Aman Chang's Body Weapon (1999) stars Angie Cheung as an attractive and incredibly sexy police woman, who gets married with one of her colleagues only to find herself almost beaten to death and her husband killed on their wedding night. She becomes remorseless vigilante chick with the help of a homosexual freak (played memorably by film maker Clarence Ford, the director of many classics like Naked Killer and Iceman Cometh), who teaches her the secrets of "the body as a weapon", and another cop in the station, who was also a close friend with the killed cop and likes Angie very much, too. What follows is violence, revenge and murder with huge speed, but in the end, it all means nothing.
The moral of this film seems to be that revenge if you have been wronged and revenge good. No more about this film's philosophical levels since this is just exploitation in the form of sex and violence. The plot and script are often very bad and almost amateurish, as things just happen without any explanation (i.e. the girl finds the killers by just going to the street etc.) and it is all there just to show many fight scenes and action packed chases. The sex/rape scenes are pretty explicit and also S/M oriented and this film is pretty full of sleaze all the way. The UK video release has been cut over 3 minutes to tone down the sex and rape scenes, but I watched the uncut Hong Kong version which has these scenes intact. Some even say that the cut UK version makes the film actually more enjoyable and noteworthy compared to the uncut version!
The film is pretty close to Naked Killer in its tone and style, but Naked Killer is much more "restrained" and enjoyable and all the camera angles are there for purpose and are used more cleverly than in Body Weapon, which sow them all the time everywhere so they become totally gratuitous and lose their impact. There aren't any segments or images in this film that camera would be in normal position and not twisted or behind some glass, filter etc. Still this technique creates pretty bizarre atmosphere with the very dark lightning of the film. Especially the breath takingly fast last segment in the store house and the chase before it is very dark and without any real light, and so pretty nightmarish. The ending is also very manic and almost unbelievable in its rage and speed. Forget the plot, story or some deeper level in the film and screenplay, just try to enjoy and understand the visual sides and stylish elements of the film, but still this isn't as "cool" as it wanted to be.
Body Weapon gets 5/10 from me and the director could probably do better. He definitely can MOVE and use camera; if he only had better screenplay and sense of real stylish cinema, which doesn't mean that camera is twisted and moving all the time; he could ask Clarence for help for the start I think. For fans of Asian hyper insane cinema only.
The moral of this film seems to be that revenge if you have been wronged and revenge good. No more about this film's philosophical levels since this is just exploitation in the form of sex and violence. The plot and script are often very bad and almost amateurish, as things just happen without any explanation (i.e. the girl finds the killers by just going to the street etc.) and it is all there just to show many fight scenes and action packed chases. The sex/rape scenes are pretty explicit and also S/M oriented and this film is pretty full of sleaze all the way. The UK video release has been cut over 3 minutes to tone down the sex and rape scenes, but I watched the uncut Hong Kong version which has these scenes intact. Some even say that the cut UK version makes the film actually more enjoyable and noteworthy compared to the uncut version!
The film is pretty close to Naked Killer in its tone and style, but Naked Killer is much more "restrained" and enjoyable and all the camera angles are there for purpose and are used more cleverly than in Body Weapon, which sow them all the time everywhere so they become totally gratuitous and lose their impact. There aren't any segments or images in this film that camera would be in normal position and not twisted or behind some glass, filter etc. Still this technique creates pretty bizarre atmosphere with the very dark lightning of the film. Especially the breath takingly fast last segment in the store house and the chase before it is very dark and without any real light, and so pretty nightmarish. The ending is also very manic and almost unbelievable in its rage and speed. Forget the plot, story or some deeper level in the film and screenplay, just try to enjoy and understand the visual sides and stylish elements of the film, but still this isn't as "cool" as it wanted to be.
Body Weapon gets 5/10 from me and the director could probably do better. He definitely can MOVE and use camera; if he only had better screenplay and sense of real stylish cinema, which doesn't mean that camera is twisted and moving all the time; he could ask Clarence for help for the start I think. For fans of Asian hyper insane cinema only.
