Naked Killer (1992)

Naked Killer (1992)
Chinese Title: 赤裸羔羊
Translation: Naked Lamb

Starring: Chingmy Yau, Simon Yam, Carrie Ng, Yiu Wai, Madoka Sugawara, Ken Lo, Hui Siu-Hung, Dick Lau Tik-Chi, Chang Tseng
Director: Clarence Fok
Action Director: Lau Shung-Fung

This is one of the more infamous films to come out of Hong Kong, often coming close to being the ne plus ultra of Category III filmmaking. To the uninitiated, Category III refers to a film rating in Hong Kong that corresponds to a very hard ‘R’ or ‘NC-17’ in the United States, or ’18’ in the United Kingdom (and Brazil). The movies are often extremely violent, sexual, and profane in nature. But unlike NC-17 films in the States, Hong Kong theaters are not loathe to show them and sometimes they can even be financially successful. NC-17, on the other hand, has gained the reputation of “porn with a plot” and thus theaters will simply refuse to show them and major studios will try to cut them to get an R rating and thus theatrical distribution.

There was a period in the early and mid-1990s when Category III films were popular. There were a series of hyper-violent films, some of which were based on true crime stories, that were popular in Hong Kong (or at least with HK cinephiles). Things like The Untold Story; Dr. Lamb; and Red to Kill, among others were the notorious examples of the excesses of the Category III rating. Heck, in our day and age, a tasteless exploitation piece like The Ebola Syndrome can get a classy Blu-Ray release over here. And then there is this film, which got released on VHS in the States by Tai Seng in the 1990s and later multiple DVD releases, one of which I believe was cut and this one—released by Tai Seng—was uncut, but with some of the worst dubbing on record.

Naked Killer opens with a elegantly-dressed woman being followed home by some guy who has something impure in mind. The man follows her home and to her bathroom, where she is taking a shower. Before he can do anything, the woman (Carrie Ng, of Cheetah on Fire and Crystal Hunt) unleashes a barrage of GYMKATA!!!! on the poor sap before smashing in his temples with a pair of dumbbells and shooting his cock off with a pistol.

The next day, the police are investigating the murder, including a detective named Tinam (Simon Yam, of Mission Kill and Ip Man). Tinam is a psychological wreck since accidentally shooting and killing his brother six months before. The emotional damage is so extensive that he is not only impotent now, but he cannot even look at a gun without getting sick to his stomach and throwing up. But for all of his issues, Tinam is not an idiot. He quickly realizes that the killer is a woman—his boss immediately writes off his theory—and that it may be the same woman who has been committing a series of similar killings that leave the male victim with his limbs broken and his manhood removed in some way.

Later that week, Tinam is getting a haircut when he witnesses an episode from some womanizing jerk named Tommy, his pregnant ex-girlfriend, and Tommy’s new paramour, a pager operator named Kitty (Chingmy Yau, of City Hunter and Kung Fu Cult Master). After Tommy knocks down his ex and kicks her in the tummy (man…dude…what the heck?), Kitty grabs a pair of scissors and stabs him in the crotch. Tinam can’t overlook that—although he somehow could overlook the domestic violence that preceded it—and runs after her. Kitty initially thinks he’s a pervert, but warms up to him when she learns that he’s not only a cop, but a damaged one, too.

The two start a relationship of sorts—kicked off by his leaving his pager behind and she using it to track him down to the police station—but that is interrupted by fate. Her dad (Chan Tseng, of The Red-Tasseled Sword) is a humble street vendor whose Mainland wife is too materialistic for her husband’s job. When dad catches Kitty’s stepmom in bed with a Triad boss (Ken Lo, of King of the Sea and Stage Door Johnny), a fight breaks out between the cuckold and the lover. The Triad pushes the old man down the stairs, causing him to accidently stab himself in the chest. A distraught Kitty walks into the building the next day and starts blowing everybody away, including her dad’s murderer. However, there is only so much an untrained marksman can do against an army of Triads.

