Naked Weapon (2002)

To me, this movie is perfection.

not horrible nor great

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

The title of this English-language, Hong Kong action flick, "Naked Weapon" (2002), may be a tad misleading. Though most of the gals in question here are undoubtedly quite dangerous customers, they nevertheless remain discreetly clothed, at least most of the time. The film, handsomely produced and directed with style to spare by Tony Ching Siu Tung, tells the story of Charlene, Katt and Jing, three kidnapped teenage girls who are the last survivors out of 40 at Madame M's six-year, private-island school for assassins. As a reward for their six years of grueling training, the girls are drugged, raped and sent out into the world to perform various hits for the good Madame, all the while being tracked by a dogged, Asian CIA agent. The film, I must say, though no John Woo thriller, does deliver the requisite goods. Thus, there are numerous over-the-top action sequences, many of them featuring spectacular swordsmanship, remarkable gunplay, and the antigravitic, bullet-timed martial-arts acrobatics that will be familiar to "Matrix" and "Crouching Tiger" fans. The film's two main characters, Charlene and Katt--played, respectively, by Maggie Q (a relative of Suzie?) and Anya--are both extremely attractive performers, and for the most part are fairly credible in their action scenes. The sisterly relationship between the two gives the film its heart; fellow captives at first, they grow to truly care for each other as they enter womanhood. The picture is constantly throwing unexpected twists at the viewer--the free-for-all melee in the barracks that Madame M (deliciously played by Almen Wong) demands, for example, is one that I surely never saw coming. So yeah, the whole flick is something of a gas. Those who have already seen it will perhaps understand me when I say that the picture's net effect is quite, uh, spine tingling...

OK, if you can stomach exploitation flicks then this is probably going to be OK for you. I have to get that out of my system first and foremost. I didn't know at the time of purchase that this was by the director of Naked Killer, if I had, I would have avoided it.Naked Weapon is dire and sleazy for an hour then kicks into high action gear and the last half hour is alright. In fact, it's good enough that if it was half an hour of a decent film it could elevate that film to greatness. What's troubling is that everything that the last half hour implies violence and sex wise is shown graphically and tastelessly in the first hour.I've seen the murkier side of Asian cinema more than I'd like to have seen during various research assignments for my film-studies degree (if anyone mentions Overfiend again I'm leaving the damn country lol), so I wasn't shocked by the fact that Naked Weapon contains rape and violence directed solely towards women, with no consequences to be seen, but I was pretty disappointed. The film was hugely successful on release and yet despite high budget gloss is more reminiscent of 70s smut like Golden Ninja Warrior or the nastier end of the Blaxploitation era than the cutting-edge action movie it's hyped as. The violence and misogyny has no point, no tact or context and whereas movies like Ichi the Killer and Dead or Alive use disgusting footage to shock the viewer into thinking, Naked Weapon's nastiness is just there, hanging out and waiting to shock the unexpecting viewer. For a more detailed look at it all, you might want to check the forum thread 'RE: Rape Scene?' it covers most bases.If you want a good contemporary hong kong movie watch Purple Storm or Hard Boiled, cos this isn't it. What it is is an ugly exploitative throwback with a few good fights in it, and I'll be chucking the DVD next time I'm on a clean out.

Naked Weapon tells the story of Charlene, a young Eurasian girl who is taken from her family at a young age by the ominous Madam M and raised as an assassin, while training she meets Katherine, whom she develops a sisterly bond with, six years later they are dispatched into the real world to use their skills as Madam M sees fit. Soon a police detective who has been searching for Charlene for ever since she disappeared but soon an mysterious figure who has a personal vendetta with Madam M and her syndicate appears and both Charlene and Katherine must use the skills they have learnt to defend themselves.This movie began it's life as a follow up to Wong Jing's cult classic Naked Killer but as with most of Jing's projects, the finished product is different to what was originally conceived.So I'll begin with the film's plot, it's your average Wong Jing affair, two dimensional characters and some bland dialogue backed by some uneven acting, this is essentially an action movie, so really there's little need to care for the characters or the situations they find themselves in. Though, there where a lot of films with plots similar to this made in the 1980's when the Hong Kong film industry was at it's peak in terms of quality and amount of releases.The acting, like I said, is uneven, Daniel Wu and Anya are the only two which give notable performances, I would say the same for Maggie Q but unfortunately her performance dips into melodramatic a couple times, though her performance overall is very good. There's no denying both Maggie and Anya are two extremely beautiful women so if the plot doesn't grab you, the leading ladies' good looks will.The directing is competent, Ching Siu-Tung, who also did the film's martial arts sequences, did a good job, his talents can also be seen on the Steven Seagel sleeper hit Belly Of The Beast. the visuals are very good, that sheer will of the directing alone gives this film a high recommendation. though there is one particular sequence which should have been cut down or at least completely removed but alas this is a Wong Jing produced film so what can you do?The action scenes are brilliant, Ching did a great job making anybody who threw a punch or a kick look like martial arts machines, don't expect anything realistic, that's not his style, it's very over the top but for a movie such as Naked Weapon, it works.So overall I highly recommend this to Hong Kong film fans as it recalls itself to the glory days of HK film in the 80's when films being released like this where the norm and not over-stuffed pop vehicles like the industry seems to more interested in now.For you DVD junkies I recommend the Region 2 double disc platinum release, it's chock full of great extras.

No, it's not one of Hong Kong's best films. But yes, it's watchable, although the plot goes downhill the very same second the girls in their makeshift boot camp grow up.There are interesting fight scenes, with decent wire work. But that's pretty much all the film has going for it - the fight scenes, and the boot camp before the girls grow up and the plot line goes absurd.If you must watch it, avoid the cheesy, badly translated, and mutilated script of the English dubbed version. Watch it in Cantonese with English subtitles. The English dub isn't the least bit watchable. In Cantonese with subtitles, it's at least bearable.