a woman with a perfect body and a butterfly tattoo.
Angel - a policeman investigates the murder of a plastic surgeon's husband.

The stories are all twisty, twisted, and nothing is what it seems at first glance. Each ends with an unexpected twist. Though after the shocking ending of the first episode, I was just waiting to see how they were going to bring the twist around in others. And it was a surprise every time. So the writing of the thriller element was definitely top notch.

Now that I finished the four stories, I am trying to decide whether the writers of these are women haters or if they admire them. Because here, the women are perfect gray characters, they have the upper hand they hide perfectly well, letting the men think they are being macho helpful and protective. Men on the other hand are the primal selves, out there doing everything they can to protect the woman, who is apparently weak, innocent and abused. Nothing is further from the truth, though! The women here are presented as smart, beautiful, independent, wilful and intriguing, manipulating the men by pretending to be weak females. Here, the men are stupid, comforted in their position as a dominant gender of the species and never doubting the women.
So, I'd say that the writers are in awe and admiration of women but are also afraid of them! Their writing skilfully balances on the thin line between misogyny and misandry. And we are all left feeling uncomfortable. Because the main male characters in each story are not bad or evil people, just stupid, gullible and who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time!

Women in these stories use sex to dissipate men's suspicions so there is a lot of love making and nudity here, though no full-frontal! Everything is tastefully filmed and is necessary for the stories since it shows how the women get to control the men., who in their presence behave like brainless idiots.

I watched this in low quality on ok.ru so I cannot say much about the cinematography, though some camera angles and play with shadows were interesting. The costumes and make up looked outdated. It was weird seeing all those flip phones but I liked the retro feel of not relying on mobiles as much as we do today.

Temptation of Eve is not for the faint of heart, nor for today's young adults: I can see them screaming at how not PC it is. I liked it though, exactly because of that: it shows the human nature the way it is in all its greyness, and not the way these young utopians would like it to be. So I would say this is for the 40+ crowd: no one younger should watch this: because if I started listing trigger warnings for them, it would take me a couple of hours!

Hell hath no fury as the woman scorned!

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