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Andel’s Story 2: The Running of the Bulls, Parts 1 and 2
Rating: 3 Stars
All Worlds Video. Produced and photographed by Pavel Nikos. Directed by Wim Hof and Pavel Nikos. Written by Wim Hof. Edited by Aries Post. Starring Andel, Pavel Dubcek, Pavel Holub, El Greco, Milan Dabelsky, Martin Pravda, Mylan Forman, Tabor Schindler, Pavel Korsakov, and Jirka Kalvoda.
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Wim Hof's Andel's Story followed the title character on a sexual odyssey in and near Prague. Its nominal sequel begins and ends with sex scenes where Andel is the focal point, but has no more to do with that tall, seraphic former soldier (whose name means angel in Czech) than the other videos, like Impromptus, in which he has turned up since his debut. This is a series of loops, not a story, in which Andel is lost in the crowd for much of its four-hour length. But the crowd-- Pavel Dubcek, El Greco, Pavel Holub, Milan Dabelsky, four other stunning, familiar Czech models, and newcomer Pavel Korsakov-- will certainly hold your attention.

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For Andel's Story 2: The Running of the Bulls, the Wim Hof Repertory Company went to Pamplona, Spain and attended the July 1998 Fiestas de San Fermin, the week-long festival famed for the daily encierro, the running of the bulls from their corrals to the bullring, accompanied through the cordoned-off streets by a human stampede. Wearing the traditional bullrunners' white outfits with toro-taunting red neckerchiefs and sashes-- sometimes wearing only the sashes-- the cast looks splendid. The sex happens mostly in groups, though one of the most effective passages is an acrobatic duo between Dubcek and Korsakov. The finale is a swimming-pool bacchanal that echoes William Higgins's Class Reunion.

When his videos first began to appear in 1997, it was rumored that director Wim Hof actually was veteran American porn artist William Higgins, a longtime expatriate in Prague. (Wim derives from William; Hof, Germany is the site of an international film festival focused on short and experimental works.) In the 1980s Higgins was responsible for films like California Summer whose quality his former studio, Catalina, has rarely been able to match. Since Hof's Impromptus won the 1999 Adult Video News Award for best gay foreign release, Higgins has freely acknowledged that the rumors were true.

A gifted cinematographer and editor who works well in film, Higgins has admitted to being less comfortable with video, and to feeling insecure about returning to porn production after a nine-year hiatus. While this reviewer was among the minority who found Andel's Story dull and awkward, and considered Impromptus enervated and pretentious, it should be conceded that both were handsomely shot (by Pavel Nikos), and that Impromptus deserved credit for attempting something different.

Videographer Nikos, whose contribution makes Andel's Story 2 a visual delight, is given equal billing here as co-director. While this project offers evidence that Higgins has warmed up to video, there still are dead spots in some of the sexual episodes. What we see on the screen doesn't always mesh with the Boston Pops-ish music that is becoming a Wim Hof trademark. It also seems odd that these horny Eastern European tourists never connect with a single Spaniard. And this two-cassette epic, whose running time approximates that of Lawrence of Arabia, is just too much of a theoretically good thing.

Still, the return of William Higgins to porn is welcome news indeed. In a recent Manshots interview, Higgins said he hoped critics who gave his first "Wim Hof" productions negative reviews would be "called home to heaven soon." But any critic who seriously cares about male erotica wishes Higgins a long, productive future yielding videos as good as his earlier films.