Naked Weapon (2002) is the second film in the three part "Naked" film series, which includes the first film, cult classic Naked Killer (1992) and the third film that followed this one, Naked Soldier (2012). Other than the basic theme of being based around killers and murderers and starring women, the three films are otherwise unrelated.
Directed by Ching Siu-tung, the movie, starring Maggie Q, follows a young girl, Charlene, who is kidnapped and taken to an island with other little girls by the mysterious Madam M to be trained as assassins, and the investigation of said organization by CIA operative Jack Chen (Daniel Wu).
Veteran martial arts icon Cheng Pei-Pei co-stars, as Charlene's mother.
This movie provides examples of:
- Asshole Victim: Madam M, the woman responsible for forcing many kidnapped teen girls into being assassins gets killed by Ryuchi, who did it to avenge the death of his best friend at the Hamden of one of her assassins.
- Ax-Crazy / Dark Action Girl: Jing is clearly unhinged and enjoys killing way too much. Another girl makes the mistake of suggesting they team up during the graduation fight. Jing simply stabs her in the gut for her trouble.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Despite the girls went through a military-like training; running bare-feet, crawling under the barbed wire, doing push-ups while dunking their heads into the sea water for a few seconds, forced to fight each other to death, everytime they fight their enemies while severely beaten or kicked until bleeding, the next day, their skin remains glowing, no visible bruises or scars.
- Big Bad: Madam M is the leader of a mysterious organization of female assassins, and kidnaps protagonist Charlene so she can become one. She forces the assassins into a death match, gets them raped, and then has them carry out assassinations. Halfway through, however, she gets unceremoniously killed offscreen and replaced as the villain by Ryuchi, a Yakuza boss who is avenging the assassination of his best friend by one of the girls.
- Big "NO!": Upon witnessing Katt is decapitated by Ryuichi, Charlene screams “no” while remembering her times with Katt.
- Bittersweet Ending: Charlene and Jack go their separate ways because their lifestyles are too different for them to stay together. However, with Madam M dead, her organization will most likely collapse and no more girls will be subjected to being kidnapped and turned into assassins as a result.
- Blade Lock: When engaging in a brutal fight in a cage, Katt and Jing briefly lock their machetes before Katt disarms Jing. Surprisingly, Jing apparently seems to be better without a weapon that she almost killed Katt had Charlene not interrupted them.
- Childhood Friends: Charlene and Katt have been friends since they were still young kids as they were abducted together and they become best friends as they grow up. Even when they are forced to fight each other, they're not tempted to betray the other. Their friendship remains strong until Katt’s tragic death.
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The assassins have many ways of killing people, but their signature move involves pulling out the target's spinal cord. At first, it looks like the move takes a bit of time. Later, the assassins are doing it in the middle of a firefight.
- In the climax, Charlene kills Ryuchi by throwing him and performing the move while he's flying through the air in bullet-time.
- Deadly Graduation: After years of assassin training, Madam M has half of the trainees take out the other half. Then the next day, the survivors compete to the death until only one is standing. Madam M ultimately changes her mind and spares the last surviving three.
- Decoy Protagonist: Katt is the first of the girls to be kidnapped by Madam M and it's implied she's to be set up as the protagonist of the film. After the Time Skip, the narrative focuses more on Charlene, who's the true protagonist.
- Dramatic Thunder: Thunder strikes just as Charlene and Jing face off in Charlene's mother's house.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Despite Charlene is a highly-skilled assassin and trained since childhood, thus estranged from her mom for many years, once she spots her long lost mom among the crowd after assassinating a VIP and briefly exchanging look, she’s visibly teared up. Later, after saving both Jack and her injured mom from Jing, she tearfully reunites and apologizes to her mom for almost failed to protect her due to being away for too long.
- Fanservice: The abducted girls are pretty good looking. They're not only trained to become professional killers, but also to use their looks to seduce their targets before murdering them. So, there are many scenes where the girls wear revealing or skimpy clothes and act seductively to fool and weaken their targets.
- Faux Affably Evil: Madam M might seem like she is a nice woman, but don't forget she runs an organization that trains teenage girls into being assassins against their own will. Her reward for the three remaining girls is to have them be drugged and raped.
- Femme Fatale: The assassins, who form a Murder, Inc. and go through Training from Hell.
- Forced to Watch - Charlene is forced to watch Ryuchi kill Katt.
- Gory Discretion Shot: When Katt is abducted by Ryuichi, she is implied to be decapitated as the scene cuts to Charlene’s distraught face behind a bullet-proof glass splattered with Katt’s blood. And in the beginning, when an abducted young girl is “permitted” to go is shot, the camera cuts to the horrified screaming girls.
- Gratuitous Rape: The surviving assassins are subjected to this by the men working for Madam M.
- Hate Sink: Madam M is a real piece of work with the way she kidnaps girls from their homes to turn them into assassins, kills them if they try to escape, have them kill each other, getting them raped by her mercenaries while drugged and having their loved one get killed. So no one is sad nor surprised that she gets killed by someone wanting revenge for the death of their friend.
- Helpless Window Death: Charlene is forced to witness her dear friend, Katt, is beheaded by Ryuichi from the bullet-proof glass.
