99 Cent Video FLASHBACK: Naked Killer

Director: Clarence Fok

Starring: Chingmy Yau, Carrie Ng, Simon Yam

Hong Kong film aficionados are fond of using the label "Asian trash cinema" to cover a wide range of cinematic ground. From Schedule III nudies to Kung Fu Theater's notorious chop-sockies, reviewers and fans alike have bestowed this infamous title upon countless reels of Eastern celluloid. Nevertheless, if there exists any film that truly epitomizes the guilty pleasure that is "Asian trash cinema," Clarence Fok's Basic Instinct-inspired trash-o-rama is surely it. Stylish, in your face and replete with enough eye-candy to render subtitles irrelevant, Asia's iniquitous 1992 export kicks more butt than Jackie Chan and leaves a far sexier impression.

Anti-heroine Kitty (Chingmy Yau) has had it up to here with cads. How much so? Upon overhearing some odious remarks in a beauty salon, she promptly grabs a pair of scissors and viciously stabs the offending member in well, no less than his offending member. (And he's her hairdresser!) While fleeing the crime scene, she runs into Tinam (Simon Yam), a big city cop so Keystone that he upchucks every time he draws his weapon. Miss Kitty easily eludes Hong Kong's less-than-finest, but not before gaining possession of Tinam's pager. Inexplicably, the short-tempered fugitive calls the boy-in-blue and asks him out on a date. Tinam gladly accepts and almost immediately tries to engage her in some heavy petting on the hood of his car, though it quickly becomes apparent that his sexual incompetence rivals that of his professional ineptitude. Nevertheless, despite his sexual "misconduct," Kitty promises to call the lovesick officer again for sloppy seconds. (He's lucky she left her scissors at home.)

Things abruptly take a turn for the worst, however, when Kitty returns home to discover that her father has been murdered by her conniving stepmother's yuppie boyfriend! Not one to take such matters lying down, Kitty storms the scoundrel's office the following morning and feeds him and his associates their just deserts. Conveniently, professional hitwoman and "assassin trainer" Sister Cindy (Madoka Sugawara) witnesses Kitty's exploits (She just happened to be in the neighborhood.) and agrees to take the avenging angel - now wanted by the police for multiple murders - underground and under her wing.

After arming Kitty with a new identity and some tricks of the trade (including how to perform a sultry disco-dance decapitation), Cindy and her new protégé begin disposing of Hong Kong's most notorious scalawags. Unfortunately for the deadly duo, Cindy's former star pupil Princess - a lesbian, cigar-chomping, private contract killer played magnificently by sexy HK starlet Carrie Ng - is gunning to put Sister Cindy on ice and Miss Kitty in her bedroom. Meanwhile, lovelorn Tinam remains scouring the streets in search of his missing feline, all the while growing increasingly suspicious that Cindy's new gal-pal and his ex - "I'm a professional killer and you're a cop. We have conflicts in our jobs," the former Kitty explains - are one in the same.

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