The Best Martial Arts Movies of the 80s Starring Women
| |
| Comments count:0
It'southward arguably a rare sight when female person characters lead a major genre flick, and last year's online Ghostbusters drama proves it's still, depressingly, a controversial pick if they do. Too often, female characters are reduced to sidekicks, damsels, sexual activity objects, and caricatures. It sometimes feels like every solar day there's a new statistic about women being under-represented in Hollywood and while, to some extent, things are looking brighter and more than diverse past the 24-hour interval, it'due south an uphill struggle. Still, as nosotros wait for Hollywood to get its act together, I thought I'd celebrate a genre where awesome, strong, multi-faceted female characters have led casts as a regular occurrence for decades – martial arts!
Here are but 10 of my favorite high-kicking heroines but I'd love to hear about yours to so practice leave a comment. Let's conversation almost women doing rad things.
Golden Swallow (played by Cheng Pei Pei in Come up Drinkable With Me, 1966)
There was no way I wasn't going to start the listing with this. Come Drink With Me is a genre-defining film with a seminal female person protagonist. Gilded Swallow is the girl of a local governor. In a fun inversion of the classic damsel-in-distress motif, her brother is kidnapped by evil bandits Jade-Face Tiger and Smiling Tiger and it's up to her to save the day. Information technology'due south possibly as much of a Chinese opera as it is a kung fu film (and there are even a couple of songs in information technology, courtesy of a mysterious beggar known as Drunken Cat). The dialogue is poetic and the choreography svelte, with Pei Pei (who'd trained as a dancer, non a martial artist) dominating throughout.
Disguised equally a man for the showtime one-half of the moving-picture show, when she unveils her truthful identity and (ultimately) takes revenge on the bandits with a veritable army of other women, it'southward a cathartic moment of grace under pressure exploding. Cheng Pei Pei besides returned equally Golden Swallow ii years later in Chang Cheh's Girl With The Thunderbolt Kicking , if you lot just can't get enough of her.
Watch Come Drink With Me on Amazon
Jade (played by Maggie Cheung in New Dragon Gate Inn, 1992)
Tsui Hark's vibrant new wave re-imagining of this classic wuxia story finds the henchmen of a despotic eunuch (Donnie Yen) and a grouping of rebels on the run from him trapped together by a storm in a remote inn. This titular institution is a den of iniquity run by Jade, a adult female who's non averse to murdering her guests, robbing them and serving their flesh up in the pork buns.
Although technically neither a hero nor a villain, Jade's ever-switching allegiances and outrageously selfish behaviour make her the most intriguing and entertaining grapheme in the piece, besides as being pivotal to how the story plays out. She'south far more than simply the blackly comic relief she initially appears to exist. Plus, at that place's that terminal fight, one of the most OTT and bloody of all-fourth dimension, as Donnie Yen takes on anybody left alive. Maggie Cheung, despite having no formal martial arts training, fights up a storm through the magic of intense choreography and even more intense performance. It'south hard not fall in love simply a niggling with Jade, even though yous know it's fatal…
Koda (played past Yuka Mizuno in Heroes Of The Due east, 1978)
This Lau Kar-Leung archetype is almost a martial arts rom-com and a great one to show to genre newcomers (fifty-fifty my mom likes this). Technically, the lead is Gordon Liu who plays Ho Tao, a Chinese martial artist entered into an arranged marriage with a Japanese daughter named Yumiko Koda… but it'due south Koda who steals the picture show. Once married, the newlyweds become into some fairly heated debates about whether Chinese or Japanese martial arts are the best. His "weapons look like garbage." She "yells like a barbarian." His eight-stroke style "looks similar a young girl's dancing" etc. The dialogue here is a joy with both actors billowy off each other with words and then graduating to fists, kicks, swords and spears.
Things only go worse as Koda turns out to be an actual ninja ("a disgrace!" co-ordinate to Ho Tao, who really wouldn't enjoy my web log…) and so her shadowy childhood sweetheart decides he wants her back. Will Ho Tao put aside his prejudices and save his matrimony or will Koda observe beloved in the arms of a swain ninja expert in the deadly 'crab style'? You lot'll accept to watch Heroes Of The Eastward to find out but, exist warned, Koda will absolutely steal your heart.
