Review: Originally touted as a remake / sequel to Wong Jing’s NAKED KILLER, the film NAKED WEAPON became a project that was officially unrelated to that particular film but which retained the recognisable exploitation aspects that helped make NAKED KILLER become a massive hit. With Wong Jing taking writing and producing duties and handing the job of directing over to Ching Siu-Tung the big question was whether he would be able to take the concept and be able to turn it into more than an exploitation flick. Of course he didn’t.

The wafer-thin-written-on-the-back-of-a-stamp plot of NAKED WEAPON is just an excuse to have a bunch of pretty girls doing some really cool looking stuff, like killing people in slow-motion while wearing very little. Good stuff, you’re thinking - and so was I. The problem with NAKED WEAPON is that it fails on most of the deliciously low-brow points that it tries to hit. There’s a moment about twenty minutes into the film when the girls have just killed someone for the first time. In the scene a distraught Charlene (Maggie Q) is comforted in the shower by close friend Katt (Anya Wu). There’s two naked women, a shower and a bar of soap. Bizarrely, nothing happens in the scene – it’s a moment of ‘drama’ (!). It actually seems strange because it doesn’t develop into the obvious lesbian shower scene. This is just one example of where NAKED WEAPON goes wrong. It should be an unashamed exploitation piece, but can’t quite go the whole hog. There’s no point pretending this is high drama, but sometimes NAKED WEAPON avoids obvious moments which are perfectly suited to the exploitative nature of the material. There’s nothing else of substance here, no decent script, no good ideas, no real characters, no real plot. In a film like this, two girls in a shower should only mean one thing – not a character building moment of emotion. It lets you down on two counts. Lousy drama, lousy lack of soapy women.

Now before I get all over-worked in explaining why NAKED WEAPON is poor just because there’s no T & A in the shower, it’s a sign of how badly judged the filmmakers have been when there is a rape scene which follows this disappointing moment only a few minutes later. It’s a cheap-shot scene, it’s uncomfortable (it’s rape for crying out loud!) and it also only serves to leave a bitter aftertaste in what is a shallow although basically light-hearted film. To avoid some of the obvious but harmless exploitation scenes and instead opt for a rape scene is just bad judgement.

On the plus side, NAKED WEAPON looks fantastic throughout - although during the action there’s more impressive individual shots rather than any good all-round scenes. The reliance on over the top wirework takes the realism out of the fights but these aren’t then pushed far enough to make any sort of sense on their own terms (as the best wire-work can do) and instead look sloppy. While the cast all look pretty good, the acting across the board is horrible. Filmed totally in English, NAKED WEAPON has one of the poorest scripts that I’ve heard in a long time. Daniel Wu and Maggie Q are pretty much totally wasted as they stumble over wooden dialogue and implausible plot developments. Implausible in the way that has you shaking your head in disappointment instead of highly amused. The only redeeming features of their performances is that Daniel Wu gets the briefest of action scenes, and Maggie Q looks good in slow motion.

Although it sounds as if I’ve given the film a total slating, it’s mainly because this had some potential to be a guilty pleasure and it’s a shame to see a decent cast and talented director go to waste. As a post-pub boys film NAKED WEAPON is okay – there’s enough obvious scenes of women in their underwear dancing and fighting to keep a short attention span interested. As an action film it’s fairly lacking, there’s pretty much nothing erotic about it and as a thriller / drama / whatever it falls flat as a pancake.