The best B-movies in your Shanghai DVD shop

In a country where pornography is technically banned, many of the smaller DVD shops offer a range of B-movies that put the phrase “I know it when I see it,” to the test.

While none of these movies are explicitly pornographic -- that would be illegal -- they’re second-rate films larded with sex and violence. Exactly what an evening in, in Shanghai calls for.

The movie covers alone provide hours of entertainment in your local DVD store.

Here are the eight best, worst and most bizarre films you can get your hands on in your average Shanghai DVD shop.

Get ready for bad music, mediocre acting, and … Nazis? 

The lowdown: “Destricted” is a collection in which international artists like Larry Clark and Richard Prince direct short films displaying their views of contemporary sexuality. The coup de grace goes to Marina Abramovic for her “Balkan Erotic Epic,” which illustrates sexual folkways of Eastern Europe.

Topless babuskas, naked men fondling a hillside … makes you want to book a ticket to Serbia before the closing credits.

The lowdown: Before he was Rambo, before he was Rocky, he was paid US$200 to act in the X-rated “Italian Stallion.” Although the film is lighthearted, there is one disturbing scene involving a studded belt. Perhaps segueing into the violence of Stallone’s blockbuster days?

It also contains the best line of Sly’s entire oeuvre: “I’ll be velvet-mouthed upon your shank of love.”

The lowdown: Set in a those lighthearted days before the AIDS epidemic took hold in the United States, “Score” spends a weekend with bisexual swingers vacationing in an exotic town called Pleasure, in which every bedroom has a waterbed and a mirrored ceiling, lots of shag carpeting and amyl nitrate.

Best line of the film might just be, “Are you gonna sleep in all that denim?”

The lowdown: Directed by the British photographer David Hamilton, this movie follows the escalating affection between two cousins in the French countryside. But with its made for TV soundtrack, and its slapstick comedic action, this one is closer to “Wishbone” than wishin’ to bone.

The soft focus puppy love is endearing, even if you never had a crush on your cousin. 

(Click "Next" for the rest of the best B-reels at your Shanghai DVD shop.)