This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Early 2000's were difficult times for Hong Kong cinema. Eventually, it emerges strong with old male greats pulling the industry up by the bootstrap. You can see this in the likes of SPL, Infernal Affairs, and the likes. Female stars of the '80s and the '90s didn't fare so well, and practically none survived into the 21st century (maybe except Lau Ka Lin). So the search was to find fresh new faces that can carry the lead female role. This movie stars Maggie Q who puts in the darker Gen-X style acting into the action.Wong Jin's style of entertainment is evident in this movie. It's got his usual expensive look and feel to the production, and selection of beautiful female actors. The story is bit like Battle Royale that was a hit in Japan around the same time. Bunch of young kids are forced to kill each other for the right to survive as the perfect assassin.It's a cleverly put together movie, that has action, and little bit of skin exposure but maintains good taste. I have no idea why the rating is so low here on this movie. It's a nice action movie that's entertaining to watch.

I will readily admit that I expected something completely different from what I got when I watched Naked Weapon. It has all the ingredients, including the title, of your standard t&a action flick, a curious subgenre that I am not completely averse to, although my girlfriend picked out the movie so I thought I was about to enjoy a guilt-free 90 minutes or so of relentlessly gratuitous nudity. Nope! Surprisingly enough, the movie has almost no nudity at all and makes an honest effort to pass on an honest and moving story. That second part is an almost total failure, of course, but I give them points for effort. It's one of those rare movies where the tagline tells you almost everything you need to know about the movie – they seduce you before they kill you!Yeah, whatever. That's just a promise for the endless nudity and sex scenes that aren't in the movie, and it actually does the movie a disservice by promising nothing but empty t&a while the movie itself is really trying to tell a good story. Whether or not the story is any good is up to you to decide, but I'm here to warn you that it's essentially a ripoff of Battle Royale, except it's not good. A cold-blooded woman named Madame M kidnaps 40 preteen girls and takes them to an island at an undisclosed location in the middle of the ocean. They are offered a polite invitation to leave if they're unhappy upon their arrival, with the small detail that they are machine-gunned down on their way back to the helicopter. Those that remain spend the next 6 years of their lives going through a brutal boot-camp designed to turn them into deadly, hottie assassins. You see, I can say hottie about a lot of 12-year-old girls here because by the time any of them are hot they're at least 6 years older than 12 and have killed all of the rest of the girls, usually with their bare hands, and really, what's hotter than chicks killing each other?Well, your answer to that question will basically predict your opinion of the movie. If you would have no problem watching a bunch of puberty-bound girls being trained how to be sexy and how to be deadly at the same time, then this thing is for you. Personally I didn't mind it too much. I really wish they would have toned down the catastrophically bad acting and sporadic avalanches of cheese, but for a movie that attempts to give us such a belligerently outlandish premise as this and maintain a straight face, you have to give it at least some recognition. Good luck keeping a straight face yourself, though

OK, if you can stomach exploitation flicks then this is probably going to be OK for you. I have to get that out of my system first and foremost. I didn't know at the time of purchase that this was by the director of Naked Killer, if I had, I would have avoided it.Naked Weapon is dire and sleazy for an hour then kicks into high action gear and the last half hour is alright. In fact, it's good enough that if it was half an hour of a decent film it could elevate that film to greatness. What's troubling is that everything that the last half hour implies violence and sex wise is shown graphically and tastelessly in the first hour.I've seen the murkier side of Asian cinema more than I'd like to have seen during various research assignments for my film-studies degree (if anyone mentions Overfiend again I'm leaving the damn country lol), so I wasn't shocked by the fact that Naked Weapon contains rape and violence directed solely towards women, with no consequences to be seen, but I was pretty disappointed. The film was hugely successful on release and yet despite high budget gloss is more reminiscent of 70s smut like Golden Ninja Warrior or the nastier end of the Blaxploitation era than the cutting-edge action movie it's hyped as. The violence and misogyny has no point, no tact or context and whereas movies like Ichi the Killer and Dead or Alive use disgusting footage to shock the viewer into thinking, Naked Weapon's nastiness is just there, hanging out and waiting to shock the unexpecting viewer. For a more detailed look at it all, you might want to check the forum thread 'RE: Rape Scene?' it covers most bases.If you want a good contemporary hong kong movie watch Purple Storm or Hard Boiled, cos this isn't it. What it is is an ugly exploitative throwback with a few good fights in it, and I'll be chucking the DVD next time I'm on a clean out.

No, it's not one of Hong Kong's best films. But yes, it's watchable, although the plot goes downhill the very same second the girls in their makeshift boot camp grow up.There are interesting fight scenes, with decent wire work. But that's pretty much all the film has going for it - the fight scenes, and the boot camp before the girls grow up and the plot line goes absurd.If you must watch it, avoid the cheesy, badly translated, and mutilated script of the English dubbed version. Watch it in Cantonese with English subtitles. The English dub isn't the least bit watchable. In Cantonese with subtitles, it's at least bearable.