Naked Weapon

NOT A LOT OF NAKED, BUT LOTS OF FIGHTING AND VIOLENCE
NAKED WEAPON is the story of a group of young girls who are kidnapped by an evil madame (Alma Wong) and imprisoned on a secluded island to be tortuously trained into unfeeling assasins who lure their victims in with their bodies. Those who try to escape will die. Those who stay will one day fight eachother to the death. Only one will be allowed to become the supreme assasin.

This is a pretty interesting variation on LORD OF THE FLIES type survival as innocent girls who form friendships with eachother must determine which is more important, friendship or life. Those who rent the movie based on the sexy cover which features two attractive women embracing eachother while wearing nothing but camoflauge skin paint might be disappointed to find out that this isn't a movie filled with gratuitous nudity and lesbianism. There is some brief nudity (by the beautiful Maggie Q) as well as some tantallizing strip tease type bedroom dancing, but the these are all quite tastefully done, and...

A Man is at his Weakest when he is at his Happiest moment.... qouted from Madame M.
NAKED WEAPON is another foray into the "girls who kick butt" genre. Maggie Q has been getting a lot of attention in the U.S. for MI-3, Live Free and Die Hard and Balls of Fury; I have quite a collection of her Hong Kong films and this is the film that helped break her into the action genre. Tony Ching Siu Tung directs and choreographs the fight sequences; the film is an entertaining mix of martial arts action with cool set designs. "Naked Weapon" is unrelated to Wong Jing's "Naked Killer". Wong Jing started the film but turned it over to Tony Ching in mid-production; the result is not the expected "exploitation flick" but pure action "junk".

Synopsis partially derived from the back cover:
Like a contagious virus, pretty and athletic girls in their teens are disappearing from all over the world. The mastermind behind the abductions if Madame M (Almen Wong), who plans to train the girls into cold merciless killers. After several years of intense training, only Charlene...

Brutal Rape Scene in Sadistic Actioner
When does a trashy movie stop being fun and start being repulsive? I've been asking myself this question ever since I saw Ching Siu-Tung's "Naked Weapon" (2002). Ching is one of my favorite action directors. His credits include the underrated gem "The Terra-Cotta Warrior" (1989) and better-known actioners like "The East Is Red" (1993). He also provided the fight choreography for several of Tsui Hark's films and Zhang Yimou's two high-profile martial-arts movies. So, seeing Ching's name on the credits of "Naked Weapon" instantly told me that the film would be a quality product. But I was not only disappointed -- I was revolted.

Now, I don't automatically fault a film for being a bit on the junky side. Cult cinema certainly has its place, and so-called "trash" aesthetics can have their own positive properties that are as intriguing as the more "respectable" ones employed by more prestigious films. So, just because some filmmakers might not take their subject matter...

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