Princess (Carrie Ng), a ruthless professional assassin, kills some random
thug (who wears a denim vest with one football shoulder pad on it, apropos of
nothing) by smashing his head with a couple of dumbbells and then shooting him
in the junk. Detective Tinam (Simon Yam), a cop who accidentally shot
and killed his own brother causing him to vomit whenever he draws his gun or
has a gun pointed at him but is okay just being around guns (which makes you
wonder how he gets ready for work in the morning), is on the case. He meets violently cute with Kitty (Chingmy Yau) at a salon, and falls in
love with her. Kitty, in turn, is taken
under the wing of Sister Cindy (Wai Yiu)
and trained to be a killer. But Princess
and her own protégé/lover Baby (Madoka
Sugawara) come into inevitable conflict with Sister Cindy and Kitty, and
it’s pretty much game on.
Clarence Fok Yiu-leung’s Naked
Killer (aka Chik Loh Go Yeung) is
a Category III film that, from what I’ve been able to gather, has been plagued
by censorship issues ever since it was produced. In fact, I had to watch two versions of it to
get a whole idea of what was going on in it.
Both of these versions are available on Youtube, but the quality is
garbage, so be advised should you decide you want to check it out from that
source. The shorter version I saw (about
sixty-nine minutes, fittingly enough, though the video is listed at around one
hundred minutes, but all it does is restart the movie from the beginning for
that last half hour) contains a couple of scenes that bond Sister Cindy and
Kitty together, but it cut out all of the sex scenes and some of the
violence. It’s a real butcher job. The longer version I saw (about eighty-nine
minutes) contains the sex and violence, but it inexplicably cut the
aforementioned scenes between Sister Cindy and Kitty. The funny thing is, I enjoyed both versions
immensely. Sure, the shorter version is
exceedingly difficult to follow, but it maintains the kinetic, imaginative
camerawork of the longer version. The
camera whips around during the action scenes.
Often, Dutch angles are used, imbuing the film with a comic book
atmosphere. The stuntwork is top notch,
with characters flipping and yerking thither and yon through the frame. Both versions also have a charm that rests
largely on the shoulders of Yau, who
is adept at being sexy, mean, and coquettish, all at the same time. The rest of the female cast are up to the
task as well, don’t misunderstand. But
it’s Yau’s acting in combination
with Yiu-leung’s direction that
raises material which is both run-of-the-mill and offbeat and could as easily have
been a disaster as anything else (I’ll theorize here that the same could be
said for just about every Category III film).
Naturally, when you have female
assassins in a film the emphasis on sex, specifically as it pertains to how the
hitwomen are displayed, is amplified, something films about male assassins
never have (at least to my knowledge, although I guess something like Crying Freeman may be an exception). This philosophy is perfectly summed up in two
scenes between Sister Cindy and Kitty.
In the first, Cindy admonishes Kitty for taking too long to kill a
pedophile, stating that a woman’s body is as much a weapon as a gun or a
knife. In the second, she proves this
ethos by seducing a pair of perverts and then snapping their necks.
The film’s sexuality works in
several ways. First, there is its usage
as retaliation against misogynists. When
we first meet Kitty, she stabs a male hair stylist for beating his pregnant
girlfriend (he even kicks her in the stomach, just in case we might
accidentally sympathize with him). Soon
after, she murders the man who cuckolded and killed her father, even stabbing
his penis with a pencil at one point (I think it was a pencil). Princess and Baby make a habit of mutilating
their male victim’s genitals, and while Kitty has been known to mess with men’s
wedding tackle, for her this is borne out of anger; for Princess and Baby, it’s
sadism. Kitty and Cindy, while acting in
their professional capacity, kill men violently, but it’s not personal; it’s
just business with style. Second is the
relationship between Kitty and Tinam.
Kitty feels bad for Tinam because of his newfound aversion to gun
violence. As the two come together
(quite literally), they heal each other (sort of), and this relationship gives
Kitty a heteronormative path to what happiness she is allowed within the
story.
Which brings us to the third and
most important point. The females in
this film, with the exception of Kitty, are lesbians, and there is a sharp line
drawn between this lifestyle and that of heterosexuals. Princess and Baby have sex that is cold in
every way but the physical. They do it
in a swimming pool filled with one of their victim’s blood, for example. This is transgressive while also playing to
the audience’s prurient interest (remember, this is still a Category III film). The division between homo- and
heterosexuality is best depicted in an intercut sex scene, featuring Tinam and
Kitty on one side and Princess and Baby on the other. The shots of Tinam and Kitty are well-lit,
almost glamourous, with lots of closeups, and the two are sharing in each
other’s bodies, committing to each other.
The shots of Princess and Baby are in a dark, dank setting, with the bed
at an odd angle to the camera’s lens, and the camera itself at a distance from
its subjects. There is no true intimacy
here. It is also unsatisfying for both
of them, because the two cannot connect on a human level. Sister Cindy lies somewhere in the
middle. It is clearly implied that she
had a sexual relationship with Princess (they share a significant smooch later
in the film), but we can assume that their breakup had something to do with
Princess’ predatory, cruel worldview.
Cindy’s relationship with Kitty is different. She feels a sisterly/motherly connection with
her young charge, and the two discuss things openly. It is possible that Cindy wants an amorous
relationship with Kitty, but she won’t force it, and she is just as happy
(probably moreso) in their platonic, teacher/student kinship. Even though the film leans more toward
heterosexuality being the acceptable form of love, Sister Cindy helps balance
the scale by being able to exist in both worlds. She is the most stable of the women, being a
lesbian but not a rapacious one like Princess while also being a friend and
mentor to Kitty, who could certainly use the guidance. Sure, Sister Cindy still wants to kill Tinam,
but it’s in the service of professionalism rather than jealousy. And isn’t that what friendship is all about?
MVT: The four women in this
film are fantastic, in my estimation. As
talented physically as they are astoundingly attractive, each of the actresses
gives their character a strongly defined personality, and this really aids Naked Killer in separating itself from
the crowd.
Make or Break: The opening
assassination sets up everything the film needs to get moving, being stylish,
sexy, hyperviolent, and ridiculous simultaneously.
Score: 7.25/10
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