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Naked Killer Director: Clarence Fok Yiu Leung "So what are you guys watching?" So came the voice of my friend's mother several years ago, who was at the top of the stairs leading down to the basement, where we were in the middle of watching a savage beating on his TV. Relaxed and slumped into his easy chair, I wasn't feeling more like talking than watching violence. Neverless, I knew that one had to show a token amount of respect to your elders, especially since my friend seemed to be having problems explaining exactly what we were watching. So I mumbled three syllables. Fortunately, they were loud enough for my friend to hear, and instantly inspired him to repeat them, and loudly. "FOREIGN FILMS!" That was true. What neither of us mentioned to his mother were that the foreign movie we were watching at that moment was the Australian Romper Stomper, full of glorious scenes of skinheads getting their asses kicked by others and themselves. The second movie to be watched on our double bill was the Japanese The Street Fighter (the uncut letterboxed version, of course.) The point of this story is to try and shatter those myths that foreign films are boring. Sure, there are a number of heavy and pretentious foreign movies that make it to our shores every year, with people like Roger Ebert going orgasmic over the latest French or Danish import about depressed people, claiming that movies from countries like these are more "grown up" than American films. What he and those other critics always fail to mention is that the audiences in the countries these movies came from usually stayed away from these same movies, going instead for good old American films. They also don't mention that the foreign movies that reach our shores are just a small percentage of the total number made every year, and the foreign movies we don't see are mostly real movies. Yes, the French might act stuffy, but they make a number of action, horror, and T&A flicks every year. Another foreign place that makes a number of real movies each year is Hong Kong, Naked Killer being one of them. Already I can hear the shrieks and snotty sniffs from lovers of those other foreign films - in other words, those who have no life. They forget that the first films ever made for the public were entertainment, and that films don't have to make you think, they can just be fun. I can still hear a few protests in the background, so for my review of Naked Killer, I am going to prove that even real movies can be found to have deep insights into various aspects of society. Naked Killer puts its focus on hitwomen.
(And before any of you art movie lovers shriek that this
subject sounds exploitive, remember that your idol John
Cassavetes made Gloria, a movie about a
hitwomen. So shut up.) The movie teaches us a great deal
about such women. For one thing, they all Naked Killer also teaches us about the
eccentric work habits of lesbian hitwomen. Apparently,
professional hitwomen find new students by looking for women
who energetically stab men they This is not the only blow to a groin that the movie shows us in full detail. Throughout the movie, several other groins are shot, and some (not just male) are kicked as well. Which shows that groin blows must be a common occurrence in Asian society, because I can't imagine Asian filmmakers wanting to create theaters full of people groaning and rolling on the ground, like I was soon doing. Back to the initially shot groin, it soon results in one of the first insight into the complexity of the Chinese language. One of the policemen on the scene, after commenting, "It's such a cruel murdering," mentions that, "The murderer even broke the man's dick!" Other various idioms found in the Chinese language are
illustrated at great length throughout the movie, some more
examples being, "Buy some napkins in time of period. To
shut his mouth and ass!", "I want to burst your
t*ts", "Man, go and eat s**t!", and "I
still have time to take gastric lavage." Naked Killer give great insight into
Chinese society as well as the world of lesbian hitwomen.
It's quite an educational experience. And it also has enough
stuff to make it a real movie. Before you shriek
again, Of course, as I've mentioned earlier, Naked Killer is also a real movie, and a darn entertaining one as well. It's well worth adding to your own personal foreign film festival at home. Still, those with sensitive mothers might want to be cautious; I learned that mothers aren't all that dumb when my friend and I went upstairs for a break in the middle of watching Romper Stomper, and his mother asked us what movie we were watching. Now in the mood to talk, I quickly said something like, "It's a movie about a rejected part of society struggling to make its presence known, but finding their ambitions in intense opposition by not only not only other specific sections of society, but internally as well." Without blinking, she asked, "Is it a gang movie?"
Check for availability on Amazon (VHS - dubbed) See also: Fantasy Mission Force, Robotrix, The Untold Story |
seem
to be lesbians, or at the least, have some lesbian
tendencies. Though hitwoman Kitty (Chingmy Yau), the main
female character, finds herself falling in love with male
cop Timan (Simon Yam) during the course of the movie, she
doesn't seem to mind when her older hitwoman teacher Sister
Cindy seductively strokes her legs while she teachers her
all the skills of killing. Neither does she mind, when going
out for her first contract kill, dancing a seductive lesbian
dance at a nightclub with her teacher in order to lower the
guard of their target. The lesbian aspect of hitwomen, and
their love for others in their social circle, is further
illustrated by two other hitwomen characters in the movie.
One of them has an intense crush on Kitty, and when she
peeps on Kitty having sex with Timan, she is so frustrated
that she right there and then has intense lesbian sex with
her present girlfriend. Here the movie cuts back and forth
between both sex scenes, though I confess I don't know what
this symbolism means.
dislike
in the groin with scissors, even if they have only known
these men for a few minutes. When fully trained, if they
have the time and resources, they like to send a wave of
expendable men to their target before confronting the target
themselves. Usually the men get violently blown away (we see
several examples of this), so it's clear that this plan is
to soften the target so it's easier for themselves when they
actually confront it. But the movie also illustrates that
some lesbian hitwomen have unique habits. The lesbian
hitwoman seen in the opening scene likes to play classical
music and have a shower in her target's apartment just
before the confrontation. When confronted, she kills him by
first shooting him once, then doing a flip in the air and
smashing each side of his head with a barbell in mid flip,
then finishing with a bullet to the groin.
Also
related is the term of endearment Timan uses for his loyal
policeman partner and friend, "Shithead". That is
not the only interesting look at the methods and practices
of members of the Hong Kong police. We learn that even if
you killed your policeman brother two months earlier, and
you tremble and vomit at the sight of a gun (shown twice in
full detail), you can be back on the force and still carry a
gun. (Related to this is the revealing fact that shooting
your brother can give you impotence that can only be cured
by being with a hitwoman.) We even get a look at sloppy
police work, learning why you should not be eating sausage
and egg at a murder scene when the victim got castrated.
art
movie lovers, can you say truthfully that shootouts don't
happen in real life? You snots might be pleased that there
aren't as many action sequences as in other Hong Kong
movies, though they are all swift and brutal, just like many
violent things that have happened in real life. So these
action sequences are real in both senses of the word. Yes,
yes, there isn't that much plot in the movie. But look at
your own life so far - has it been structured like a proper
story? Of course not. So it goes to show that this movie is
in fact more real than your precious art films.