WATCH NOW
So I decided to rent ‘NAKED WEAPON’ (2002) from ‘Tony’ Ching Siu-Tung, the magnificent director of A CHINESE GHOST STORY trilogy, THE SWORDSMAN trilogy, THE SORCERER AND THE WHITE SNAKE, and choreographer for A BETTER TOMORROW II, SHAOLIN SOCCER, and HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS. At first glance, this movie had fantastic reviews. However, I think I might be confused with ‘NAKED KILLER’ (1992) which wasn’t written by Ching, but is rather by the same author, Wong Jing (MERCENARIES FROM HONG KONG).
Let’s put that aside for now. NAKED WEAPON is very peculiar if I were to put it in one word and it sure has a fair bit of Ching’s bizarre kung fu and gun fighting in it. Furthermore, it is one of those Hong Kong films that are targeted to the international audience which is very interesting to me. The movie appears to be shot mostly in English and it features primarily Asian American actors. However, the film was shot in Hong Kong and Manila with a Hong Kong crew, which adds to the interest.
This centres around a sinister organization led by Madam M, played by Almen Wong. This organization abducts little girls trains them into violent seductresses and later uses them as assassins when they are older. In a pre-title prologue, rookie CIA agent Jack Chen is staked out on one of the killers, Fiona Birch. Played by Marit Thoresen, she is spotted entering a hotel in a comically low-cut silver dress and proceeds to have sex with a crime boss. Afterwards, while getting a backrub, she spine-rips the guy in a motion that would impress Mortal Kombat fans.
Classic Ching Siu-Tung, escapes from the hotel while gleefully massacring the rest of the security team, displaying tons of slow motion, a massive display of gravity defiance along with slow angular kung-fu poses in her movements. With those kicks, she doesn’t convince you that there’s any power behind them, but luckily, Ching’s fights are all about stylization and are in no way burdened by boring reality. Ching’s mantis ballet combat fights are amazing to watch.
After knocking a guy out cold and disarming him, she kicks his rifle like a hackysack to his side. Grabbing it and ending with a spin, she fires the rifle, blasting two guys into the air on her way out. But as she drives out, a man steps out to the balcony, shatters her car into pieces with a bazooka and sprays the CIA men with bullets as they attempt to rescue her from the wreck. Now that’s a fu**ing mafia!
This is the story of Fiona Birch’s replacements. Madam M searches for young kickboxers and other unusual talents to fly into her sinister island. There is a multitude of them from different countries, but the story follows Charlene and Katt, who were brought in at the same time and became great friends, after six years they morph into adults played by Maggie Q ( MI: III, LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, PRIEST) and Anya aka Anya Wu (KUNG FU KILLER [the David Carradine one]).
The movie opens like a hybrid of women in prison and boot camp. There are the girls living in barracks, progressing through the gruelling training process, and learning that they will be shot for attempting to escape. They begin with water pushups, shore katas, sponge wars, target practice, and full-on “wars” where they actually kill people. Then, they learn model make-up, spine dislocation, and runway walking. It gets to the point where Charlene has to eliminate a man by defensively murdering him with his own sunglasses.
It’s on someday when Madam M enters the barracks, randomly fires a machine gun, and states, “Listen up. Here is your assignment. Kill the girl nearest to you and drag her body outside. Anyone who remains in two minutes will be shot.”
“It is stupid,” Charlene interjects, “and I am the first to challenge ‘them’ We should all [just] come together.” As it turns out, she is sliced through bunks, kicked, punched, slashed, brush stabbed with toothpicks by the other half who seems to be ‘above bench-legs?’ And now, for the other half and survivors of this gruesome assignment, they have the glorious day of “graduation” to look forward to when they get to battle until a single victor remains.
I began to dread the movie when there was a death match in what looked like a drab setting of a chain-link prison with a huge fan in the background glowing like a light bulb. As already mentioned, Charlene does some incredible gymnastics among other things, but it is very difficult to follow because all contestants wear matching khaki shorts and lowcut white tank tops, which makes them look like kids in a P.E. class, and this is the largest exhibit of one female body type twin set this side of EYES WIDE SHUT. Like many things will be a problem during the whole movie, the chaotic music composed by Ken Chan (KILL ZONE 2, PARADOX) and Chan Kwong-Wing INFERNAL AFFAIRS, KILL ZONE, BODYGUARDS AND ASSASSINS, LEGEND OF THE FIST, THE GUILLOTINES, MAN OF TAI CHI) is cranked up way too high. More importantly, however, it is the RAZE syndrome problem, where it is difficult to cheer on a cool fight when it is a bunch of innocent kidnapped women being forced to murder each other against their will.
When Madam M abruptly ends the fight and agrees to make Charlene, Katt, and a woman named Jing (Jewel Lee, LEGEND OF THE DRAGON, LETHAL ANGELS) her assassins, this is the part I find enjoyable. But don’t go thinking she has turned soft because she immediately drugs them and calls in some burly middle-aged men to rape them as she drinks a glass of wine. “After today your body belongs to your weapon,” she says.
Such barbaric violence is something I prefer not to have in these movies, but there is a possibility that I do not get what I want. Everything gets brighter when exactly 44 minutes into the movie, we suddenly see what appears to be the opening title card
This half of the movie starts to get better as we see a montage of the “China Dolls” (that’s how they keep referring to them in the second half of the movie) fighting, killing girls, and for example, Charlene stabs a guy in the neck with a stiletto heel. Also at this point, there start being a lot of c.g. gimmicks that are cool enough for me to forgive how fake they look.
