Three friends (Chen Sing, James Tien & Wong Ching) turn up in Manchuria to find fortunes and prosperity of some kind. Almost devoured by the perils of the land, the trio stumble upon a young, naked girl in the snowy landscape. She is Mien Mien (Lee Ying-Ying) who is actually using her still, naked body to attract the minks that she and her father hunt for a living. The trio of men are subsequently invited to her home where they work for the family in exchange for food and shelter. Soon the alluring nature of Mien Mien gets the lust in Wong Ching's character going but Mien Mien is saved by Chen Sing, the elder of the trio. Love is in the air but not in the eyes of the father who wants to marry the daughter to the younger James Tien character. Deception and betrayal soon enter...

A change of pace due the harsh locale and a welcome veering away from over the top martial arts esthetics, Wong Fung still can't make the simple template ignite as such. The English title really feels like a mere episode of the film, clearly done for commercial purposes and there's no throughline to the Mien Mien character that at the end connects to our initial naughty sight of her. As thriller elements enter with paranoia, mystery and violence, Naked Comes The Huntress can be commended for trying but there's no true tension ever created. It's competent but merely there and that means we're looking for more sparks in all honesty.

Cash Chin apparently did not feel like ending a streak of Hong Kong cinema tomfoolery within the Category III rating, actually arriving late in the wake of the "golden" era of unashamedly raunchy, vicious and rude filmmaking. Giving us one of the all time greats in The Eternal Evil Of Asia, moving on with the likes of Sex & Zen II, The Fruit Is Swelling and in 2000, Naked Poison, it is indeed unashamedly out there, cheap filmmaking and we thank him for it. Starring Samuel Leung (Lost Boys In Wonderland, Once Upon A Time In Triad Society 2) as an overly horny, bullied youth utilizing his grandpas snake serum to assume control over those who did him wrong, if you were to follow ground rules of filmmaking, you wouldn't have an unsympathetic character doing unsympathetic acts. There is a miiiiinor streak of good in Leung's Ng Chi-Min though, in particular his actual relationship with Chan (Gwennie Tam, very sweet but she doesn't survive the acting challenge when working with this material even) but this is still a subject consumed by power so with that scripted beat, director Chin adds the usual elements of softcore sex, sadomasochism and umm...usual body melting effects, Some off-beat humour also rears its head, wrapped in a competent package visually (Chin served as one of the cinematographers on the film). Naked Poison is really the definition of being jerked around but as late as 2000, the rating didn't get as depraved of a treatment as it gets here and there's an appreciation that could be directed towards that choice.

Choices of having quite inappropriate doctor characters and a gay detective enter at points does actually disrupt the throughline Chin presents. Sophie Ngan also stars and appears distinctly on the dvd cover for the film. A poster art that connects merely vaguely to the actual plot.

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Concocted by Matrix Productions, directed by Batman Hung and echoing the plot of Memento, the non-related sequel to Cash Chin's Naked Poison is certainly not subtle about its shameless cinematic thievery. But the welcome return of Category III nastiness and raunchiness in 2000 by Cash Chin doesn't extend to Batman Hung's work here. So that's why it's theft and not shameless behaviour. Padded to an endless 100 minutes, in this case it's not the routine sex scenes taking up space but the thriller plot about Ann (Sophie Ngan) trying to regain her memory by writing clues over her body as that memory only stays for 15 minutes at a time. Helped out by a cop (Mark Cheng), the crucial part to remember the details of is the night of the murder of Ann's boyfriend Kent (Matthew Ng). So she starts revisiting her life that included lesbian love, autoerotic asphyxiation and S & M. Yay for the viewer? You would think so and there is certainly audience friendly elements present in the sex on display but taking over all that is awkward acting by lead Ngan (bless her heart, she does try), thin and uninteresting plotting that certainly doesn't deserve this much video tape. A smarter producer could still have created similar content to this shot on video production but halted at 75-80 minutes. I promise, the ride could've even been worth it for detractors of the current product.

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I pray and hope that Media Asia and writer/producer Wong Jing weren't aiming for the A-market with their English language actioner Naked Weapon. If so, dear oh dear...how far up your own bottom can you be? Although lessened a little on the turkey scale when screened with the Cantonese dub, this new millennium re-thread of the Naked Killer "concept" (only featuring a tad of exploitation "goodies" including brutal violence and rape) is astoundingly poor, even overall in the department that matters (I.e. Ching Siu-Tung's involvement as action director). With a leading duo of ladies photographed quite NOT so beautifully as you would need (look at Anya in Sharp Guns. Now THERE she made an impression), any bonding or drama is seriously flat with the acting not taken up above the material by director Ching.

The action, an obvious nod to out of this world, high flying spectacles a la the 90s rely mostly on the non-martial arts performers that even the old days had no qualms about doubling extensively. However back then there was favourable effect and impression to be found when obviously faking that the stars weren't doing fighting. While admirable to push Maggie Q and Anya, it means no props to the execution. There's one neat sequence here set at the house of Cheng Pei-Pei's where Ching combines his actresses and doubles to fine effect but the end tally for Naked Weapon is that of devoid of energy and insistence to make the action work. Take a look at So Close instead where Corey Yuen managed to find the workable vein for the trio of his ass kicking ladies. What really is Wong Jing's Naked Weapon is a shallow mess in intent but he's not able to work magic from that simple goal either. Co-starring a wooden Daniel Wu, a feisty Li Fei and Andrew Lin.

