Review of Naked Weapon

Introduction

Madame M is the mysterious evil woman kidnapping young teenage girls and training them to become lethal. When they`re of age, they`re ready to start their assignments as part of an international assassination squad. What`s so naked about Naked Weapon? Imagine being seduced by a beautiful woman who`s a trained killer. Happens all the time, right? She uses her body to get you into your most pleasurable, yet weakest state, and puts an end to your life. Why is it happening? You`re asking the wrong person and watching this film won`t really reveal why it happens, so just accept that it does.

Maggie Q is the star and focal point of this newish Hong Kong action film, which marks a turning point in HK cinema as this film`s native language is English. Time to kick some butt.

Video

Presented with a 1.85:1 widescreen enhanced video transfer, Naked Weapon looks very, very good. Colours and detail are rendered well and while there is some mild grain it`s a minor issue. No evidence of smearing or other transfer problems seem to exist either. Every shot is well lit and this brings about a very stylish look to the film. Blacks come out well too and this film is a pleasure to watch. Estimated budget is around $2m, which is a small film by Western standards, but this looks better than a lot of similar budget American films.

Audio

We`re spoilt for choice when it comes to soundtracks. English Dolby Digital 5.1/DTS 5.1 and Cantonese Dolby Digital 5.1/DTS 5.1. With so many on offer I listened to both the English DD and DTS tracks and both sound pretty good to me. Plenty of onscreen action means plenty of sound to workout those speakers. The rears get to flex too, which is good.

Features

Naked Weapon has the usual HKL animated menus with a wealth of extras spread over two discs. Does this film really warrant two discs?

Disc One:
• Audio Commentary - With regular HK expert Bey Logan and Naked Weapon star Maggie Q. - Do I really need to tell you anything about a Bey Logan audio commentary? Here with Maggie Q it proves thoroughly entertaining from start to finish and, for me, is better than the film itself! Bey`s thorough working knowledge of Eastern cinema never fails to surprise. A good commentary with plenty of back and forth banter.

• Further Attractions - The usual array of trailers for other HKL and Premier Asia titles.

Disc Two:
• Interview Gallery (all widescreen enhanced):
• Deady China Doll (with typo): An interview with Anya (18:31)
• Dark Avenger: An interview with Andrew Lin (17:46)
• The Black Widow: An interview with Almen Wong (16:30)
• Young and Dangerous: An interview with Monica Lo (12:37)

Over an hour of interviews makes a difference from extras found on other DVDs. Overall these are okay and the interviews are worth watching if just the one time.



• Behind the Scenes (all widescreen enhanced):
• A Day in the Life of Maggie Q (34:18) - Are you really interested in following Maggie Q around for the day? Almost 35-minutes long, this is actually quite a nice featurette for a change. We tail the actor around Hong Kong as she goes to yoga, tai chi and other things. She talks about all aspects of her life and I have to smile as I watch it as Maggie Q is nice to watch...You`re not likely to see this many times though.

• Candid Camera (19:59) - This covers one scene, "Escape from the Drug Lord`s mansion", and has the annoying guitar riff from the DVD menus playing; I can`t stand that tune. Aside from this, this is a good little featurette where you can see the wirework and stunt actors do their bit in the scene.

• Location Guide to Naked Weapon with Bey Logan (9:15) - I can`t talk up this man enough. This short n` sweet featurette just covers the locations in the film together with some film history. His deadpan sense of humour phase all but himself.



• Promotional Archive - A collection of four teaser trailers plus the Animated Photo Gallery and The Making of Naked Weapon.

• Animated Photo Gallery - A slideshow collection of about 30 high quality promotional pictures with the looping guitar riff in the background. As slideshows go it`s okay, but will someone kill the guitarist please as it becomes irritating. Incidentally almost half the pictures here are of Maggie Q and even some of those are repetitive in terms of pose and weapons.

• The Making of Naked Weapon (widescreen enhanced) (23:15) - This is more akin the PR featurette with cast and crew and doesn`t really cover anything not already in the other extras here.

• Data Files - Maggie Q, Anya, Andrew Lin and Daniel Wu. Interesting bios for the leading actors.

In some places the English subtitles of the film bears no resemblance to the English dialogue! This was quite amusing, but it`s enough to relate the story/dialogue. Naked Weapon comes packaged in a standard 2-disc DVD keep case. Some early copies have a nice slipcase too. That rounds off a top collection of extras that I like on a film.

Conclusion

Not sure about the nakedness bit, but there are scantily clad females in the film. Seeing attractive women fighting each other in the film is enjoyable, if you like that sort of thing, and the action choreography while highly amusing at the best of times, is very enjoyable. The painful part comes from clichéd dialogue and s-l-o-w motion stunts. Groan worthy yes, but you soon get over it. Naked Weapon is a no brainer action film that will likely have you in stitches at the OTT action and cheesy dialogue, yet it still entertains on a basic level. There`s no denying that it`s nice to see gorgeous women kick butt.

It`s hard to rate a film that is average, yet has a very good selection of extras. There`s no faulting the audio commentary as it proves to be hugely entertaining and perhaps worthy of the price of admission. Naked Weapon is not the kind of hardcore action film one buys into expecting `cool` action coupled with a decent story; it`s an upmarket exploitation film. If you`re in need of laughter and want to see guns and fighting however, check this out. I think this is one of those films that`s so bad that it`s good. Unintentional comedy, action, fighting and chicks with guns make this film all style and no substance. Perfect then for a Friday night rental.