The same way that LCD will watch standard modern Hollywood comedies or actioners late at night to waste the time away, I will occasionally do the same with an oriental genre film, a seventies exploitation flick, or something similar. Although he doesn’t defend his actions in any way besides saying “I’m drunk, and I don’t want to watch a movie that makes me think.”, I choose to defend my actions by saying that sometimes I find pieces of gold in the dirt.

Last night, I watched Naked Weapon (Chek Law Dak Gung). It’s a Hong Kong action drama from 2002, that was for some reason filmed in English.

It is directed by Siu-Tung Ching, who directed one of my favorite sword fight clicks twenty-five years ago: Duel to the Death.

This one may be almost as crazy as that film, but it doesn’t quite have the same charm. Filled with over the top action sequences, and a good germ of story idea, it showed a lot of promise to at least be entertaining. And it was entertaining, if only for its utter absurdity. Still, it was far from the “gold” that I was hoping for.

The story involves an elite assassin business run by Madam M. She hires out her beautiful but deadly assassin for lots of money. At the opening of the film, her assassin is killed on a job (by a grenade launcher!) Shortly thereafter, dozens of young girls from around the world go missing. Madam M happens to be kidnapping them in order to train them to be her new assassin.

This is where the film starts getting a little crazy. The girls are trained for years, under threat of death, on this remote tropical island. There they will endure countless tests of strength which culminate in a fight to the death in a giant cage. The winner leaves with her life and gets to become the assassin.

The final third of the film involves the newly appointed assassin(s) and her dealings on the road with family, romance, murder, and a loving cop. The film tries to veer towards some sort of substance by giving the main character a relationship on the island with another girl, and then another one towards the end with the caring cop out to capture her. This is only over-played slightly and doesn’t really take much away from what the film really is: a shallow yet stylish action yarn.

The style is in your face, but not particularly advanced. It’s all very over the top. From the fights to the stunts to the characters and dialog. Nothing is very subtle. For examples, I will highlight some of the
events in the film:

- An incredibly absurd scene where the chosen three assassins are drugged by Madam M. and repeatedly deflowered by a group of odious soldiers. The men actually high-five each other as they switch women!

It is nice and a little surprising to see that my home state of New Jersey has abolished the death penalty. Largely a symbolic act (since no one has been executed in this state since 1963), it will hopefully pave the way for other more angry states to do the same.

I could not fathom how I would react if someone murdered a member of my family, so I choose to look at the big picture when I made my decision to be against the death penalty. In my opinion, it is for the benefit of everyone.

Many arguments for and against capital punishment exist, but here are some arguments that I learned that helped me decide:

• Cost - Each state pays far more in court costs to execute someone then it would cost to impose a life-sentence.
• Lack of Deterrence - No studies have shown that the death penalty deters violent crime. In fact, states with the death penalty have a higher murder rate than those without, which shows that the threat of death does not deter people who have the capacity to commit willful murder.
• Racism - Black criminals are 82% more likely to be sentenced to death for the same crime as a white criminal.
• Accuracy of Convictions - How many innocent people have been sentenced to death? We’ll never know, but death is something that can never be undone. Each year, there are hundreds of people released from prison because they were found to be falsely accused.

You can find the detail behind these (including the facts behind them) at this website.