Second, as I stated in some other review, there are a lot of 'Naked' movies. So, if you are browsing your local video store shelves and see 'Naked Beautiful Poison Chinese Super Ninja Killer 4", and pick it up, that's your mistake, not mine. This review is not applicable nor is it transferable to any other 'Naked' movies.

What's it about? 40 (give or take 20) young girls have been kidnapped from all over the world and brought to a remote island to be trained as assassins. As the years pass, and the young girls become young women, they can kick some pretty serious butt. This is not a super friendly environment for these girls. Men running around with machine guns make sure they don't try to escape, and they yell a lot. The boss of the whole operation is a woman, and she's not so nice either. See, there are only so many positions available in the dynamic assassination racket, (I won't give away how many) so there is some nasty survival of the fittest type elimination in store.

On the trail of this mysterious boss woman is a non-mysterious Asian-American CIA agent, who has been obsessing on the case since he was a rookie. He amazingly links the increase in abducted young girls (40, give or take 20) to the fact that he knows the boss woman needs a new assassin or assassin team. It takes a sharp eye to notice an increase of 40 (give or take 20) abductions world wide, when the number is already around one million! Either he is very clever, or there is an explanation that I forgot, or its corny, or all three.

Who will survive the exciting and intense girl on girl eliminations on the island training camp? Will the CIA agent fall in love and try to help one or more of the trained-against-her-will assassins? Will the moral question of whether or not killing people is good or bad finally, after all these millenia, be answered?

What you will see: beautiful women, Nerdy CIA guy with a heart, beautiful women fighting each other and other people, beautiful women training against the backdrop of a lovely island sunset. And other stuff.

When you aren't a very serious person (like myself) it's hard to seriously recommend a movie that shouldn't be taken too seriously. There are reviews out that that, once again, disagree with yours truly at Movie Samuai. Once again, they are wrong, and I'm right. This movie is just good, light-hearted, entertaining fun. If you are considering renting or buying a 'Naked' movie, and aren't looking for CAT III exploitation, nudity, and gore (think more Charilie's Angels, the movie) then I'd put Naked Weapon on the top of your list. Just don't blame me if you hate it.

DO NOT BUY THIS FILM IF: You were once kidnapped and forced into being an assassin (work out those issues with a trained therapist first); you hated So Close and Charlies Angels; you don't like it when girls fight; or you you want the CAT III element.

RECOMMENDATION: Naked Weapon has fairly high production values and looks very good. I don't know if it's those production values, but the women look pretty good too. Sometimes I can get into a movie that is a little corny, if it's entertaining as well. A movie like Naked Weapon.

A sports car pulls up outside a hotel and out steps an attractive young woman with a revealing dress, and one of the worst haircuts I've ever seen. Her arrival has not gone unnoticed, two CIA agents sit in a car across the street watching her enter, and they are soon joined by the clumsy new guy Jack (Daniel Wu - Gen-X Cops, Purple Storm). They believe this young woman to be an assassin sent by the mysterious Madame M, and are waiting for her to kill again so they can track her back to the mastermind of the operation. The young lady is frisked and allowed in to see her target, she has sex with him and then while giving him a post-relations massage, does an interesting trick, pulling and breaking the man's spine through his skin and killing him instantly. As she goes to leave the man's henchmen are alerted to what just happened and attempt to stop her, however her martial arts and gun training easily dispose of them as she leaps into her sports car and roars off. She did not, however, reckon on another henchman firing a rocket launcher at her from a balcony! The CIA agents rush to her aid but are shot down before Jack can kill the henchman, and he cannot save the assassin either as she is shot from the window of a passing car by a mysterious lady in sunglasses. Meanwhile in Thailand, a young girl is seen being forced to fight a boy in an underground Muay Thai match, she pummels him however and afterwards, the same mysterious woman appears to talk to her. In case you hadn't worked it out by now, this is Madame M (Almen Wong), and she offers the girl the chance to get away from this terrible place to where all the best fighters go. This place? A remote tropical island it would look like, as this young girl arrives with two others and Madame M to find armed men watching over a large group of girls of a similar age. One of the girls wants to leave so Madame M tells her to go, only to have one of his men shoot her, no I don't think there's much choice in the matter here. There girls have all been brought here so they might go through rigorous and painful training to be trained into world class assassins. The remaining two girls on the helicopter become friends, the girl from Thailand is Katt, and the other is Charlene. That night three of the girls attempt to escape, their bodies seen dragged from the sea the next morning as the girls' harsh training begins.

