Rub and Tug (2002): Dir: Soo Lyu / Cast: Don McKellar, Tara Spencer Nairn, Cindy Booth, Kira Clavell, Susanne Sutchy: As the title indicates, this is a film about the forbidden or cheap thrills. It regards a massage parlor and the owner suspecting three female employees of foul play. Don McKellar is hired to catch these women using sexual conduct with clients. Apparently they can receive higher income at full service. Interesting plot falters with victimization. Director Soo Lyu avoids sexist elements and has fun with the location and the strange activities often associated with a job that defined what was legal and what wasn't. Tara Spencer Nairn plays the hardened experienced employee. Cindy Booth has a nipple pinching fetish. Her boyfriend is unaware of her true nature. Kira Clavell is hilarious as a Japanese female who must get married so that she and her family can stay in America. Finally there is McKellar, frustrated yet tries to uphold his dignity. Perhaps one of the flaws presented is that McKellar is placed as a villain when in fact his views on the situation are only proper. Theme regards victimizing of women through massage parlors. Whether it is appropriate to applaud these three women for their schemes is not the issue here. It presents an interesting location and risky occupation with humour that may rub viewers the right way. Score: 8 / 10

If my memory is correct, when this movie was released it came across as something of a comedy - a funny look at the adult entertainment industry. If that's what it's supposed to be, it doesn't really work. It just isn't that funny. Setting that rather significant (since this is called a comedy!) failure aside, since I have no personal knowledge of the subject matter, I'll avoid comment about the authenticity of the story - which deals with the goings on behind the scenes in a Toronto massage parlour, except to say that - if this is true - the life is pretty dull. For over an hour, this movie really doesn't give us much of anything except some background knowledge of the main characters. Conrad is the newly hired manager of the massage parlour whose basic job apparently is to make sure the girls aren't giving "full service" - a euphemism for actual sex. As for the girls themselves, Betty's goal is to buy a parlour of her own so that she can run her own business, Cindy is an illegal immigrant to Canada working to support her family back home and Leah is - well, Leah is a somewhat strange, undefined character with a nipple fetish - true - who seems to be in the business because - well, because she's in it! I have no idea what her character was about. Those three may well be fairly reasonable composite characters who accurately represent the motivations of the women who get involved in this business.The movie meanders about and doesn't offer much until the "twist" reveals Conrad to be the bad guy. We should have gotten to that point sooner. The only thing truly interesting here was that part of the story - Conrad's secret plan and the revenge plotted against him by the girls. That plan for revenge was pretty good, and you're grateful when it comes out because basically up to that point you're wondering why you wasted your time with this. Had the story been more focused on the revenge, this might have actually been a fairly funny movie.The performances from the 4 leads were all OK, although I didn't think anyone came across as outstanding. All four characters were a bit shallow. Cindy was a sympathetic character, and so was Conrad for a while, although he turns out to be the bad guy of the movie. Given the subject matter, there's surprisingly little nudity (and what there is is restricted to one scene.) In fact, there's even a certain air of innocence around a lot of this. As for the overall quality of the movie, it's a low-budget effort, which shows, although you expect a certain griminess, I suppose, of a movie set in the context of a body rub parlour, so that's forgivable. It certainly says something, though, that this was released 8 years ago now and is still the only credit on writer-director Soo Lyu's resume and - given the normal lack of depth in the Canadian film industry - that it wasn't even deemed worthy of being nominated for any Genie Awards - the Canadian version of the Oscars. 4/10 - and I'm being a bit generous with that.

Spoilers herein.Folded film: the performance of the movie and the performance of the girls in the movie. A simple fold, typical of a film school project. It ends with another fold, an additional performance.Another project that has an intelligent idea behind it, but without the skills to make it happen. Nice try. But should have switched it around so that Lindy was the redhead.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

This was an original story line about a Rub & Tug (massage parlor), directed by Soo Lyu who is very new to movie making and has proven that she has got what it takes to put an entertaining movie together.Clients get more than a massage at this establishment, but the girls refuse to do full service (sexual intercourse). A hand job is about as far as they will go with the customers. The story focuses on three girls and their boss. There is an interesting friction between the gals and their boss which is always amusing. The film doesn't actually show any sexual scenes. The most sexual scene is a dream sequence involving a melting ice-cream cone which won the audience over.The story was inspired by and based on true stories of many gals working in Rub & Tugs. There is a great twist at the end which I won't tell you about as I hope you'll see this film and I don't want to ruin it for you. I can see this becoming a great cult classic along the lines of Mall Rats and Dogma.