Charlene, of all people, standing over three dead Yakuza while using her sunglasses as a sword is absurd. I quite enjoy how the reflection gives an insight into the overall scenario.
Out of nowhere, she is now in Spain, where an umbrella is held by a midget who happens to be scanning her. She is there to lap dance, do some pole dancing, and do bed dancing as well, all with a fan blowing her hair like she is J-Lo or Beyonce. Then she would finish off with the spine breaker. Only for it to turn out to be a death trap THIS IS THE CASE OF THE GUY WHO DIED IN THE FIRST SCENE! He’s apparently been waiting years to take revenge on a woman, who was a little girl at the time, but for some reason, he thinks she did it. He pulls a gun, snaps his fingers, and as far as I can tell, four gunmen charge at her for the simple pleasure of being whipped with silk blankets while she does a somersault and shoots them dead.
By the time Maggie Q was in her early twenties, she had trained with Jackie Chan and had roles in MODEL FROM HELL, GEN-X COPS 2, MANHATTAN MIDNIGHT, and RUSH HOUR 2 (credited as ‘Girl In Car’). She looked very good then but did not yet exude the kind of toughness that I associate her with now. Ching begins with a wide shot to revel in the contrast of her soft femininity and the chaos of destruction enveloping her as she runs through smoke, sparks, debris and flames, the centre of a massive shootout, barefoot and nearly naked. (For the record, she’s less of a NAKED WEAPON than a SHEER NIGHTGOWN WEAPON.)
Now… this is going to be a pun, but I mean it sincerely: Is there anything quite as entertaining, at this point in the movie, as the unexpected entrance of Charlene’s BFF who is there to extract her from whatever dire situation she is in?
Fucking beautiful! That sets up the stage for an amazing Woo-style fight as pieces of debris come out of the row of basketball-head-sized holes the bad guys make in the drop ceiling.
Muncer hopes that is not asbestos building material for the studio. While sledgehammering through a wall to give Charlene an escape route, Katt Fischer totally sledge-hammers it, and then the girl shoots a gas pipe while hiding in a locker and lo and behold, predicts Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Wow. What a pal!
Jack, British and grizzly as always, claims he is still on the case and then goes to tell the woman who is still praying for her daughter that, yes, actually I think your daughter is a murderer. And Cheng Pei Pei is playing the mom! Cheng Pei Pei? Wasn’t she on Come Drink With Me, Lady of Steel, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon or something like that? It’s a non-action role, unfortunately, but that’s what I’ve read, that’s what she prefers.
There’s an apparent homage to KILLER in the dragon boat festival scene. Then Jack chases Charlene into a Magnum ice cream bar truck. They have to cease combat because frost begins to cover their faces. He gives her his suit jacket and says men have a faster metabolism. She ditches him, but they are in love so it is fine if a bad guy shoots her with an aphrodisiac dart and she decides to call Jack and have sex with him on a beach ‘shout out to Chris Isaak.’
Like in KILL BILL, ANNA and other secret-assassin-guild flicks, there’s that melodrama about the perils of leaving the organization. They are bound to set them free after five years, but it appears off when Madam M makes a deal to let Charlene out of it. So it’s genuinely shocking when (SPOILER!) the client Ryuichi (Andrew Lin, Gemini Male from THE MAN WITH THE IRON FISTS 2) hangs Madam M, taking away that threat. He also ties up Katt and uses her instead as a puppet.
As the credits roll for NAKED WEAPON, the choreography drifts into an exaggerated Ching style, reminding me of a specific part of the film INVINCIBLE which includes Billy Zane. Everything is best at mid-air.
One of my favourite parts is when Ryuichi throws Charlene into the air, but then she magically lands with one foot on his head, hoisted in a crane stunt.
The camera does a 360-degree turn capturing the beauty until he takes the next step which is to kick one of his legs while she leaps a Trinity-style hover before diving face-first…
She gracefully falls, landing in front of him while striking him right in the chest with a palm in one motion, and after flipping, he catches her wrists. Then, while holding her upside down, twirls and tosses her into the sky, roughly ten feet. With her spinning like a helicopter, he leaps and… It’s just too bizarre to try and explain, so you’d have to see it. But I promise it’s the good stuff. You follow this.
When Jing and Charlene fight, they move around the room as if the carpet is lava. They jump off the couches and over-dressers.
There are some parts of the show where it seems the digital effects were a bit too much. Like the time when Charlene throws a coffee table at Jing and he proceeds to kick it into pieces. Then later, Jing throws a set of family portraits at Charlene, only for her to deflect them, and as a result, the photos turn into very dangerous projectiles.
Perhaps the most absurd scene is when blood covers Charlene’s eyes and as a result, she imagines that she is swimming in a void and can feel Ryuichi’s every move.
As everyone has said, there is no sense of self-awareness and there’s a weird twisted sincerity to the writing. The writers don’t indulge in needless distraction but still mean what they say. Oh, and there’s also no ridiculous comic relief.
Actually there is one line that made me chuckle while wondering why Jack is telling Charlene to calm down as he carries her injured mother to the hospital. She suddenly shouts, “Look out!” Only for him to bump into something and for strings to play. “Thank you” he says politely.
To watch more movies like Naked Weapon (2002) visit 123Movies.
Also Watch for more movies like:
