Body Weapon

A gang of brutal rapists/murderers are terrorizing Hong Kong. Three detectives (Zhao, Cheung and Au) are assigned to investigate, but their love triangle is getting in the way of business, so their captain orders Cheung to choose one guy. I guess HK cops run by different rules than the US. Anyway, she eventually hooks up with Au and the two marry. On their wedding night -- wouldn't you know it? -- the gang of rapists attack the couple, killing Au and leaving Cheung shell-shocked. Zhao tries to patch things up with her, but she has other plans. Hooking up with an eccentric gay man (Fok, director of Naked Killer), she decides to turn her body into a weapon in order to get revenge.

I normally enjoy a good exploitation/trash movie, but this one just wasn't good. There are normally pitfalls to this genre, such as poor scripts and bad acting, that many films fall prey to -- and Body Weapon is no exception. What usually saves these types of movies are the thrills you get from seeing something other films wouldn't dare to show. However, there is a fine line between "trash" and stinking cinematic garbage. Body Weapon doesn't just cross that line, it jumps over it.

There are two rape scenes in this movie that just disgusted me. I'm sorry, but seeing a guy getting a roll of tokens jammed up his rectum just doesn't fly my sails. Sometimes rape scenes -- even graphically brutal ones -- can be used very effectively, as in Abel Ferrara's Bad Lieutenant. Here they just feel dirty. I felt ashamed watching this, and for the actors involved -- especially Zhao Wen-Zhou, who seemed to be one of HK's most promising young actors a few years back after his incredible performance in Tsui Hark's masterpiece The Blade. Another web reviewer noted that the rape scenes seemed to have been put in for the "raincoat crowd" and I couldn't agree more. I enjoyed such sleaze as The Untold Story and Ebola Syndrome, but some of the elements in Body Weapon seem only suited for die-hard perverts. I'm really surprised that this movie only got a Cat IIB rating and not a Cat III. It's much more graphic than even some of the more disgusting Cat III films produced during the genre's heyday shortly before the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong in 1997.

Body Weapon's only saving graces are the lovely Angie Cheung (who does a nice "tease" performance in the vein of Chingmy Yau) and a couple of solid fights courtesy of Zhao Wen-Zhou. It's a shame, really. There are times when Body Weapon feels as if it could have been a exploitation classic like Naked Killer, but in the end, it's rubbish with a few bright nuggets mixed in.

A review of the VCD for this movie can be found here

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