Six years pass and wouldn't you know it, all the girls have grown up to be babes, who'd have thought? Katt (now played by the lovely Anya) and Charlene (now played by Maggie Q, also lovely) are still friends, Katt seems to fulfil something of a big sister role for Charlene (though there are subtle suggestions of something more between them) and there is another girl that stands out, the quiet and stern-looking Jing (Jewel Lee) who has become very proficient in martial arts. It would seem their training is coming to an end as the tests they are given prove far harder and more brutal than before. First they are released into a wood where they must defend themselves against soldiers who will try and kill them. Charlene makes her first kill and is deeply upset by the experience, but this is nothing yet. That night Madame M comes into their dormitory and tells them that to prove their loyalty, they must all kill the nearest girl and drag her body outside, anybody left alive inside after two minutes would be shot. The survivors of that little task must then draw numbers and go in groups into a large caged area, where they must fight to the death until there is only one left. Predictably – Katt, Charlene and Jing are the last three and just as Jing is about to rid Charlene of her head, Madame M stops them and decides that she'll allow all three to live and become her new elite contract killers. That night they have a small celebration, this turns into something far more hideous however when it is revealed that Madame M drugged the three girls' wine, and has three large men come in and rape them. This is to show them that their bodies no longer belong to them, and they must be ready to use their bodies any way necessary in order to complete their missions. Yeah, okay. Next we get to see them kill a bunch of different guys, culminating in Charlene performing a hit in Spain and needing Katt to bail her out when she runs out of ammo. She left evidence at the scene in the form of blood and Jack, now a more experienced clumsy CIA agent, has been following Madame M's killers since his partners were killed six years previous. He uses this DNA evidence to identify Charlene and hurries to Hong Kong to find her mother, finding her at just the right time to see Charlene kill a politician. In the following chase Charlene and Jack get locked in an ice cream freezer truck and talk for a while, before she clocks him with her gun and makes her escape. Charlene was forbidden from ever seeing her mother as long as her 15 year contract with Madame M lasts, but after seeing her at the scene of her latest job she can't resist, and Jack is still on her tail and is quite possibly falling for her. Will her next job, for the sinister Japanese Ryuichi (Andrew Lin) also be her last?

So many are going to want to know, does this film bear any resemblance to the 1991 movie Naked Killer? Alas, no, not beyond some superfluous connections (see below) this is quite a different animal altogether. As with numerous other films, this borrows considerably from older (and better) films regarding the secret training of young women to become super sexy ultimate killing machines. The film starts off promisingly, showing the cruel and harsh conditions they are forced to train under, especially when they are forced to turn on their friends or risk being killed themselves. Its also a lot of fun when Katt, Charlene and Jing are shown carrying out their missions, despatching their quarries with considerable style in a hailstorm of wire-fu, blazing guns, and a teeny bit of CGI. However once the second plot kicks in, with Daniel Wu's inept CIA agent taking centre stage, the film falls to pieces. Firstly after developing three characters in the first part of the film, Wong Jing's screenplay flings Katt and Jing by the wayside and chooses to go with Charlene and Jack, the two dullest characters in the film. I found far more appeal in the other two killers,- the enigmatic Jing was intriguing because little is known about her and she played the role of the quiet sinister killer well, but unfortunately she is given no further development and is relegated to being an obstacle for the heroic protagonists, admittedly climaxing in an impressive action scene. Katt was a more interesting character too, partly for her slightly ambiguous relationship with Charlene, and partly because her character is different, she chose to go with Madame M to that island, rather than face the harsh life back at home were she would be forced to fight, and feared being attacked by the men who came to see her matches. The idea that Charlene was forced to go there and train but Katt went of her own free will is a dynamic never explored. Sadly she barely appears in the second half of the movie, and instead we're stuck with Charlene and Jack – the worst CIA agent ever. Jack is so totally ineffectual it isn't even funny, and even worse it looks like he was actually deliberately written that way! He is taken in by Charlene's good looks and allows her to escape, he loses his gun in the most critical situation, and is left sleeping on a beach while Charlene is off engaging in the violent final showdown. Annoying, just plain annoying.

