Naked Weapon Weapons with breasts Studio: Jing's Production, Media Asia Films Ltd. Format: Movie Released: 11/15/2002 Written by: Face In a wretched pile-up of doltish femme fatale movies, Naked Weapon carelessly joins the ranks of the unabashed and unintelligent. People are killed, children are killed, assassins are killed, policemen are killed--are you seeing a pattern here? We witness martial artists of amazing skill, some of it is incredible, but once the characters start talking, that mute button will most definitely come into mind. It's not just that the dialogue is cheesy, or that the characters lack all forms of substance; it's not even the overly choreographed fight scenes, or the insanely talentless actors. But rather, this film cripples itself before even giving its other low points a chance: the script is tactless, the action incoherent, the characters rigid and hollow, the film moves along with an immature desire to kick ass no matter how unjustified it feels, and ass it will kick--quite possibly yours. The story follows the vile endeavors of the big bad meanie Madame M. This evil woman has decided she requires more female assassins (female because women have breasts(?)). To acquiesce these mandates, the unscrupulous M cleverly kidnaps 40 pre-teen girls to enroll in her assassination boot camp, sort of speak. For 6 years she trains them, and as their ruthless enrollment comes to its end, she forces the girls to fight to the death in a cage match of death until only 3 are left (surely, she had a reason for training 37 girls for 6 years and then abruptly killing them... then again, maybe not). The winning three girls graduate from the camp as alumna with honors, ready to enter the world of professional killers. Coming from director Ching Siu-Ting, infamous for his driveling creations of residue, and with a screenplay scribbled by Wong Jing, Naked Weapon is nothing more than a callow wasteland of "no style no substance", and thus it plays out expectedly. The movie can best be compared to a porous skeleton suffering from a bad case of osteoporosis, unable to support itself and progressively damaged by its own blatant plot holes and loose ends. The heroine, Charlene and CIA agent Jack randomly fornicate on the beach--ostensibly because Charlene was shot with an aphrodisiac arrow--shortly after Charlene's confused mother Pei Pei gets a knife implanted in her stomach by a fellow assassin, and we're not really sure how or why this happened. We're also never made to even partially believe that Jack and Charlene would fall in love while in the back of a freezing truck. This is the result of a combination of a few equally atrocious aspects: the script is too outrageous to ever be taken seriously, and the actors' performances are less convincing than a rock's. As the girls continue to assassinate, one of their would-be victims, a wannabe Yakuza, decides to get revenge, and kidnaps Charlene's best friend/implied lesbian lover, Kat. As she watches, the big meanie slashes Kat with his samurai sword. Expectedly, afterwords, begins an overlong and ridiculous villain vs good guy fight scene. The fight scenes vary in quality. If nothing else, director Ching Siu-Ting is typically an exceptional fight choreographer, but in Naked Weapon, his ingenuity is marred by the camera's childish tendency to focus on the unbelievable, and frequently, the downright idiotic. There are countless mid-air acrobatic 3d shots, accompanied by Matrix style double smash kicks to the face. Naked Weapon isn't the only movie to employ this tactic, and it's certainly not the only one to overdo it. Naked Weapon is one of the many supremely troubled movies that fails in every way it meant to succeed. What was supposedly going to be an improved rehash of Naked Killer, ends up being an overly frenetic, unduly pornographic trainwreck. As an action flick, the film is lost within its script's web of nonsense. As an erotic thriller, the film is derided to a ridiculous degree, lacking all forms of provocation. Dramatically, a failure in every possible way. Narratively, awful, disgustingly simplistic and illogical to the point of near insult. I can safely say, only a fool would purposely watch this movie. I regret ever touching the box. Please, stay away. It's for your own good. Zero (Could cause brain damage) Posted: March 16, 2004 Please Visit our Affiliates Anime UK News