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It would take long before Wellson Chin found some form of voice. Exploring horror and comedy in the 90s was his key, giving his acclaimed efforts such as Thou Shalt Not Swear. Earlier on, he gave us The Inspector Wears Skirts series but his collaboration with Jackie Chan started with his first film here, Naughty Boys. A grating comedy largely with "inspired" jokes about Carina Lau's bosom, Billy Lau drooling over said bosom and Stanley Fung as private detective dressed just like Sherlock Holmes. Side splitting...

But having Jackie and his team on board means action so as soon as Wellson Chin goes away from the set permanently (around the time the timber mill sequence hits), Naughty Boys delivers! Jackie combines all the trademarks concerning stunts, props fighting and general pain, putting the performers and his team to work (and in the actor's shoes at times), culminating in a wonderful warehouse finale. The only flaw of it all is that the man himself doesn't take part in it at all. A first reel cameo is all of Jackie we see before the outtakes. Hence the film never having received much of a spotlight over the years. It seems Jackie fired on much of his creative cylinders working with Wellson Chin here because when The Inspectors Wears Skirts came out, the action level was noticeably subdued. Naughty Boys also stars Mars, Kara Hui, Clarence Fok, Lo Meng, Phillip Ko and Tai Po.

Perhaps Clifton Ko and Raymond To are lurking somewhere behind the scenes of this film version of the stage play (it wouldn't be the first time they brought out one such) that also starred Francis Ng but as far as official connections to Ko and To, we only find the screenwriter Szeto Wai-Kin who penned I Will Wait For You.

Naughty Couple sees the age old comedic web of lies at the forefront, involving a lot of characters, most of them horny, some being mistaken as homosexual, all confined to a single setting. Yes, it really is the filmed stage play in a lot of ways and I wish I could say this type of situation comedy has grown on me as I've grown older. Director Clifford Choi thinks it's ok to feature an overabundance of unreasonable characters and lies but not so much of a viewer smirk manifests itself during the wacky proceedings. Also starring Anita Lee, Chan Suk-Yee, Sunny Chan and Lee Fung.

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A major co-directing effort involving Chang Cheh understudies Wu Ma, Lau Wai Ban and Pau Hsueh-Li but an early assembly on screen of actors that was to become part of The Venoms films (Phillip Kwok, Chin Kuan Chun and Chiang Sheng being the cases in point here). Promising grand naval battles with bearable miniature work during the opening reel, The Naval Commandos takes less of the war, action and martial arts route to instead delivery more of a spy story, with obvious patriotic undertones. Chang Cheh's presence is felt as he transfers key moments of brotherhood and chivalry from the martial arts world to a more contemporary setting (Ti Lung's last stand of course reminds us of similar things experienced in The Heroic Ones). The climax is also suitably in tone with Chang's sensibility towards his preferred theme portrayal (I.e. a few buckets of blood).

Then perhaps the joint directors worked on the middle section of the film that, while decent on tension, stops the film mostly dead, border lining on dull. In the action directing department, Robert Tai and company are not trying to stylize anything, which is fine but laughable stunts popping up here and there detracts. The Naval Commandos isn't bad just because it's just another Chang Cheh film but that should tell you to not prioritize it. David Chiang, Tony Lau and Alexander Fu co-stars.

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Eastern Heroes presented a curious mathematic approach to describing Lau Ga-Yung's (the nephew of Lau Kar-Leung) News Kids In Town. On their UK release under the title New Killers In Town, they promised 70% action, 30% story and 100% over the edge...something. That's entirely agreeable but it's certainly not a 200% movie.

Chin Siu-Ho and Lee Ga-Sing play Mainland martial arts brothers who travel to Hong Kong to help out at the restaurant of their Uncle (Lau Kar-Leung). They are shown the ways and sights of Hong Kong by his daughter (Moon Lee) but are soon unwillingly involved in a bloody fight against drug dealers...of course. It's easy to break apart director Lau's narrative (Chin Siu-Ho goes from introvert to gun wielding maestro PRETTY quickly) but New Kids In Town clinches its goals rather nicely despite. In his supporting role, Lau Kar-Leung ignites the screen every time he's called into action and Moon Lee is elevated to new kickass status under the action direction of Lau. The finale sees the combo work pretty well as it switches between acrobatic gunplay and a thrilling fight between Lau Kar-Leung and Eddie Maher's apple eating villain. Karel Wong is dependently evil (he sets fire to an old man in a wheelchair at one point) and Sophia Crawford also appear. An edit under the title Master Of Disaster has scenes from the Jackie Chan vehicle The Protector edited into it.

One of the earlier movies that followed in the wake of Mr. Vampire, the stage is occupied by rival masters and brothers (Chung Faat and Chin Yuet-Sang) competing for the task of burying the brother of the local mob leader (Ku Feng). The former gets the task and the latter goes about trying to sabotage the proceedings, including waking the up the vampire by feeding it blood. Enter a thief (Chin Siu-Ho) who robs the deceased of their belongings, a dead concubine (Pauline Wong) who's resurrected by the breath of the thief and is now mimicking his every moves and a nutty Marshall (Shum Wai) who's mourning the loss of said concubine. At a fancy hotel, the stage is set for complications and situations...

Containing what's been seen and what to expect from the genre whether in its infancy or late in the game, director Billy Chan has fun to offer but only fairly amusing fun. The gag of Pauline Wong copying every move of Chin Siu-Ho's is very inspired but the combo of the elements of the plot doesn't translate into as energetic of a time as you would think. Even seeing the vampire (Huang Ha) chasing around our main characters, Shum Wai's Marshall and his soldiers even grows a little tiring. It's more loud than energetic but New Mr. Vampire is worth to have for aficionados of the genre. It doesn't hurt one bit. Also with Tai Bo and Wu Ma in a brief appearance.