The performances are generally decent though somewhat uninspired, the central cast of actresses are all rather unexperienced, and things are confused slightly by the film actually being filmed in English, but some of the actresses still look to have been dubbed. The story is not terribly demanding and beyond the action sequences the lead characters have little to do than look lovely, though the emphasis on Charlene and Jack does tend to make the performances of Maggie Q and Daniel Wu grate considerably, especially Wu who I found myself wanting to slap some sense into on more than one occasion. Andrew Lin's role in the movie is much too small too, he's something of a Radi0active favourite and is greatly underused here. The action sequences are a different story however, having been handled by experienced and respected action choreographer and director Ching Siu-Tung. Siu-Tung has numerous films to his credit as both action choreographer and main director, serving as lead action guy on films like the recent Hero starring Jet Li, Donnie Yen and Maggie Cheung, Stephen Chow's Shaolin Soccer, and the oft-overlooked Black Sheep Affair. He's also acted as director on films like the Swordsman trilogy, New Dragon Gate Inn, and the two Heroic Trio movies. Even if Wong Jing's writing leaves much to be desired, Siu-Tung crafts some very entertaining action sequences, sometimes with the young lead cast, and sometimes using stunt doubles for the more strenuous sequences. The style of this film is quite western-influenced, with fast editing and prodigious amounts of slow motion, with the occasional use of wire-fu to create some very graceful and impressive leaps and kicks. Unlike western films however the action is shot from further away and gives you a much better view of what's going on, the doubles used pull out some amazing moves on some occasions and we're given every chance to see them clearly. However, as is the case with a lot of films using wires, as the film goes on the action scenes are trying to better each other, and the negative of this is by the final fight things are getting somewhat ludicrous, including a scene where Charlene vaults 20 feet into the air and lands on top of her opponents head and just stands there on one foot for a while, its just silly, especially when its in a modern day setting and there's not even any far-fetched explanation given for why the characters suddenly have superhuman powers. By and large the action is fun and very enjoyable to watch, and though silly does manage to look quite innovative in part thanks to the slow motion effects used, though Siu-Tung is guilty of resorting to slow-mo a little too often.

The man to blame for the inconsistent plot and lacklustre second half has to be Wong Jing, who takes credit for the writing. Unlike Naked Killer where the poor writing often led to some dumb but entertaining moments, here it just reeks of laziness, resorting to well-worn and boring clichés, especially annoying after the promise shown in the first part of the movie before the most interesting of the characters are all but abandoned. The final 20 minutes look like they were hastily put together at the last minute when it was realised the film didn't have a climax, and Wong Jing resorts to an appallingly sappy ending that leaves the viewer feeling rather flat. Jack is also crappy, poorly written, stupid, incompetent and annoying the extreme, quite why we're supposed to get behind this character I don't understand. The worst crime of all however was without a doubt the harrowing rape of Jing, Katt and Charlene. To give the makers a modicum of credit, the film is not filmed to be titillating in any way, but the reasoning for the scene is laughable and comes off as a very misogynist piece of writing that left me numb for the action scenes that happened straight after, I was too shocked and saddened to really pay them any mind. The actresses themselves clearly did not enjoy the scene, the short ‘making-of' feature on the DVD shows them express how unsettling they found it, Anya saying that it took her a while to get over it only being a scene. Seeing the three actresses put through such needless distress added nothing to the film, and there was no justification for such an upsetting scene.

Overall this is an enjoyable enough film, but its considerably less entertaining story about Charlene and Jack and the horrible rape scene hurts the film somewhat. So yeah, fast forward for a little while when you see the girls drinking wine with Madame M, skip right over every scene where Daniel Wu is talking (unless you're a fan, though you won't be for long if you watch this), and you have a fun little action film with some ridiculous but innovative and well-shot action sequences, and some lovely eye candy to boot. Like Naked Killer? Not really, this is played far more straight, has a less interesting story, and has none of the goofy tongue-in-cheek charm that Naked Killer did. Stylish trash.

Charlene (Maggie Q), Katherine, alias Katt (Taiwanese model, Anya), and Jing (Chinese Wu Shu champion Jewel Lee) are all highly trained assassins - dubbed 'China Dolls' by CIA investigator Jack Chen (Daniel Wu, from Purple Storm) who pieces together the scandalous international puzzle of kidnapped daughters and missing orphan girls with their reappearance, six years later, as sexed up killers trained by femme fatale Madame M (Almen Wong). Jack, of course, is secretly in love with Charlene, and tracks her down to Hong Kong, where she's visiting her mother, only to find that she's now in danger from her employers...

Shot in English, from a screenplay by Wong Jing (director of the infamously camp Naked Killer, 1993), Naked Weapon (aka: Chek law dak gung) basically revisits the ultra fashionable 'battling babes' pictures of 10-20 years ago, such as Teresa Woo's Iron Angels (aka: Angels, 1988), Deadly China Dolls (1990), The Avenging Quartet (1993), and just about any Hong Kong contemporised action film with Japanese actress Yukari Oshima or Chinese starlet Moon Lee. The basic themes of Naked Weapon are patently similar to the unsophisticated plotlines of those cheaply made 1980s' action flicks. The influence of wire-master Ching Siu-tung's own The Heroic Trio (1992) is also noticeable, but the chief inspiration for Naked Weapon is undoubtedly the aforementioned Naked Killer.