- Hitman with a Heart: Despite being trained to become heartless killing machines since young age, Charlene and Katt can be self-sacrificing when it comes to their loved ones.
- Hoist Hero over Head: After Jing overpowers Katt in a vicious fight in a cage, Jing lifts up Katt and breaks the latter’s back on her knee.
- Honey Trap: How the assassins get close to their marks.
- Improbable Weapon User: Charlene is seen capable to use any weapon for killing her opponents, such as: broken sunglasses or even her heels to stab or slash.
- Intimate Healing: After the cat-and-mouse chasing, Charlene and Jack are stuck inside the ice cream truck. When Charlene is freezing, Jack decides to lend his coat to keep her warm and holds her along the way. Until she knocks him out to escape, but not before giving back his coat by covering him up.
- It's Personal: Jack lost his original partners thanks to Madam M and spends every available moment of his detective career looking into her assassin organization, earning him the ridicule of colleagues, who don't believe such a thing exists.
- Made of Iron: All the kidnapped girls, especially the surviving three; Charlene, Katt and Jing, are often seen engaged in a brutal bloody fight. Notable example: When they are ordered to fight each other to death both inside the barrack and the cage. The fight technique they use includes bones-breaking, neck snapping, stabbing and slashing, that in real life can leave permanent scars or crippled, if not dead. Yet not long after Madame M decide to keep them, the surviving girls are seen fine and still badass as ever afterwards.
- Making Love in All the Wrong Places: Charlene and Jack end up having sex on a beach at night. Jack even admits he doesn't normally sleep with girls so soon after meeting them.
- More Deadly Than the Male: The forty abducted women went through a hellish training for six years. When they're graduated and start to face the real events, they’re proven to be more vicious and deadlier than the male characters. Even the big boss who runs the secret organization is a female, Madame M. Some examples are: Jing who obviously never has a second thought in finishing off her targets in a sadistic way. Even Jack is no match for her when struggling to save Charlene’s injured mom. And Charlene is the one who successfully defeats the final villain, Ryuichi, after a die-hard battle.
- Murder, Inc.: Madam M's organization is a notoriously effective one of these, starred entirely by kidnapped teen girls.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Jing is notoriously this. She’s ruthless as she’s always all-out when it comes to fighting and often kills her victims mercilessly, even when her victims are already helpless. Only Madam M can boss her around and certainly tells her to stop.
- Non-Action Big Bad: Madame M is the one in charge of the secret organization responsible for the girls kidnapping yet she’s never seen teaching or training the girls the fighting techniques. She’s only seen training the girls how to act feminine like models walking on the catwalk.
- Not Staying for Breakfast: After Charlene and Jack spent a passionate night together on the beach, the next morning Jack wakes up alone and found Charlene’s written note.
- Overcome with Desire: Upon meeting Charlene on the beach and found out she’s under the drug influence (after taking the drug-filled syringe for Katt), Jack briefly tried his best to resist her advance by constantly reminding himself about his mission. He eventually failed and lets himself consumed by his deep desire as well as his genuine love for her, thus he and Charlene finally make love.
- Post-Victory Collapse: After successfully defeating Ryuichi in an intense battle, Charlene immediately passed out, exhausted.
- Professional Killer: What the girls in this film are being trained to become.
- Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: Especially Katt toward Charlene since Charlene eventually falls for Jacknote . As young kids, Katt comforts Charlene by sleeping on the same bed, rubbing the latter’s arm. When they take a shower, Katt is rubbing a soap toward Charlene’s chest while reassuring the latter. Before fighting inside the cage for “graduation”, Katt cups Charlene’s cheek telling Charlene to never forget the former if she dies. Lastly, when Katt says “I love you” to Charlene right before Ryuichi beheads her, it can be interpreted as between toward a best friend or a lover.
- See You in Hell: When Ryuichi captures Madame M after tricking her into sending her remaining assassins, Charlene and Katt for the last killing contract, Madame M says this to the former before he eventually kills her as revenge.
- She-Fu: Charlene and Jing are often seen doing flips or acrobatic in most of their fight scenes.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: The good-hearted assassin Charlene eventually falls for Jack who is kind to her from the very beginning. Although they decide to not to continue their relationship.
- Slipping a Mickey: Madam M does this to her surviving assassins. Rape as Drama soon follows.
- Soft Glass: Jack suffers a minor injury after Jing beats him until he's thrown to a glassy partition in Charlene's mom's house. When Charlene breaks into the house glass, saving both her mom and Jack just in time, she remains clean and suffers no single scratch. She only got injured when breaking the thrown photo frames (done by Jing), then using a glass shard stuck on her hand palm to finish off Jing.
- Training from Hell: During their years of training, nearly all of the girls will be brutally killed and forced to kill each other.
- The Vamp: One of the skills the assassins are specifically trained to utilize is to seduce their targets.
- Wine Is Classy: During a dinner, the surviving girls are tested on their ability to discern wine. Two glasses turn out to be full of expensive vintages, while one is common table wine. The real purpose is to drug the girls, so her mercenaries can gang-rape them.
- Would Hurt a Child: Madam M kidnaps forty young girls to turn them into her assassins. Those who try to escape are routinely killed, while those who remain are forced to kill others to survive.
