Nude Fear is a relatively obscure Hong Kong psychological thriller
that delivers more than might be expected, were it not the directorial debut of
Alan Mak, half of the team Mak and [Andrew] Lau, the duo behind Infernal Affairs (2002 / trailer),
Infernal Affairs II (2003 / original
trailer)
and Infernal Affairs III (2003 / original
trailer).
Visually and acting-wise, the movie scores high, so in regards to the purely
directorial chores Mal did well. But as his later projects reveal him to be a
tight scriptwriter as well, one wonders why he didn't do more to fix the flaws
in the intriguing but highly flawed narrative. The script, as supplied by Susan
Chan (Tokyo Raiders [2000 / trailer]
and Koma [2004 / trailer])
and Joe Ma (Black Mask [1996 /
trailer]
and Bless This House [1988 / original
trailer]),
simply has one too many holes and quick plot-advancing solutions to hold water
as well as it should.
One can't help but feel that
those involved with the narrative, be it the scriptwriter or the director,
occasionally had the feeling that this or that detail was "good
enough" and therefore didn't bother to think just a bit more for a better
solution. Sort of like the title of the movie itself: Regardless of the what
the actual Hong Kong title is, the translator(s) obviously didn't see it worth
their while to think twice and realize that the odd-sounding title "Nude
Fear" lacks all the punch that "Naked Fear" would have —
especially since "Naked Fear" is the actual idiom used in English. (Whether
or not the movie really has all that much to do with "naked fear" or
not is something else entirely.)
But, no: instead, the movie is
called Nude Fear, and instead of a
title that might make the viewer think of a situation fraught with fear, the
flick is encumbered by one that makes you think of, dunno, a horror film set in
a nudist camp, perhaps along the lines of Barry Mahone's trash disasterpiece The Beast That Killed Women (1965 / full film)
or Ferenc Leroget's even more obscure and entertainingly incompetent mess, The Monster of Camp Sunshine (1964 /
trailer).
That Nude Fear aims for higher and non-nudist sights is obvious in the
first five minutes of the movie, which carries a punch and also tells a lot
quickly, effectively, leanly. The cute, little pigtailed girl that doesn't get
picked up from school, once all the other kids have been, finally undertakes to make her way
through the busy streets of the city by her lonesome and makes it safely home,
only to be confronted by a blood-drenched apartment and her raped, naked mother
dead on the floor — at which point she goes into tragic, gut-wrenching denial,
as if the scene were something totally normal. Cut to many-years-passed, and we
see Joyce Chan Ching-yee again, now as an adult (the attractive former model Kathy
Chow, of The Holy Virgin vs. the
Evil Dead [1991 / trailer], Guen see sin
sang [2001 / trailer]
and more): a brilliant if cold detective, capable of
solving crimes with a talent comparable to that of Sherlock Holmes but incapable of maintaining human
relationships. And then she is called to a sex-murder scene that is one-to-one
identical to the unsolved case of her mother...
Up till then, the movie does
pretty good, even if Joyce's Sherlock Holmes detective skills make for a better scene
than they do actually hold water. Ditto with how the movie precedes: she knows
the killer will call — how come, who knows — and he does — how come, who knows
— and they get their killer... or did they? Sure, they got a killer (an
appropriately unnerving Sam Lee, of Gen-X
Cops [1999 / trailer],
Visible Secret [2001 / trailer],
Bio Zombie [1998 / trailer],
Cold Pupil [2013 / trailer],
and The Stewardess [2002 / trailer]),
and he knows all about the Joyce and her past, in detail, but he wasn't even a
spermatozoa when her mother was killed.
At this point, the buildup still
carries the movie, but the flaws of Nude
Fear pretty quickly come to the forefront as of the minute the killer
calls. And the subsequently mounting plot deficiencies sorely reduce the enjoyment of the well-directed
film and most of the ensueing admittedly well-filmed shock scenes. Stones
that should get turned don't, particular after the young killer does something
that could only be done with inside help. And later, when a mysterious young
girl shows up wandering the highways with Joyce's photo in her pocket, the
implausibilities increase, one after the other, piling up like a stack of
flapjacks. Do detectives normally take
mysterious young girls home? Or only those that seem to have psychological baggage? Are their statements always taken as the
impeachable truth? Do really so few girls disappear in Hong Kong over a
20-odd-year period? We could go on and on and one, but why bother?
OK, as inane as the character
Joyce sometimes acts for an "intelligent" detective, Kathy Chow does a good job playing her and making her a solid character. And the real killer,
whom we know long before she does — which allows for some tension and major
ick-factor — is truly effective. And the buildup to the scene in which
Joyce loses half her team is noteworthy: amazing how a few simple actions can
add sympathy to a faceless character and thus up the tragedy of a death. But it is all the good stuff tucked in-between the glaring mistakes that makes Nude Fear
so aggravating and disappointing at the end: the movie could have been a truly good
one had the time been taken to make the script hold water.
Nude Fear is, in the end, less a waste of time than simply a letdown. It really, obviously, thoroughly had the chance to be so much more than it is — so watch it with low expectations, and you might like it.
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