Naked Soldier

I have no idea why the rating here is so low for this movie. I don't speak Mandarin, and I watched this movie without English subtitles, but I understood everything that went on in this story. The visual story telling was that good. Every nuance, every detail were all intricately woven into actors movement and expressions. I should give credit to director Marco Mak for his superb directing.

Like the original Naked Killer was shockingly new for 1992, there was something shockingly contemporary about this movie as well. I saw the original Naked Killer in a movie theater in Hong Kong, and I came out of the theater with renewed expectation for all future movies that I saw. This movie had that effect on me as well.

One thing that can be said about movies produced or directed by Wong Jin is that it's very high quality, and some has expensive look and feel about them as well. This is true for this movie as well. And the women in this movie blows away any actresses in Hollywood produced movies. They are absolutely off the charts.

If there was one thing I didn't like about this movie was that all the actors looked so stiff. This was true especially for the younger actors. And like all the new China Hong Kong based movies, the entire color of the screen has a strange greenish hue to it. Also interior of the newer Hong Kong movies has this bland white walls everywhere. What happened to the beautiful and colorful Hong Kong of the '80s and the '90s ?

Anyways, this is an excellent action film, with many familiar faces, and welcome new faces. If the tone lightened up a bit, the future is bright for Wong Jin, and the future Hong Kong cinema.

Back in 1992, writer-producer Wong Jing hits jackpot with his seminal NAKED KILLER -- one of the most popular Category III action thrillers filled with gleefully over-the-top performances (Chingmy Yau, Simon Yam and Carina Ng), acrobatic action set-pieces, and erotic content. It was a worldwide cult sensation that inspired countless imitations. Then came NAKED WEAPON in 2002, which was basically a rehash of NAKED KILLER formula. While it was an inferior follow-up, the movie had its worthwhile moments. A decade later, Wong Jing has finally completed his "NAKED" trilogy with NAKED SOLDIER. Like the previous two movies, it's more of the same. Except this time, Wong Jing have to remove all the edgy content (read: Category III) and repackaged them with a milder version to cater for the lucrative Mainland market (well, when you have to deal with China movie industry, strict censorship is inevitable). Naturally, NAKED SOLDIER is the weakest entry of the trilogy by comparison. But if watching this as a standalone movie, it has enough outrageous action and some over-the-top performances to win over fans of exploitation cinema.

NAKED SOLDIER opens in 1980 where hotshot Interpol agent Lung Chi-Keung (Sammo Hung) has successfully infiltrated a massive drug bust and manages to confiscate all the goods worth US$25 million. The owner, Brother Power (Anthony Wong) is very upset over the matter and hires Madame Rose (Ellen Chan) and her assassins to kill Lung and his entire family over Christmas dinner at their home in Florida. Lung is lucky enough to escape death, but his beloved five-year-old daughter is kidnapped by Madame Rose and brainwashed her to make her believe she's her mother. The girl is given the name Phoenix and subsequently trained, along with other kidnapped children, to become a professional assassin when they are grown up.

Fifteen years later in 1995, Madame Rose sends out her three best squad, Phoenix (Jennifer Tse), Selina (Ankie Beilke) and Ivy (Lena Lin), to wipe out a number of high-ranking international drug leaders. Enter Sam Wong (Andy On), who works for the Beijing police force, is assigned to the Hong Kong office of Interpol, to investigate the murder case. Along with his partner Siu Pei (Timmy Hung), he also reassigns Lung to help out with the case. Lung agrees, as long as Sam reopens the case on his missing daughter.

While Selina and Ivy manage to accomplish their mission successfully, the same cannot be said to Phoenix. She is supposed to kill one of the drugs leaders' widow (Amy Lu) at the funeral in Taiwan, but she shows compassion and let her go instead even though her cover is already blown open.

Madame Rose realizes Phoenix's mistake and subsequently assigns her to kill Lung. Meanwhile, Selina has a huge grudge over Phoenix because she keeps thinking Phoenix is stealing her admirer, Dragon (Philip Ng).

The plot is formulaic at best, with a varying degree of silliness that echoes the good old '90s formula. Some might find this too outdated and awkward for today's generation, but at the very least Wong Jing doesn't take his subject seriously and make it as fun as possible.

Some of the casts here are playful enough to make them worthwhile. Model-turned-actress Jennifer Tse (sister of Nicholas Tse) made her first leading role with mild success. She is convincing when comes in the action sequences, particularly in her final showdown against Ankie Beilke. However, it's a shame that Wong Jing and director Marco Mak doesn't gives her opportunity to showcase some sexual tease as she spends most of her time fully clothed. Other than that, Tse's acting skill is exceptionally wooden. The rest of the female casts -- Ellen Chan, Ankie Beilke and Lena Lin -- have their fair share of over-the-top trashy performances. Veterans Sammo Hung and Anthony Wong show up and let loose with their playful charms.

Action-wise, Corey Yuen's martial-art choreography relies heavily on wirework as usual and he does them with some entertaining results. Coupled with fluid editing by Lee Kar-Wing and Marco Mak, the action are fun to watch for and I'm glad the filmmakers doesn't follow the annoying trend of tight close-ups often plagued in this department.

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I'm not sure why this is disliked or marked down (I tend to mark lower than average and I'd expect to see this with maybe 6.2). Direction, acting and camera-work are generally fine, but nothing special, as you'd expect in this type of film. You either like Sammo Hung or you don't - for me, he's fine. I watched a dubbed version and, unlike what's been said about the subtitled one, the dialogue was OK.

Where the movie scores though: Cory Yuen, as ever, does an excellent job of the action scenes, and there are lots of them, some reasonably inventive and, yes, very violent if that bothers you. Not sure if these actors really know kung fu, but they look like they do. My favourites were the hot-tub fight against the black guy, and the semi-comedy guy with the hat at the end.

Perfectly solid entertainment for anyone who likes a lot of fast and competently handled action. Watch and enjoy.

Okay, so I'll openly state that I saw this with the English subtitles which came with the retail DVD, but judging from the poor story-telling on screen, I'd well believe them to be faithful renditions of the original speech.

The Naked... films: anyone who knows of them should expect cool visuals, well-choreographed action sequences and beautiful women. Who kill men after sex - let's not miss that part.

Naturally then, being a red-blooded male, I expected to enjoy this.

Unfortunately, the story is daft, with actors hamming it up to the max as if they themselves are unable to believe that the choices made by their characters make for a remotely serious film.

The plot isn't worth mentioning because you'll either want to see hot girls fight or you won't, and it really does come across as a side issue, but the big regret is having to read/listen to all that terrible dialogue. Normally, I'd fast forward to the good bits, but with action - however mindless - seemingly penned into every other page of the script, it would be pointless.

Such a pity then that the action - for the most part - is cheesy too.

Wire-fu moments are fitted in as if someone had made a promise to give people work, the tone of both the film and fights themselves shift as if whimsical to say the least, and there's supposed to be this romance thing going on which will just induce mass groaning from viewers; to top it all off, somebody's agent convinced somebody that Sammo's character should have an adopted daughter, who of course deserves plenty of screen time, regardless as of how annoying she is(!), in an already over-packed cast!

At least Anthony Wong's cameo is justified. An all-round performer, his brief fight scene sums up an already confused film as he gleefully mocks not only this flick, but somehow martial art films on the whole with his cliché-ridden bout.

Watching this, one may want to turn it off if there's another film option close by, but at least check out Anthony's end fight just to put yourself in a less disgruntled mood.