After a hiatus in Vegas, glamour model Emanuelle (Nicole D’Angelo, Darling Nikki) returns to town and into the abusive arms of her controlling ex (Chris Spinelli, who also produced). She makes her intentions clear: “I just want to be beautiful again.”
He makes his clear, too: “Street trash,” he chides her, then adds, “You can stay here and we can dream better” — whatever that means. As with the case of every Gregory Hatanaka film I’ve seen, “whatever that means” remains unclear, ostensibly up to the viewer. But we do know she stabs him with scissors … or do we?
With D’Angelo co-directing alongside Hatanaka (Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance), the hourlong The Awakening of Emanuelle then settles into a thrice-repeated pattern: She meets a photographer. The photographer shoots her in hot lingerie. She beds the photographer. Next!
More metaphorical than sexual, Awakening doesn’t do enough shedding to qualify as an Emmanuelle movie, whether we’re talking the real, double-M kind or the alternate-spelling knockoffs. Nonetheless, I find D’Angelo incredibly appealing onscreen, even when that screen is awash in purple wigs, cheap Mardi Gras masks and infuriating editing. —Rod Lott