Rating: 
Summary: Crazy girl !
Review: A critic once said that this movie was "....like a car crash on the motorway, you can't stop yourself from watching" - this summarizes it very well. Sometimes its painful to watch (mainly due to the undignified acts Annabel puts herself through) and the movie itself is not that well structured (jumping from segment to segment in a fairly random way). But, the story being told here is fascinating in a ghoulish, extreme-reality tv kind of way - and consequently makes riveting viewing.
Why did she do it ? How did she get to the stage in her life when she wanted to do this ? These are the questions that viewers are seeking the answers for, and of course there is no clear answer - just stories and images from which we are left to make up our own mind.
The film is a fly on the wall style documentary of Annabel before, during and after the world's biggest gang bang. There are interviews with her mother, her friends, her teachers and herself giving a mosaic (at times random) view of her life. Sometimes the film is a traditional interview, sometimes just as a passive eye on the proceedings and never does the film pass any judgments directly in a Michael Moore fashion - and this style works well for this movie.
My opinion is that there is also a bizarre mask about what everything she says and does, that makes me think she is not being honest even with herself, for example :
- she claims to be having the time of her life during the act itself but eventually has to give up due to internal injuries and the line of the most ugly wannabe porn stays taking their place in the queue surely could not be much of a turn on (or could it ??).
- she does not get paid her $10,000 for the whole event but claims she did not care about ripped off for the whole thing, cause she wasn't after the money.
- Finally, she says that if she catches AIDS out of the whole thing then so be it and considers it an occupation hazard.
After statements like these I found myself shouting at the television telling her to sort herself out and to look at the reality of what she was doing. So if a good documentary produces a strong reaction in its audience - then this one is pretty reasonable.
I see on her web site, she has abandoned her porn star persona and is now making a good living as a computer geek. Good for her - I hope she is very successful - you could say it was inspirational to see have a crazy lifestyle while younger and then and successfully reinvent themselves.
Rating: 
Summary: Wasted effort
Review: An apparently titillating documentary such as this needs more than anything else to answer the basic question of why the otherwise normal Ms. Chong (as we are frequently reminded) chose to engage in compromising positions with over 250 virtual strangers in a matter of 10 hours. What was she trying to prove?Off I went to find out with a very open mind willing completely to forward my sympathy to a woman who did something so maverick, if nothing else. Unfortunately, the answer never came. For one thing, it would have helped the creators of this putative muss to have at least gotten their own act together. We are first told that the whole motivation behind this supposed expression of female empowerment was an "ultimate ego trip" ...to have all these men wanting to have sex with Chong. A few minutes down the line, we find out more about her sordid past which included, lo and behold, a teenage sexual assault (gang r*pe) and drug abuse, the obvious implication being that this drove her into promiscuity. Which is utterly unconvincing in its own right, but as though this were not bird-brained enough we are then presented with an interview with Ms. Chong on channel 4's "The Girly Show" (clearly a benchmark for intellectual debate now isn't it?) talking about how it was "a p*ss take on the whole western ideal of masculinity" or how she felt that it "was an artful expression". Right. An*l hand-jobs and "triple penetrations" - how very vintage Da Vinci! In the end, this 90 minutes of burlesque gibberish leaves the viewer sighing. This is NOT a look at sex or any offshoot thereof as seems to be promised from the title, but a look at the psyche of Annabel Chong and the only thing it ends up conveying is that she is one troubled human being. Playing neither the role of a defiant punk slut rebel or a vulnerable woman-child entirely convincingly, she ultimately comes across as a very confused young woman desparately scrambling for an identity. Whether through porn or (hopefully) some more respectable means, you can't help but hope she finds it.
Rating: 
Summary: I apologize
Review: As "Mr. 249", you know, the fingernails, I apologize to Miss Chong and "Misters 252-300" for causing this great noble effort to be lessened. Still Anabel, I applaud you on your one year record.
