Remember the first wave of Hong Kong cinema to hit American movie screens in 1972? Bruce Lee was transformed into an international superstar after the release of The Big Boss and Fist of Fury and other martial arts masters like Jimmy Wang Yu and Lieh Lo developed cult followings for films such as One-Armed Boxer and Five Fingers of Death. Most of these movies were the product of a male-dominated film industry but, as early as the mid-sixties, female heroines begin to emerge in the genre as witnessed by Cheng Pei Pei in King Hu’s Come Drink with Me (1966). Others would follow like Angela Mao in Deadly China Doll (1973) and Kara Hui in My Young Auntie (1981).
The Hong Kong movie business became even more diversified in 1988 after a new censorship ordinance created a rating system: Category I (general viewing), Category II (parental guidance) and Category III (adults only over 18 years of age). That third category quickly became notorious for an anything-goes-approach to the depiction of sex and violence on-screen. A major turning point was 1991 when Michael Mak’s Sex and Zen, Robotrix starring Amy Yip, and Black Cat with Jade Leung in the title role were among the first to push these boundaries to extremes in Hong Kong cinema. Martial arts actioners got even more outrageous the following year with the release of Chik Loh Goh Yeung (English title: Naked Killer (1992), in which a pair of lesbian assassins terrorize the male scumbags of Hong Kong before squaring off against a rival duo of lesbian hired killers.
When I first saw the film in the early nineties I was surprised by the film’s flagrant disregard for good taste or moral concerns as it rushed through a scenario of non-stop violence, sexual titillation and crude jokes. It was also visually dynamic with rapid fire editing, neon colored lighting effects, beautifully choreographed fight scenes and a lot of erotic softcore posturing that seemed more daring and explicit than it actually was. In other words, it was the perfect exploitation film, designed to excite and delight fans of Hong Kong cinema by its over-the-top approach.
On a second viewing years later, Naked Killer seems much more like a provocative sex tease fantasy as imagined by a fourteen-year-old boy. Certainly the representation of the four female assassins is sexist, if not completely absurd, and the non-PC approach is almost gleeful in its desire to be naughty. But Naked Killer still works on the level of an adrenaline-fueled actioner with a pulpy graphic novel vibe. And the film was obviously inspired by the success of two previous box office hits – Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita (1990), featuring Anne Parillaud as a convicted felon who is trained to be a secret assassin, and Basic Instinct (1992), which was released nine months before Naked Killer. There is even a direct homage to the Sharon Stone murder mystery in a scene set in an after-hours dance club as two female killers do a sensuous bump and grind together as the male clientele look on with envy and lust.
Directed by Clarence Fok (The Iceman Cometh, 1989), Naked Killer starts with a bang as Kitty (Chingmy Yau), a stylishly dressed young woman, enters an apartment, plays a Mozart CD on the stereo, removes her clothes and jumps in the shower. Suddenly she is attacked by a tattooed hit man as she reveals her hidden gun, shoots him in both kneecaps and then crushes his head between two hand weights before vanishing. When the police arrive to investigate, detective Tinam (Simon Yam) discovers the dead man was also shot in the genitals and suspects the killer is a woman.
Kitty’s quest to punish men who behave badly continues as she makes mincemeat of an abusive hairdresser who verbally assaults his pregnant girlfriend before kicking her in the stomach. Then tragedy strikes as Kitty’s father falls to his death down a flight of stairs after discovering his wife in bed with Cody, the chieftain of an infamous triad. Seeking revenge, Kitty invades Cody’s headquarters, killing him and several henchmen before being rescued by Cindy (Wei Yao), an older professional assassin, who blows away countless triad members. The duo escapes to Cindy’s home where Kitty is given a new identity – Susie Kwan – and trained to be a professional assassin as well as the lover of her new mentor.
Meanwhile Tinam continues to investigate Kitty for the numerous killings but becomes infatuated with her in the process. Events take a drastic turn when Princess (Carrie Ng), a former protege of Cindy, enters the scene with her lover Baby (Madoka Sugawara) with orders from the triad to eliminate Kitty and Cindy. [Spoiler alert] The rest of Naked Killer focuses on the deadly duel between the four women before ending in a fiery, gas-propelled explosion in which no one is left standing, a finale which could be seen as either romantic fatalism or complete nihilism.
