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Naked Weapon (2002)

Ching Siu-Tung

Hong Kong

92 min, color, English

Review © 2004 Branislav L. Slantchev

In the classic tradition of the illustrious Naked Killer (boy, I never thought that this would make any sense... ever), comes a new stylish outing by Ching Siu-Tung; a film that is as sophomoric as it is slick. To enjoy an entry in the canon to which these films belong, one must approach it with a proper mindset. The rules are: (1) under no circumstances should one think lest one loses more brain cells during watching than in brain surgery; (2) all women are gorgeous, violent, and trophies for men; (3) some women swing both ways, with guns and without; (4) all atmospheric conditions would be conducive to leering at the female form, which is a good thing (see rule #2); (5) all household members of NOW should be kept away from the film or violence will occur; (6) through (37) see #1.

To die for Extreme Phys Ed

Since I have mastered all thirty-seven rules above, I am happy to report that the film is damn entertaining. It's not perfect, it's not even very good (there are many, many things that Ching could have done to improve it---more on that below), but for what it is supposed to do, it is basically as good as they come. Wong Jing, the eternal misogynist and icon of horny adolescents everywhere, pens a script that is so much cut and paste from other ones that he must have run out of glue. Brazenly stealing from his own earlier Chingmy Yau vehicle, he revisits the premise of female assassins while simultaneously ditching any remotely redeeming quality of the story.

Idyllic boot camp training Gratuitous shot of Anya

Madame M (Almen Wong) runs an intense female-assassin boot camp somewhere on a spectacular tropical island. Since not many parents volunteer their kids for killing-spree duty, she solves the application pool problem by kidnapping them. (I need to squash an ugly rumor that has been circulating in reviews over the net, possibly caused by a lie in the teaser. Madame M did not kidnap "hundreds" of girls from all over the world, just forty. See what difference this suddenly makes?)

All too subtle lesbian subtext Newton be damned

Training is no Jackie Chan routine. It involves lots of slouching in the sand, push-ups in the ocean, parading on a podium, and lessons in anatomy, all under the watchful eye of full-blooded muscular men who must be titans of self-control, what, with all those girls in tights running about. Just like in the over-rated Azumi, the successful pupils eventually have to fight each other to the death, which strikes me as a rather wasteful way of producing female assassins. As the film itself shows when the original one got bazooka'ed, it takes six years on the average to replace her. With a steadier supply, one would have an almost continuously running assassination program, which would lead to higher profits. Madame M is inexcusably derelict in running her business.

Two lovable assassins Obligatory rape scene

Why female assassins? Because they kill men, and man's weakest moment is when he has just had sex. That's true. But what about straight female targets? Or gay targets? It seems Madame M's choice of niche neglects further opportunities in the assassination market. Basically, Madame M is one ignorant business woman. However, her choice of girls is impeccable in terms of their physical attributes: you will be gasping for air and that's even without them holding your windpipe.

Gratuitous shot of Anya It is murder, I tell you

The best thing to happen to this film is Anya who plays Katherine. Yes, I know that Maggie Q who plays Charlene is the lead character, but I prefer Anya: Maggie's chiseled features just don't do it for me. Anya, on the other hand, is flawless. Did I say I liked Anya? So the two of them graduate (yes, it was a snafu since only one was supposed to finish instead of three). As a final "lesson," Madame arranges for the three valedictorians to get gang-raped in what has to be the most unnecessary and vile scene in the film (but very much in keeping with Wong Jing's view of the world). Then they go to business, which occupies the middle third of the film. There is some fairly decent blood-letting here. We also learn that the strong friendship (perhaps with privileges) that Katherine and Charlene had formed during their training days continues to flower.

Wind, veils, and flying: signature Ching Gives me goose bumps

In the third third, Charlene wants to visit her mother (Cheng Pei-pei) and runs afoul of the CIA agent Jack (Daniel Wu). Well, okay, she did not run afoul of him but I wish she had because the ridiculous love story does two sorts of violence to the film. First, it provides more opportunities for Daniel Wu to show up and induce instant coma in the viewers. Second, it slows down the action and destroys the nicely set up lesbian subtext. In the end, Charlene has to battle a former classmate, and a very bad guy (Andrew Lin), who has to be one of the coolest villains I have recently seen. All this is good. Unfortunately, there's an ending that I guess is supposed to be happy but that left me very, very sad.

Implausibly stylish stand-off Implausibly stylish trap

The good things. Exquisite women, impeccably dressed, violent, and easy. Mmmmmm. Typical Ching Siu-Tung choreography with so much wirework no wonder AT&T is going out of business. Do not expect martial arts here, think more like ballet with assorted cutlery, like Khachaturian. I am quite partial to this sort of fights, so I enjoyed it immensely. It is quite clear that none of the actors has the foggiest idea about martial arts. Still, mmmmm. Appropriate behavior of the elements: wind is just right to blow the hair at the opportune moment, rain comes precisely when the women would be soaked while wearing flimsy negligees. Very cooperative. If bodies (and clothes) were any tighter, molecules would fuse. Mmmmm.

China dolls should come with instructions Perfect cinematography

Now, for the bad. It has a name: Daniel Wu. What, the fuck, was Ching Siu-Tung thinking? This guy can make a comatose patient wake up just to turn off the TV. If his endless monologues were any more monotone, you'd take them for background noise. He cannot act. He cannot act. He cannot act. Maybe he can model. I also mentioned that the love story destroyed the nice lesbian interaction that was really happening if they had the wits to develop it. This film would have become an instant classic if (1) Daniel Wu was grotesquely murdered during the opening credits sequence, (2) Anya and Maggie had an explicit lesbian scene, and (3) Cheng Pei-pei got to fight it out with the main bad guy. So there you have it; as it is, the film falls short of its lofty goals.

Things I learned in this film:

The Mega Star DVD is pretty good. The film being so new, the anamorphic widescreen transfer is excellent, with rich color saturation (important for this film), and an adequate DTS soundtrack (the one I listened to, there's also a DD5.1 in both English and Cantonese). The film's original soundtrack is in English (with some actors badly dubbed), and there are removable English subtitles. The extras include a "Making of" featurette that is not subtitled in English but fortunately the three main stars speak English. There's plenty of discussion of Ching Siu-Tung's directing style and I wish his parts were translated. There are also trailers and a photo gallery with promo shots of things that do not appear in the film.

August 1, 2004