Chik loh dak gung (2002) Reviews

• Male fantasy kung-fu. Great fun!

  taxidriver_4482005-02-16

  A word of warning: don't see this expecting intellectually challenging cinema. Naked Weapon is any man's wet dream- gorgeous female assassins go to exotic locations and take out high profile baddies (with mandatory sexy dancing before the kill). The action might seem a bit tame for hardcore kung-fu fans (lots of wires and floaty camera moves disguise lack of fighting talent on the actors' parts), but for those of who just want to see some mindless violence, it does the job nicely. Unfortunately the plot has no direction (one set piece after another), and the dialogue is laughably bad. Thankfully, the cheesy lines are so bad they are actually quite entertaining, and blend in nicely with the whole B-movie feel of the film. Far better than I expected- slick and escapist scenarios, high production values, and the action is great fun. I must however warn potential viewers that Daniel Wu is unspeakably bad as the earnest CIA guy on the tail of the killers- all he has to do is fill the audience in on the plot every now and again and get his ass kicked once. How hard can that be? Anyway, he messes that up nicely. To conclude, Naked Weapon is the perfect film if you've been out drinking, come home at about 2.00 in the morning, and want to see a film where brain power is not expected from the audience. Two thumbs up!

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• Dumb but fun action yarn

  Mike Astill2003-01-28

  Charlene (Maggie Q) is a young girl who finds herself imprisoned and trained to be an assassin, along with a group of other girls including Katt (An Ya) and the psychotic Jing (Jewel Lee). Six years later, these three girls are the only ones left alive to pass the grade, and are sent out into the outside world to become assassins, working under the control of the sinister Madame M. What follows is a pretty much non-stop fight scene, big explosions, blood and death. It's totally cool in a way that western films try so hard but fail to be (mentioning no Ballistics). It doesn't even matter that a lot of the fighting is weak and/or doubled, the lead girls – for all their inexperience – look and move great. There's lots of wirework and plenty of camera trickery, but it gets away with it by being far more fun than it has any right to be. I loved it, and if you like girls with guns, looking cool and shooting people in slow motion, you will too.

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• Get Stupid - Kung Fu

  Bob-452004-12-22

  Amateurishly written, directed and acted, "Naked Weapon" is still worth seeing for some pretty impressive one-on-one martial arts sequences, the two involving Maggie Q., especially. The females in this movie are uniformly strong and the males are either brutish or stupid. The movie contains some pretty repellent aspects as well. WARNING: SPOILERS If you like movies where 13 year old girls are shot, women are drugged and raped and two are tortured to death, then NAKED WEAPON is for you. Young girls with sports or martial arts skills are kidnapped and placed in a concentration camp on a remote island. Those who resist or try to escape are shot. Of the 40 who begin the training, only three are allowed to live. They are paid $1,000,000 per year to murder male targets. An inept Asian CIA agent tracks down one, Charlene (Maggie Q.) END OF SPOILERS The group fights are pretty bad, likely reflecting the minimal skills of many of the female participants. The scenes involving shooting are pretty bad, too. Many of the shooters don't appear to be too interested in their targets. There is one pretty impressive scene, however, involving a shoulder fired missile and a car. If the more repellent aspects don't turn your stomach, you're likely to involve the one-on-one combat. I give "Naked Weapon" a "5".

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• Hot Babes, Matrix-style fight scenes and an idiotic script

  prod742004-07-16

  What can I say about this movie. It was recommended to me by a friend with a warning: don't take it seriously. And he was right. This is a very entertaining movie if you can get past some very serious flaws, like an extremely bad script and some lousy acting. What was good about the film: The soundtrack was very good and supported the movie well. The overall story was rather good and interesting. The women were beautiful and sexy. The fight scenes were superb - a little over the top, but still nicely done. Besides, the concept "hot women using their bodies as weapons" is really cool. What was bad about the film: The acting leaves a lot to be desired in many occasions. The script was lousy, sometimes even stupid. The love story was badly portrayed and it was a bit out of place. To sum it up: This movie is not Oscar material, you won't be thinking about it afterwards and it's not going to be in your list of all time favourites. Still, it's an action packed, highly entertaining film that will provide for a pleasant evening. I give it 7 out of 10.

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• Stylish and sexy, spine-ripping assassin action.

  BA_Harrison2008-01-05

  Naked Weapon, from prolific writer/producer Wong Jing and director Siu-Tung Ching, is one of the most preposterous films that I have seen in a long time. It is also one of the most consistently entertaining. Madame M (Almen Wong) is the head of an organisation that provides sexy assassins for hire. When an operative is killed, she abducts a large number of pretty teenage girls (all of whom are adept at fighting) and takes them to a remote island where they are trained for six years to become ruthless killers (special move: sever the spine with finger tips and remove several vertebrae!). At the end of their gruelling training, the girls are pitted against each other in duels to the death. The last three alive are then given the opportunity to work for Madame M in exchange for their eventual freedom. Hong Kong hotties Maggie Q, Anya, and Jewel Lee play the film's ridiculously attractive final trio of killers, and fans of slick, sexy action should not be disappointed: director Siu-Tung Ching delivers loads of high-kicking martial arts action scenes (thoughtfully shot in slow motion so as to give male viewers even longer to ogle the stars' bodies as they perform all manner of acrobatic moves); there are gratuitous bloody gun fights in which the gals sport teensy outfits; and we even get a couple of steamy sex scenes (Maggie Q kindly gets 'em out for the lads!). It is true that this is a dumb, trashy, sexist, and brutally violent movie—an exercise in style over content which lacks convincing acting and a decent plot. But who cares, when you've got stunning visuals, a touch of gore, crazy Matrix-style fight scenes, and, towards the end, quite a bit of audacious wire-work (at one point, Charlene ends up balanced on one leg atop a bad guy's head)? Certainly not me!

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