Naked Weapon

Oh my dear GOD... Ya gotta include actress MAGGIE Q on the list of sweet Asian goddesses because she's just all that, and then some!

Chinese director TONY CHING's action-exploitation film, NAKED WEAPON is a mindless "guy movie" to tune in to every day of the week. Leave your brain at the door and kick back to watch gorgeous girls kicking butt in totally awesome fast paced wirework heaven! So let's see, what exactly do we have here... one part BATTLE ROYALE (with only chicks, no less), one part LA FEMME NIKITA, and finally, one part THE MATRIX, and that's no joke.

So, with all that going for it, is NAKED WEAPON a good movie? NO, probably not. I mean, it's scripted incredibly silly with some of the worst dialogue you're likely to ever hear. It's badly acted but I don't think it's really the actor's fault since the Asian cast were required to speak in English throughout the entire film, which I'm sure was a ploy to entice new comers to this "Girls With Guns" genre. And most notably, NAKED WEAPON contains many, many plot holes sooo fucking huge that it's a wonder that it ever held what little bit of a story it actually had together. This film is as supra-cheezy and campy as they come. But I gotta admit, it's just so damn fun to watch, I kid you not! Can you say... GUILTY PLEASURE?!

NAKED WEAPON's story is quite simple. Young and athletic teenage girls are kidnapped against their will, brought to an isolated island, and forced to take part in "assassin training" to become beautiful killing machines for a secret "pay-by-the-hit" organization. These girls learn all the deadly fighting arts, espionage, and spy-type shit they can through a six year program and when graduation finally arrives, they're ordered to kill each other off in a glorious "Battle Royale" until only one remains. This lucky gal will become the newest professional killer for Madame M (actress ALMEN WONG and a great MICHELLE YEOH look-alike), the mastermind behind this "femme fatale" society. But during this joyfully fierce and bloody hand-to-hand combat tournament, three girls make it to the final round, our star Charlene (actress MAGGIE Q), her VERY close friend Katt (an actress known only as ANYA), and their psychotic rival Jill (actress JEWEL LEE). Madame Q breaks her own rules and decides to keep the trio of feisty lasses and after a relentless rape-fest to "break" them all in, she unleashes her new agents into the gangsta underworld to do her dirty work.

Well, mission after mission, everything goes pretty good until Charlene runs into CIA Agent Jack Chen (played by actor DANIEL WU), who has been trying to nab Madame M for years. As it soon turns out, they, along with Katt, are eventually forced to work together in order to save Charlene's long lost mother from a hit placed on her by their now former employer, Madame M. Charlene's again destined to fight her crazed nemesis Jill and in the process, hopefully get alittle payback for being betrayed. And if that wasn't enough for our dear distressed lovely heroine, a past Triad victim's henchman, Ryuichi (actor ANDREW LIN), a "Chop Socky" badass in his own right, vows to avenge his slain boss by making life completely miserable for the poor girl. And there you have it in a nutshell, the stage is set so please let the ass-whippings commence. Yeah, I know, it's absolute absurd fluff and painfully simplistic storytelling, yet as I said before, it's just so extremely entertaining.

Why?

Well, first and probably most importantly, there's all the drop-dead gorgeous Asian chicks running around in the movie. And even though there's not alot of real nudity in the film (which you'd expect otherwise considering that the title of the film has the word "naked" in it), they do forever tease us male viewers by wearing skin tight outfits, or flashing their panties at us with splits or jumps, and they absolutely love to get wet which causes their always lightly colored wardrobe to cling to their ever oh-so fine frames. Secondly, the ever-enjoyable abundant fight scenes are without a doubt, downright enthralling and outright mesmerizing. It appears that action director TONY CHING and stunt co-ordinator LAU CHI HO really put in some butt stomping overtime and came up with a truely increadible lineup of Martial Arts mayhem for us to drool over. There's wireworks galore, MATRIX slow-mo spinning in the air, inhuman springs and flips that would make comic book superheroes jealous, and an ultra-snazzy camera direction that really makes you feel the "thump" from the blows you see on screen. I mean, take the best over-the-top high flying fight scenes from JET LI's THE ONE or BLADE 2 or THE MATRIX, multiply them by ten and there you have it. So tell me, what more could you ask for from a movie about girls beating everyone's behind?!

All in all, an utterly fantastic viewing experience (which was also enhanced by a big glass of vodka) and I highly recommend this mindless "Babes And Bullets" dribble to anyone who knows what they're getting into, or is curious about the flashy and sexy Oriental "Girls With Guns" genre. Or just wants to see MAGGIE Q do an uber-arousing striptease dance complete with all the right gyrations and grinding. My, oh my... it damn near overpowered me with tears of ecstasy from my emotionally raptured eyes. Trust me, watch NAKED WEAPON and if you actually don't like it, I'll give ya your money back.