Writer and producer Wong Jing followed up his cult classic Cat. III hit Naked Killer (1992) with the Tony Ching Siu-tung directed feature Naked Weapon (2002). As the title Naked Weapon suggests, Wong Jing was not only capitalizing on the success of Naked Killer ten years earlier but also on the success of his more recent project Body Weapon (1999). Naked Weapon has all of Wong Jing’s signature bad taste and chauvinism, but it doesn’t begin to rival these two earlier features in terms of exploitative spectacle.
The premise of Naked Weapon draws on that of its predecessor, though this time out Wong Jing infuses his film with some of the aesthetics of the mega hit Charlie’s Angels (2000). The plot follows Charlene Ching (Maggie Q) and Kat (Anya Wu) from their initial kidnapping as little girls through Madame M’s (Almen Wong) Battle Royale-esque boot camp until they are deployed as assassins. As the two girls carry out hit after hit they draw the attention of CIA agent Jack Chen (Daniel Wu) and the revenge obsessed Ryuichi (Andrew Lin).
Tony Ching Siu-Tung, a highly esteemed fight choreographer (whose credits include Executioners and House Of Flying Daggers), stages the numerous action sequences with his signature high-wire style. In Ching Siu-tung’s hands the emphasis of Naked Weapon shifts from Wong Jing’s fetishized sexual violence to a ballet-like spectacle. However, Wong Jing still includes a brief but brutal rape scene at the end of the first act which disrupts the tone of the film overall. While Wong Jing seems content to simply recreate his earlier successes, Ching Siu-tung seems to prefer to remake Naked Killer as a mainstream blockbuster circa 2002.
The explicitly sexual mentor and student relationship in Naked Killer is exchanged for an intense partnership between two peers rooted in a shared trauma. And though the friendship between Kat and Charlene is the most dramatically compelling aspect of Naked Weapon, the filmmakers opt instead to prioritize the romance between Charlene and Jack Chen. This represents the most blatant example of how Naked Weapon represents a shift from a niche audience to a wider, global audience.
Whether or not this change in Wong Jing’s modus operandi was motivated by Hong Kong’s return to China is not known to me but should still be considered as a possibility. What’s undeniable about Naked Weapon and its sequel Naked Soldier (2012) is that each film in this franchise, all made a decade apart, represents a dynamic metamorphosis in the popular taste of Chinese culture.
