Naked Weapon

There's a movie out there called SO CLOSE. Corey Yuen directed it, and it stars Qi Shu, Wei Zhao, and Karen Mok. It's your basic "hot Chinese assassin" movie, and it's one of the best popcorn pictures there is. It has an interesting story; beautifully choreographed fight scenes; and Qi Shu, Wei Zhao, and Karen Mok. This movie does everything right: it's glossy, cheesy, and playful. It's the GONE WITH THE WIND of "hot Chinese assassin" movies.

And then there's NAKED WEAPON, released just two months after SO CLOSE. Directed by Siu-Tung Ching, it stars Maggie Q, Anya, and Jewel Lee. It's another "hot Chinese assassin" movie (Is this a bona fide subgenre? Perhaps I should investigate!), but it's downright terrible. NAKED WEAPON barely even has a story; its fight scenes practically define the word "lame;" and it stars Maggie Q, Anya, and Jewel Lee. If SO CLOSE is the GONE WITH THE WIND of "hot Chinese assassin" movies, this is the CANNONBALL RUN: uninspired, mechanical, and dull.
Here's the story: evil Madame M kidnaps 40 13-yr-old girls, dresses them up like Lara Croft, and puts them through five years of grueling training. Those who survive become the world's elite assassins, taking out the planet's hardest targets while bathing one another in longing gazes guaranteed to ignite the imaginations of 15-yr-old boys and bore the hell out of everyone else. But, of course, the FBI and CIA are hot on their tails, which is surprising: I had no idea that the PRC was so accomodating toward U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

So you've got your chases and your stunts and your fights and your sublimated lesbianism and your budding romance and all that crap, but none of it goes anywhere, none of it makes any sense, and none of it passes for entertainment. Charisma vacuum Maggie Q is no Qi Shu, and proves herself utterly incapable of anchoring a movie; even a cheesy popcorner like this one's trying to be. Siu-Tung Ching doesn't know how to make wirework look good, he doesn't know how to choreograph gravity-based effects, and he's even more in love with the windblown look than the guys who made KRRISH. Plus, he's a moron. How do you put Pei-pei Cheng in your picture and not give her a good fight?

NAKED WEAPON may -may- appeal to the aforementioned 15-yr-old boys, but I wouldn't even recommend it to one of them. If you've got a fever, and the only thing that'll cure it is a "hot Chinese assassin" movie, rent SO CLOSE. It's superior in every way. As for NAKED WEAPON, give it a pass. Watching this movie is like having your spine ripped out: you won't feel a thing.