Watch Heroes of the Eastward on Amazon
Wolf Adult female (played past Pearl Cheung in Wolf Devil Woman, 1981)
Pearl Cheung is perhaps the most unsung of all female auteurs merely her body of work is essential viewing to any fan of psychotronic cinema. Although notable for starring in a fair few classic Taiwanese grindhouse films, Cheung also wrote, directed and starred in a handful of depression-budget wuxia before vanishing from the public middle in the mid-80s. The wildest of these is Wolf Devil Woman , a encounter-information technology-to-believe-it and somewhat loose accommodation of Baifa Monü Zhuan (the same novel that inspired The Bride With White Hair ).
Cheung plays an unnamed woman left for dead in the snowfall every bit an baby when her parents are killed by an evil tyrant known every bit the Blue Devil. She is rescued and raised by a pack of magic wolves who treat her similar one of their own and, as she grows older, she fashions a baroque/magnificent pelted outfit to wear, convinced that she is a wolf besides. With the help of a nobleman who falls in her love with her (and, Pygmalion -style, tries to teach her the ways of order), they take on the Blueish Devil and save the state.
Take the Den of Geek Reader Survey for a chance to win a $100 Amazon Gift Carte du jour!
A paragraph can't begin to draw why Wolf Devil Adult female is and then amazing and weird but at its heart is Pearl Cheung, whose rabid enthusiasm, boundless imagination and uninhibited clowning brand it astounding. She's not afraid to run effectually on all fours, growling, barking and whimpering, her physicality evoking classic silent comedians. She is unladylike, vehement, barbarous and yet – ultimately – saves everybody with her pure center and wolfen magic. Quite bluntly, she rocks.
Wu Siu-Wai (played by Elsa Yeung in Challenge Of The Lady Ninja, 1983)
I actually wanted to get an Elsa Yeung picture show in hither considering she's played so many ninja characters, often suffered tremendously for her fine art, and rarely gets the recognition she deserves. Unlike the other films on the list, Challenge Of The Lady Ninja is possibly problematic for its objectification of women (there'south no actual nudity but there's an insane amount of Lycra and you'll feel you know everyone a lot more intimately by the cease). Still, Yeung is fantastic in information technology and her grapheme's a great ane.
Information technology'due south the 1940s and Wu Siu-Wai has been away from her native China for 17 years, grooming to be a ninja. After mastering ninja illusion and magical tri-location, she is given a special ninja badge and anointed as the first e'er lady ninja. "Kung fu has no borders," her master says proudly (mixing his martial arts somewhat), before dropping the bombshell that her begetter has died. Devastated, Siu-Wai returns to Japanese-occupied Shanghai and finds that not only is her father dead but he's been killed by Lee Tung, her fiancé (a man then evil that the Purple March from Star Wars plays every time he enters a shot – no, really). Siu-Wai vows deadly revenge on her one-time lover and forms a ring of lady warriors to take him out. "Anything men can practice, women can do also… sometimes, even meliorate!" she declares and the residual is ninja history.
Challenge Of The Lady Ninja is typical of Taiwanese grindhouse fare. It's a bit silly, a bit sleazy and totally crazy. Only Yeung gives her all in the performance and I'd similar to think it's because she knew she was leading the charge for lady ninjas everywhere.
Watch Challenge of the Lady Ninja on Amazon
Which brings me onto…
Crazy Like A Bee (played by Lu I-Chan in Ninja 8: The Warriors Of Fire, or, Queen Bee, 1988/1981)
Ninja 8: The Warriors Of Burn is a Filmark ninja film, which regular readers will know means it's cut together from an existing moving picture's footage and some new ninja footage, so redubbed with a whole new storyline. The source footage here comes from Chester Wong'southward 1981 thriller Queen Bee and it integrates into Filmark's ninja nuttiness surprisingly well.
In the new story, the customary ninja mob runs around in pursuit of a mysterious 'confidential blueprint' with a pair of Vietnam vets – Victor and Robin – at the centre of information technology all. When Robin'due south fiancée gets murdered by the Black Ninja Empire, her sister Jenny gets in on the action. Jenny trains with the White Ninja Empire and is given the 'ninja name' of Crazy Similar A Bee before going on a rampage. I mean, the original Queen Bee picture may well be a fantastically grimy, neon-drenched revenge classic but allow'southward face information technology. No one gets renamed Crazy Like A Bee in that, which makes this arguably the better version.
There are some hysterically funny scenes (including i where a villain howls her proper name "CRAAAZY LIKE A BEEEEEE!!!" furiously into the night as he dies) but Lu I-Chan is one of the most underrated stars of the era and her smoldering turn here transcends the cloth and makes Crazy Like A Bee 1 of the most unsafe and one of the coolest (not-quite) ninja characters on film.