Rating: 
Summary: The Annabel Chong Story is a sad one
Review: I originally viewed this movie in a theater catering to the liberal elite of Houston. It is very fair to suspect that few in the audience were of a fundamentalist religious persuasion. Nonetheless, the consensus opinion of these viewers after the movie were of utter disgust and pity for the pathetic Ms. Chong. This documentary follows Annabel Chong around as she allows others to belittle and take advantage of her. She claims to be a champion of sexual freedom and female rights, but this is not in the least bit convincing. Never for a moment do we take seriously her pseudo-intellectual rants. Chong's low self esteem is readily apparent. Annabel aims to please and personal degradation is a price that she is more than willing to pay. The porno film makers don't hesitate to cheat her out of money and are carelessly indifferent whether she contracts a venereal disease. I am utterly convinced that if this were a work of fiction the audience might be tempted to conclude that the story line is a bit over the top. In this particular case, true life is much more compelling than make believe. Many of Chong's friends wish to be nonjudgmental and pretend that she is doing nothing out of the ordinary. Try as they may, these individuals fail to carry it off. A most telling scene is where Chong tells a platonic male friend that she is a porno movie star and has had sex with hundreds of men. The young man initially seems to think that Chong is pulling his leg. We then observe his horror as he realizes that Annabel is not joking. Eventually Chong's parents learn of her exploits and are rightfully shocked and appalled. This film is not easy to watch. Are you looking for erotic titillation? If so, you will want to avoid The Annabel Chong Story. This documentary may inadvertently present the best case against pornography ever presented to the general public. Is pornography a victimless activity? Even those espousing a very libertarian philosophy will have a hard time answering this question in the negative. The Annabel Chong Story is ceaselessly sexually explicit and definitely not for the faint of heart. Almost certainly, this is the only reason why it didn't receive an Academy Award nomination. It is well worth a few hours investment of your time. Paul Schrader's recently released Auto Focus should also be on the top your list. The latter film indirectly deals with the consumers of Annabel Chong's dubious talents.
Rating:
Summary: The Real Scoop in 5 Seconds
Review: Let's get real folks. This movie is not about a womens movement to accept female sexuality. Women aren't getting "power" by allowing 70 MEN to have sex with them one after another. This movie is about a very screwed up girl and her screwed up life and trying to make it seem like there is a point to it all. It's interesting nonetheless, but don't look for something really deep... it's just not there. No matter how sorry we may feel for her you can't force there to be a deep reason for partaking in the worlds largest gang bang.
Rating:
Summary: drawn in despite all
Review: Part of what makes this a decent documentary is that there is no certainty about the filmmakers biases--not to me, at least. At times I think he admires her, at others, I think he despises her, and I am never entirely sure. And so, absent a forceful guide, a viewer will view this film through her own theoretical and experiential lenses. A young porn fan might find it light and fun. My view is my own, filtered through my mind, my education, my experiences. Seen through that lens, the film took me on an interesting journey. Ms Chong's putative reasons for her choice to be a porn star seem, at first, convincing. Yes, it would be a wonderful thing if women in our society were to take control of their own sexuality and celebrate it. No, women should not feel shame about being very lustful or sexually active. Indeed, some religious traditions other than the ones Westerners know do celebrate sex as way to mystical union with the All. Good thoughts, every one. As the film progresses, however, it became obvious to me that while Ms Chong may talk the talk (though always fumblingly), what she is walking is not the walk, but a hike through hell. Drug use, painful shyness, an inability to maintain eye contact with anyone, subjecting herself to an orgy with the ugliest collection of losers ever to appear naked on screen, financial exploitation at the hands of the sleazes who film her, empty relationships with personality disordered others, lying to and (unconsciously?) intentionally hurting her mother, the only person in her life who actually does seem to love her, the self-mutilation scene.... gah! By the end I felt I had sat through a session in a "Treating Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse" seminar (and I'd not be surprised to find this film is used in that milieu). A little knowledge is a dangerous thing--or at least, in this case, an embarrassing thing. Chong's education (not a hearty recommendation for USC, this film, nor is their unctuous professor who appears several times) has taught her a few feminist phrases and a pat Marxist deconstruction or two which she parrots badly while she desperately tries to act out her skewed MTV vision of a liberated woman. "I'll do [this and that]," she says in one possibly scripted scene, describing degrading sex acts, "if I like the girl" (apparently loathing the men who sodomize her is just peachy with her) "but I'M ANNABEL CHONG and I want at LEAST a thousand dollars!" Her actions, at best, contradict her "feminist" and "marxist" rhetoric. But I'd be simply a coldhearted leftist academic to notice that dissonance without also noticing that no sane person with an ounce of self-respect would take a million dollars, much less argue their way up from 800 to 1000, to do what Chong has just agreed to do. Her rhetoric is either a scam or a self-deceptive lie. Her scream of "I AM" seems a scream from the soul of a lost little girl wanting to believe she exists and matters. That the name she screams is not her own makes her desperation and failure to believe in herself more poignant. I watch the film as she replicates on herself on a daily basis, horrifically, the buried trauma that must drive every sex worker. The film ends up convincing me that the porn industry is exploitive and evil, populated solely by victims and abusers. It convinces far more powerfully than a year of dogmatic anti-porn lectures ever could. I leave the film feeling some compassion for the woman, some revulsion, but little hope that she'll ever find her way back from her chosen hell.