One of the unusual aspects of Naked Killer is the depiction of Hong Kong men, who are either inept, plodding cops, sex offenders or misogynistic gangsters. The sole semi-sympathetic male character is Tinam, who is experiencing anxiety over his manhood. Even since he accidentally shot and killed his brother in the line of duty, Tinam has become impotent. He has also developed a nervous tic of vomiting whenever he is stressed out. This should give you some idea of the film’s crude sense of humor which includes rape jokes, scatological gags and other infantile attempts at comedy.
The most disgusting gag is a scene where a severed penis falls out of a lamp fixture into a cop’s lunch tray of sausages and he gobbles it down in two bites without noticing anything out of the ordinary. The moron in question is Tinam’s partner and sidekick, who provides occasional moments of unwanted comic relief and goes by the appropriate nickname of Dickhead (Shiu-Hung Hui).
But if the intentional comedy bits fall flat or are too infantile to even raise a smile, Naked Killer succeeds as a visually dynamic cocktail of sex and violence. Some of the staged action sequences are so outlandish that they are both exhilarating and comical. A prime example is when Baby lures a smarmy pop singer into a midnight swim and, with surgeon-like precision, removes the clothes from his body with spring-loaded knives on strings until he is left standing helpless in his bikini underwear.
Director Fok didn’t set out to make a transgressive martial arts action thriller on purpose but that is what Naked Killer becomes as certain scenes toy with controversial subject matter. A case in point is when Cindy locks Kitty in her basement and forces her to perform fight-to-the-death duels with chained serial rapists as part of her training. There is also the questionable moral aspect of Kitty and Cindy justifying their premeditated murders of male scumbags. They like to point out that they serve a higher purpose than Princess and Baby, who mainly kill for pleasure and sadist fun. Of course, in the world of Naked Killer, men are the flawed prey and deserve their fate. And this is a novel change of pace after countless exploitation genre films where women are raped, tortured and killed in the name of entertainment.
As for the four female leads of Naked Killer, they are gorgeous, sexy, athletic and give highly stylized performances that border on campy excess. Prior to this film, Chingmy Yau, who plays Kitty, had risen to fame playing wholesome ingenues in romantic comedies like Money Maker (1991) and Truant Hero (1992). After Naked Killer, she began appearing in more Category III movies under the guidance of Hong Kong producer Jing Wong, who enjoyed the dichotomy of placing the sweet-faced, innocent looking Yau in more provocative adult material.
As the hapless, love-struck male protagonist of Naked Killer, Simon Yam is fine in a semi-comic supporting role that demonstrates his versatility as an actor. Having appeared in more than 200 movies, Yam has played almost every kind of role, from a maniacal judge (Full Contact, 1992) to a depraved serial killer (Dr. Lamb, 1992) to a goofy law enforcer with super powers (Future Cops, 1993) to a poverty-stricken shoemaker (Echoes of the Rainbow, 2010).
Pete Tombs in his influential 1997 book Mondo Macabro: Wild & Wonderful Cinema Around the World described Naked Killer as “…one of the most enjoyable exploitation films of the nineties…With highlights including an underwater lesbian seduction that turns into a vicious catfight, Chingmy Yau taking on two chained rapists in an underground dungeon and the beautiful Carrie Ng with her female slave, Baby, in tow, we’re a long way from the old style heroines of 1960s films like Dragon Gate Inn and Heads for Sale.”
Even some high profile, mainstream film reviewers with an understanding and appreciation for Hong Kong genre films were mostly positive in their reviews such as Derek Elley of Variety, who wrote “…pic emerges as a juicy blend of martial arts actioners and Hong Kong’s so-called Category III (sexpot) movies, with comedy stirred in for good measure. Movie milks references to everything from early Brian de Palma movies to “Basic Instinct,” but its sheer glee in pushing the taste envelope well past its limits marks it as pure Hong Kong.’
When it was first released, Naked Killer was a major hit and has since developed a cult following though the original cut was edited down by Hong Kong censors to a running time of almost 90 minutes. The uncut version runs 1 hour and 37 minutes. An inferior sequel followed, Naked Killer II (1993), which had nothing to do with the original story, but reteamed Simon Yam and Chingmy Yau under the direction of Andrew Lau.
Naked Killer has been available on VHS and DVD since its original release but fans of the movie will want to search out the uncut version on DVD from Bonzai Productions, which was released in March 2013. This is definitely a key Hong Kong film – love it or hate it – that deserves a Blu-ray upgrade.
Other links of interest:
https://mydramalist.com/people/3676-chingmy-yau
https://golden.com/wiki/Simon_Yam-99K5BG
https://www.cnbc.com/simon-yam-the-naked-killer-actor-talks-work-ethic-and-love-at-first-sight
Cinema Sojourns 