On many levels, this is just too fanciful to take seriously as drama - in spite of its torturous contests between homicidal teens, a risible scene that sees all three heroines being drugged and gang raped (an ordeal which they survive, apparently unscathed... eh?), and attempts to underscore the life-or-death sisterly friendship of Charlene and Katt, in much the same unimaginative way as Hollywood's traits of male-bonding occur in brothers-in-arms situations. This certainly isn't another feminist themed movie like Thelma & Louise, okay?

Although there is one exceptionally well-choreographed shootout featuring Charlene and Katt versus a small army of armed bad guys, two of the later fight sequences - including Charlene's showdown with top villain, Ryuichi (Andrew Lin) - favour digital effects work, with flesh-shredding shards of broken glass, and the overly familiar low-flying acrobatic overhead leaps visually enhanced by impressive CG-erased wirework (see those Charlie's Angels flicks), over genuine any martial artistry. So, the director's unfortunate choice of empty spectacle over authentic physicality is largely detrimental to the film's sense of stylised reality, making this an uneasy mix of tough girl films like French director Luc Besson's Nikita (aka: La Femme Nikita, 1990) or The Long Kiss Goodnight (1997), with Matrix styled super-heroics thrown in good measure. Still, fans of girls with guns movies shouldn't complain. Naked Weapon is out on DVD now, guys. Go buy it. Take it home. Watch it repeatedly in slow motion. Until Quentin Tarantino's epic Kill Bill arrives on disc, this will do nicely, thank you...

Let's get one thing straight right away: Naked Weapon has bad acting. BAD. I won't fault the actors for this though because the movie is shot in English (mainly due to stars Daniel Wu, Maggie Q, and Anya being primarily English speakers), but I do feel the movie would have benefited from being multi-lingual. For one thing, Cheng Pei Pei should not act in English. She was excellent in Crouching Tiger, but here it's fairly excrutiating to hear her say (complete with pauses) "How could my daughter....have become....a killer?" Daniel Wu comes off the best and I like this guy in any movie he's in.

But seriously, no one is watching this baby for the acting. We're all watching it for the women and the action and it succeeds on both counts. First off, Maggie Q is stunning and shows off her lethal side as well. From what I can tell, she handles the action sequences well and decently acts throughout. Anya is good in the action portion, but doesn't fare as well as Maggie in the acting department because of the fact that they have chosen to dub her normally sexy, raspy voice into something a little more cute. Almen Wong shows up and does her thing. I'm not complaining. Andrew Lin plays villain Ryuichi with the panache of Toru Nakamura in Gen X Cops (maybe he was studying Toru to prepare for this role?). Jewel Lee is thankfully not given too much dialogue because I don't think her English is as good as everyone else's, but she sure can fight, and look good doing it.

Based on action alone, I'd give this movie an A because the action is simply amazing. Tony Ching Sui Tung's choreography is never anything typical and he goes crazy here, with some imaginative stuff happening all over the place. The way the fights are shot is also very cool, alternating between slow, fast, and normal motion. Tony's directing is top-notch as well and the pace never falters. Special effects are used to enhance certain scenes and look convincing enough that I really enjoyed them. One thing that stuck out for me is the cinematography. It almost seemed too beautiful in some spots for an HK exploitation movie.

REVIEW:
A paper thin plot, softcore sex, and ultra-hyped action is what Wong Jing's latest film, Naked Weapon is all about. What was originally thought to be the film to outdo Naked Killer (1992), a violent erotic thriller and cult favorite in the West, turns out to be even more shallow and devoid of logic.

The film's premise is flawed from the beginning. Hundreds of young girls from around the world are being abducted and sent to a training camp. They are chosen for their athletic ability and undergo rigorous training over the course of six years in martial arts, survival, computers, and of course, cosmetics. Light-hearted hilarity ensues when the queen assassin Madam M, played by Almen Wong of Her Name is Cat (1998) fame begins a selection process by having the girls first kill male attackers, then each other. A final step involves a cage match with three girls being chosen as worthy assassins. A rather tasteless rape of the three follows and the next time you see them, they are assassinating various politicians and crime bosses by using their sexy bodies to seduce their prey. The hero out of the trio is Charlene, played by a luscious Maggie Q. During an assassination, Charlene sees her mother and is tracked by CIA agent Jack Chen (Daniel Wu), who has been following the case of abducted girls for six years.

