Naked Ambition (2003)

A rare local excursion into mainstream Category III filmmaking, Naked Ambition charts the growth of a Hong Kong brothel guide and the businessmen behind its success. Based on the background behind Hong Kong Night Life magazine, Naked Ambition gives curious viewers a look into the world of sleaze tapped into by its protagonists.

The story of publishers Andy (Louis Koo) and John (Eason Chan) unfolds through flashbacks when a foreign journalist (Bey Logan) conducts an interview in a Tokyo photo studio. Flanked by an array of topless women, Andy sits back and reminisces on the glory days of how their startup Passion Magazine latched onto the sex industry and found its niche. But as the interviewer's cameras gradually move in closer and closer, a harsher picture appears when Andy starts to reveal a darker side to his trade - one in which morals and relationships were challenged as business expanded.

As the groundwork is laid for the publishers' venture, a screen tour of the local paid sex fixtures gets underway, moving from a one-woman brothel and a ratty Mongkok whorehouse through to a massage parlour and a ritzy hostess nightclub. Like in Samson Chiu's Golden Chicken before it, the diverse territory is a colourful sight with its attendant neon lights and sometimes trashy decors, and the characters who dwell there are often shown in caricature. Dialogue throughout Naked Ambition is suitably rough and crude - a significant contribution to the over-18s rating - and sordid business is continually played up. Yet while there's plenty of promise held in the characters and lighthearted plot, not all the humour succeeds alongside the more interesting dramatic material, and viewers expecting raunchier action could be in for some disappointment.

Louis Koo and Eason Chan turn in respectable performances in the leads but the side characters give the production the most spark. Jo Kuk turns in an enthusiastic and cheerful part as ambitious hooker Titty Bird, and Tats Lau plays it deadpan as a gangster Tong Fook. Denise Ho and Cherrie Ying obtain more drama-oriented roles as the leads' girlfriends, and Josie Ho and Niki Chow are able to briefly expand on their sex worker roles. Beyond Hong Kong scores of Japanese AV girls are on hand for the interview footage in Japan, upping Naked Ambition's otherwise low nudity quotient and providing added oomph for the marketing.

The Naked Ambition painted billboard at the Imperial Cinema.

Credits:

Directed by Dante Lam and Chan Hing-kar
Script: Chan Hing-kar
Cinematography: O Sing-pui
Music: Tommy Wai
Starring Louis Koo, Eason Chan, Jo Kuk, Cherrie Ying, Josie Ho, Denise Ho, Niki Chow, Tats Lau, Bey Logan, Danny Lee and Matt Chow