The title Sex is Zero may conjure up jointly esoteric and allegorical thoughts of writer-director Don Roos’ 1998 indie The Opposite of Sex,
but South Korean filmmaker Je-gyun Yun’s wild and wooly imported comedy
is actually a bawdy college romp much more in the tradition of Porky’s and American Pie.

While
comedy is often thought of as very culturally specific — what’s funny
in one language doesn’t necessarily translate across the ocean — this
movie belies the notion that laughs can’t be universal. From its peppy
opening, set to the Go-Go’s “We Got the Beat,” to its catty female
conversations about breast size, stylized production technique,
sex-doll humping and copious gross-out humor, what’s amazing about
2002’s Sex is Zero is how much it feels like an American
adolescent comedy, how spot-on it is tonally. The story centers around
a pathologically shy first-year law student, Eunshik (Chang Jung Lim),
and his crush on the pretty Eunhyo (Ji-won Ha). The movie is chock full
of lively, Seann William Scott-esque supporting turns, however,
including the funny, flip Kyoungiu (Yi Shin) as one of Eunhyo’s
friends, and Songguk (Seong-Guk Choi) as a randy pal of Eunshik’s.

Those that found hearty hilarity in the pie-humping and DNA-tainted beer of the original American Pie will likely be similarly doubled over during Sex is Zero;
its set pieces include the accidental ingestion of a mouse, a
discussion of hand-job injuries, and a sequence in which one character,
out of eggs, decides to fry up a different kind of protein. (Needless
to say, this gets used on toast, and later eaten by a dimwitted
acquaintance who doesn’t believe his friends when they tell him what’s
actually on it.) Of course, there’s also a scene of hazing underneath a
banner that reads, “Spiritual concentration is our nation’s strength,”
so you don’t completely forget that you’re watching a foreign
flick. The cast is attractive and personable, and only the movie’s
late-act dip toward an unintended pregnancy and possible abortion earn
it a few demerits, since these hairpin turns in pitch and atmosphere
tend to feel like a negation of some previously established character
traits.

Housed in a regular Amray case, Sex is Zero is presented in
1.85:1 letterboxed widescreen, with its original Korean language track
and optional English and Spanish subtitles. Wildly gratifying is
distributor Panik House’s superlative treatment of the title, which
includes an English-language audio commentary track with Mike McPadden
and “Mr. Skin” of The Howard Stern Show (“I’m running out of
synonyms for tan nipples …”) and a Spanish-language audio-commentary
track with Jesus “El Pelos” Olvera, the entertainment editor of Al Borde.
An assortment of trailers, production notes, a photo gallery, poster
art, cast biographies and more lend valuably clarifying context to the
movie — which was a smash in its native land — but there are also a
whopping 20 minutes of bloopers and seven minutes of deleted scenes
that are just as fun as portions of the feature proper. The
transliteration of the title may raise some questions, but Sex is Zero richly proves that ribaldry is indeed universal. B (Movie) A- (Disc)