She is saved by the intervention of Sister Cindy (Yiu Wai), a female assassin who is looking for a new student. Cindy takes Kitty under her wing, slices off her finger prints, and starts teaching her how to seduce and kill. Cindy even kidnaps local perverts, chains them up in the basement, and locks Kitty in there with them so she can have something to practice her skills with. Uhh…okay.

After Kitty finishes her training, her and Cindy go to Japan to kill a Yakuza—which involves the two women dancing suggestively in a nightclub and then slicing off his head with a thin wire. The Japanese then hire Princess—the lady from the opening scene—and her lover, Baby (Madoka Sugawara, of Rape in Public Sea), to kill the women responsible for their boss’s death. And it just so happens that Sister Cindy was Princess’s teacher, too. And the closer that Princess draws to Kitty, the more she starts to fall for her. And Tinam eventually crosses path with Kitty again, thus testing her new loyalties…

Naked Killer is a very stylish movie. From a technical standpoint, the film looks great. The photography is kinetic. The set design is garish and colorful. The costumes are over-elegant, but they fit the over-the-top nature of the film and complement the cinematography to a ‘T’. There are certain films where critics say that composition—sets, costumes, lighting, and angles—is such that you could take every frame of the movie, blow it up, frame it, and place it on the wall. That applies to Bride with White Hair. It applies to Naked Killer, too. Almost every scene could placed in a photobook, albeit maybe one put together by Dian Hanson.

It goes without saying that Naked Killer is also a very sleazy film. As expected from a Wong Jing film, the word “rape” gets tossed around rather casually, which will definitely offend some sensibilities. That said, there is also a lot of talk of forcibly castrating men and a lot of “doohickies” get sliced, shot and smashed over the course of the film, so maybe that balances things out. Chingmy Yau has a long sex scene with Simon Yam—she is the only one who can cure his impotence—although the camera always shies away from showing her nipples. The actual nudity is provided by Japanese actress Madoka Sugiwara, playing the female plaything of lead villainess Princess. Princess, as played by Carrie Ng, is portrayed as a predatory lesbian and she has two love scenes with the character of Baby. I’m going to guess that the explicity lesbian sex is what really gave this film the Category III rating.

Being a Wong Jing film, one may expect some broad, out-of-place humor in an otherwise serious film. Wong Jing, who both wrote and produced this, actually keeps his worst comic instincts under control for the vast majority of the film’s running time. In fact, the only real joke is a gross-out gag involving a policeman who unwittingly eats a severed penis after mistaking it for an uncooked sausage. Really, Wong? Really?

There is some action in the first and last thirds of the film, staged by Lau Shung-Fung. Lau cut his teeth in the genre by working with Corey Yuen and Yuen Tak in films like Prince of the Sun and Saviour of the Soul. This was one of his earliest films as the main action director and he does pretty good job with the set pieces. The best scene is the shootout at Ken Lo’s office that becomes a hyper-stylized bullet ballet in a parking garage, complete with a knife at the end of an elastic cord that can do all sorts of things. Near the end, we get a kung fu fight between Princess, Baby and Sister Cindy. The choreography is very balletic in a way that recalls Ching Siu-Tung’s work in The Heroic Trio—the two men worked on the same team to choreograph Legend of the Liquid Sword. The finale features more kinetic gunplay and some brief fighting between Kitty and Princess.

Naked Killer inspired two remakes: Naked Weapon (2002) and Naked Soldier (2012). That is a perfect “every ten years” scenario, unfortunately derailed by the slow death of Hong Kong cinema and the COVID pandemic. Where is my Naked Assassin, people? There is another film, Raped by an Angel, also starring Chingmy Yau, that was promoted in some markets as Naked Killer 2. They are unrelated, and Raped by an Angel inspired its own set of unrelated sequels, generally involving women who get violent revenge against the men who raped them. There are six films that particular series, with two of them purporting to be Raped by an Angel 5, which is just…so…Hong Kong, I guess.