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Picking Up Girls
Movie

Picking Up Girls

1994 • Unknown

Woke Score
3
out of 10

Plot

The misadventures of a family of sex maniacs.

Overall Series Review

Picking Up Girls (1994) is a Hong Kong/Taiwanese Category III exploitation film that centers on the highly dysfunctional and morally corrupt Shaw family. The plot follows the misadventures of the father, who runs a blackmail scam to sexually exploit his female employees; the mother, who is sexually frustrated and initiates a disturbing fantasy; the son, a compulsive photographer who beds his models; and the daughter, a police officer who uses her authority to prey on male suspects. The narrative focuses exclusively on individual sexual perversion and moral decay, presenting the family unit as a site of dark comedic depravity. The film is not concerned with modern ideological debates, instead dwelling on base human urges and amoral behavior for the sake of explicit content. The film critiques the traditional family structure through extreme immorality and sexual chaos, but this critique is driven by sensationalism, not by socio-political theory. The content is graphic, sleazy, and focused on private, heteronormative sexual dynamics.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics1/10

The plot's focus is on individual moral depravity within a family. The story does not rely on race, intersectional hierarchy, or lectures on systemic oppression. The casting is regionally authentic to the Hong Kong/Taiwanese production without political messaging or race-swapping.

Oikophobia3/10

The film attacks the core institution of the family by portraying all members as sexual predators or moral degenerates. This constitutes a direct and complete demonization of the home unit, but the critique is delivered through exploitation and dark comedy rather than an ideological indictment of 'Western Civilization' or its ancestors.

Feminism4/10

The movie is fundamentally anti-family, but not for modern feminist reasons. The women are not idealized 'Girl Bosses' who are morally perfect; they are either victims, objectified, or, in the case of the police officer daughter, active sexual predators who reverse gender dynamics by using power to take advantage of men. The depiction of gender dynamics is one of uniform toxicity and exploitation, not the emasculation of men by a morally superior, career-driven female lead.

LGBTQ+1/10

All of the sexual dynamics and perversions depicted in the plot summary are strictly heteronormative. There is no focus on centering alternative sexualities, deconstructing the nuclear family through a queer theory lens, or framing biological reality as bigotry. Sexuality remains a private and carnal pursuit within a traditional male-female pairing structure.

Anti-Theism4/10

The entire premise of a 'family of sex maniacs' with 'highly questionable morals' directly reflects a complete moral relativism and spiritual vacuum within the narrative world. The characters operate without any objective moral law. However, there is no evidence of overt lecturing or explicit hostility toward traditional religion, especially Christianity, which keeps the score from being extremely high.