Rating:
Summary: Endlessly fascinating, emotionally draining
Review: The Vidiot is making one of his regular visits to the video store when he spies this in the new release section. A highly acclaimed doco about a 22 year old College student who decides to have sex with 250 men over a 10 hour period to break the record for the World's Biggest [love fest]. At seeing this The Vidiot assumes his not-so-famous Roger Moore acting position- right eyebrow raised, left eyebrow raised and then re-reads the video slick. Yep, his eyes did not fail him. Being the lover of controversy he is, and with his interest in the darker side of human nature he rents it.
First I'll make one thing clear: This is not a porn movie. Those of you after cheap thrills can get your fix elsewhere, this may change your ideas on pornography forever.
Annabel Chong is the stage name for Grace Quek, a humanities student who decides the break the WB[love fest] record. The viewer is never given a good reason as to why she chooses to do it, just a multitude of [weak] excuses about being a powerful woman. To any normal person, being filmed having sex with 251 men you don't know is not the way to go about being a normal person. It's just downright sad. Quek tries to have us believe that she is a strong woman in control of her destiny, but even the most gullible person won't be fooled. There are scenes of Chong self mutilating, her family's heartbreak when she tells them what she does, and the utterly sad and pathetic scene where she inevitably turns on even the film crew making the documentary, eventually seeking comfort in the arms of a porn director who specialises in rape videos. Yuck.
SEX is endlessly fascinating, as well as being emotionally draining. You won't want to see this picture more than once but you should see it. But be warned it's not for the faint hearted and is definately NOT recommended for anybody under the age of 18 (or 17 depending where you live). However there is one memorably amusing scene of ...actress Jasmin St Clair verbally abusing some stupid dolt while trying to break the Gang Bang record.
Rating:
Summary: Fasinating porn star -- bad (ex-boyfriend) director
Review: There's no denying that the life of Annabel Chong is fascinating to observe -- from her life as a feminist scholar to porn-star celebrity to nothing and back to porn-star celebrity. Unfortunately, with such great material the filmmaker doesn't do a good job. First of all, this documentary is just like an Annabel Chong Home Video collection done by the ex-boyfriend (which is what the director was). It follows all her through her daily and not-so-daily life and nothing more. Never does the filmmaker ever ask "Why?" Why does she do this? How has her past trauma (being gang-raped) affect her (it barely even acknowledges the rape)? Why does she go back to porn after promising her humiliated parents to make it up to them? It just lazily notes these things and moves on to her going around and doing her daily tasks. Worse, at times it misrepresents Chong. There's one scene where Chong is cutting herself without explanation. Wow. Screwy, right? Except in the BONUS MATERIAL, you learn that that's the scene when the director breaks up with her and SUGGESTS they take turns doing cutting themselves and films it. The filmmaker may be incompetent but that's not to say the DVD isn't interesting. With a life as... complicated... as Chong's it's hard to make it boring. The most moving part is when she moves back with her parents in Singapore and they discover from strangers her secret life has having being the center of the world's biggest gang-bang. So the documentary is worth the viewing, but don't have your expectations up there and you'll be fine. Also be forewarned: they do show clips of Annabel Chong uncensored.
Rating:
Summary: erotic? but.. is okey
Review: This documentary is present the best case pornography ever presented to the general public. Even those espousing a very libertarian philosophy will have a hard time answering this question in the negative way.
I also recommend the book Sex and the perfect lover by Mabel Iam. It is an excelent sexual guide.
Rating:
Summary: A WOMEN WHO'S UNAPOLOGETIC ABOUT HER SEXUALITY
Review: This documentary profiles adult film actress Annabel Chong (real name: Grace Quek), who in 1995 broke new records in sexual history when she performed 251 sexual acts in 10 hours with 70 different men for the porn movie "The World's Biggest Gang Bang." This documentary, which included (the MILDEST of)actual footage from Chong's X-rated movie, was difficult to watch at times and, predictably, elicited gasps from the audience with its subject matter. However, the shock value of the film's central focus eventually wore off, and the filmmakers-- intentionally or not-- leave us with a portrait of a woman with a uniquely admirable quality: Miss Chong shows herself to be unapologetic about her passion for sex (incidentally, with both men AND women), is completely intergrated with the sexual side of her personality, and has no regrets about her astonishing act-- even though she faced an HIV scare afterward, and got stiffed (no pun intended) for the $10,000 salary that she was supposed to receive for her work in "The World's Biggest Gang Bang." Annabel Chong, of course, is not the first or only person in the world who has expressed her sexuality and sexual desires without apology. At the risk of portraying an adult film star as a role model, however, Miss Chong's comfort level with her sexual attitudes and activities is refreshing. Her honesty and freedom of expression form a sharp contrast in our society where even as we slowly break down barriers dealing with sexuality, confronting our sexual behaviors and activities still remain a potential source of conflict (both internal and external) to us. It's debatable over whether Annabel Chong's life warrants an 86-minute documentary-- but nevertheless, this is fascinating stuff.
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