From here the plot begins dropping holes and loose ends at an accelerated pace. Charlene and Jack get it on and poor Chen Pei Pei not only endures being in a lousy movie, but gets a knife in her gut courtesy of the third assassin played by Jewel Lee, and for no good reason. Also for no good reason, Charlene is given the opportunity to quit her life of killing in exchange for one more hit, as if the time and money spent to train her by a ruthless criminal turned old softy no longer mattered. She and Kat are lured into a trap by their target who turns out to be a maniac yakuza leader out to avenge his boss's death at their hands. Kat is captured and Charlene returns to face the villain in a final, overblown martial arts duel.

This is yet another failed attempt by Hong Kong movie mogul Wong Jing to write and produce a film designed to entertain you with the basest film conventions. He's actually written some decent films over his long career, such as The Prodigal Son and The Kung Fu Cult Master. Yet, he's basically admitted himself to being bereft of any artistic integrity when it comes to pleasing his audience and it shows in the majority of his work.

Technically, the film looks great. Veteran director and action choreographer Ching Siu Tung knows his craft well and the scenes and action are framed brilliantly, even though the only fighting cast member with extensive martial arts experience is Daniel Wu. The combat is very flashy and constantly borders on the supernatural, but this is forgivable given the current state of action films in Hong Kong and Hollywood where excess is the order of the day.

What cannot be forgiven is the ridiculous story or the pitiful acting by Maggie Q and Daniel Wu. I've seen more convincing performances from sock puppets. Both of these stars are actually from the U.S. and speak English in the film. Wu looks like he has the chops to be a credible action star, but he's given little to work with here. A former model, Maggie Q is reminiscent of Rebecca Romijn-Stamos in that they are both pleasant on the eyes, but completely lacking charisma. To give them a break, it is doubtful that anyone could have excelled in this brainless project. Cheng Pei Pei tries her best and only makes one wish she could be cast in more worthy projects befitting both her status and abilities.

Naked Weapon doesn't work on any level. As an erotic thriller, the film is too derivative and laughable to be stimulating in any way. Plus, its less bawdy than the marketing suggests with a lesbian relationship only hinted at and selective editing in place. As a drama depicting a girl's attempt to reclaim her humanity and supposedly enduring a brutal six-year ordeal, the film completely flops with a plot full of holes that actually evaporates before the film even ends. The viewer is given the impression that the CIA are going to hunt down Madam M, but she just disappears while the CIA agent goes on his own hunt for Maggie Q. Finally, the only decent element is the fighting. As an actioner, the film does offer a few well-staged scene with creative moves and editing that might appeal to fans of The Matrix or The One. Unfortunately, this action hardly fits the film and without a better story to back it up, it has all the impact of a modern automobile commercial. This is a waste of time and talent.

Sure, it has Wong Jing's touches all over it -- most notably the lebsbian love triangle subplot -- but, at its' heart, Naked Weapon is a kick-ass femme fatale action movie, something which has been sorely missing over the last few years from both Hong Kong and the US. Even though many filmmakers have crapped out a copious amount of half-ass attempts at the genre, it took Wong Jing to get off his duff and actually work on a movie to breathe some life back into it. Compared to recent attempts like Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever (featuring the highly over-rated Lucy Liu), Naked Weapon is a nice callback to the "golden age" of Hong Kong movies (or even just action movies in general), where ass-kicking females were the norm, not some cheesy gimmick.

Don't get me wrong -- the hook of seeing babes like Maggie Q and Anya in skimpy outfits and beating ass is definitely a major attraction for this movie. But, unlike most female-oriented action movies nowadays, Naked Weapon takes itself seriously (even though some of the circumstances in the plot are, quite frankly, absurd to say the least), and the end result is a much tighter movie. Unlike junk such as Charlie's Angels which get lost in dopey comedy or lame attempts to be cool, Naked Weapon takes a simplistic approach -- show hot women kicking ass and throw a bit of sex into the mix -- that works very well.

Sure, not everything's perfect. The acting (which is all in English) isn't the greatest, the script is laughable in points, and some of the special effects aren't that great. But, I will say this (and I'm sure some people will question my santity or sobriety): Naked Weapon is the best movie of 2002. I went in expecting a somewhat "dumb" action movie with some T&A thrown in, and it delivered. In this day and age of films that try to be Citizen Kane while looking like Kangaroo Jack, it is really refreshing to see a movie that fully delivers the goods that action fans want without the pretentious BS clouding far too many productions nowadays. Even though a lot of HK fanboys will snub this movie as too "low-class", Naked Weapon comes highly recommended if all you're looking for an action movie that actually has some, instead of a bunch of tossers wanking off in front of a blue screen.