Spotter Ninja viii: Warriors of Fire on Amazon
Inspector Cindy (played by Cynthia Rothrock in almost everything 1985 – 1989)
The legendary Cynthia Rothrock striking the screen running in Corey Yuen'due south loftier-octane romp Yes, Madam! (1985) and Hong Kong audiences went mad for her. In that movie, she played Inspector Cindy – a no-nonsense cop, highly trained in martial arts, who's transferred into the HK law force to stop a trio of inept criminals from getting away with a secret microfilm. It's a testament to the movie and the character's success that, for about iv years later, almost every role Rothrock was cast in had the name Cindy and, more than ofttimes than not, was a no-nonsense cop, highly trained in martial arts.
From the first form activeness of Righting Wrongs to the juvenile daftness of Metropolis Cops , Inspector Cindy was resurrected time and time once again to keep perps in line and audiences delighted. Of course, what made the character work – even if there was little intentional script continuity – was the fact that Rothrock was more or less playing herself. She had a goofball humor (with remarkable comic timing), a distinctive high-pitched voice and a disarming smile that fabricated information technology all the more exhilarating when she turned into a one-woman kicking machine.
By allowing Rothrock – a martial artist who can concord her own against just near anyone – to only do her thing and be herself, they gave audiences exactly what they wanted and inadvertently created a grapheme for the history books. (Worth also noting China O'Brien every bit a fantastic actual character that Rothrock played shortly afterward, but I've already written at great length about here…)
Cheng Tai-Nan aka Auntie (played by Kara Hui in My Immature Auntie, 1981)
When the elderly patriarch of the Yu family knows he'southward shut to decease, he refuses to relinquish the manor to the decadent adjacent-in-line 3rd Uncle. Instead, he marries his young servant Cheng Tai-Nan and instructs her, upon his decease, to requite all his avails to his estranged son Jing-Chuen (played past managing director Lau Kar-Leung). However, Cheng (or 'Auntie' every bit she'due south now known as) finds not just is Third Uncle pursuing them both to get his hands on the money but also – having led a very sheltered rural life – how hard it is to adapt to a more than modern urban lifestyle.
Being a Lau Kar-Leung movie, there'southward a lot of amazing kung fu equally Auntie shows off her martial training only the film's also very much a comedy of manners. Possibly the near iconic moment is a Pretty Woman mode scene where Auntie hits the city and gets humiliated by shop administration for existence a bumpkin, only to whip out her cash and purchase the virtually expensive, most western dress in the store. It's a fun scene anyway but when she realizes she tin't walk properly in heels and the wearing apparel is more than revealing than she's used to, she upsets the locals and gets into a fight, somehow balancing leaping and kicking with protecting her modesty. The result is an astonishing feat of choreography, of comedy and of Hui'due south incomparable star power. But whatever Cheng Tai-Nan does, she's an endearing and powerful grapheme you'll never forget.
Watch My Young Auntie on Amazon
Shu Lin (played by Michelle Yeoh in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, 2000)
It's hard to choose only one Michelle Yeoh graphic symbol as she has and so many unforgettable roles to her name but, while I had to flip a coin betwixt this and Ming-Ming in Magnificent Warriors , it'south difficult to deny Shu Lin her identify. As one of the heroes in Ang Lee's Oscar-baiting wuxia, Shu Lin is a wandering warrior woman, highly trained in the Wudang arts. Not only does she kick a whole bunch of asses with fists, feet and swords (although "I prefer the machete," she quips at one betoken), she also represents more only violence.
The film is a thoughtful exploration of a woman'due south role in 19th Century Chinese social club. Shu Lin, having cast off the constraints of what'south expected of her by condign a warrior and devoting herself to a life of 'freedom', still finds herself bound by a forbidden desire for her dead lover's martial blood brother (Chow Yun Fatty). Her emotional battle is as compelling as her physical ones and Yeoh delivers a career-best performance bringing this turmoil to vivid life.
Watch Crouching Tiger Subconscious Dragon on Amazon
Zen (played by JeeJa Yanin in Chocolate, 2008)
Prachya Pinkaew's Chocolate has hands i of the strangest bounds for a modern martial arts pic only somehow information technology just works. JeeJa Yanin plays Zen, an autistic immature woman who, while trying to raise money for her sick mother'southward chemotherapy, gets involved in a gang war (information technology'southward a long story)…
Although socially awkward and slight in stature, Zen has learned martial arts by copying what she'south seen in the movies and her uncanny photographic retentiveness has turned her into something of a chief. All-out ultraviolence ensues. Zen is a unique character with a mental condition not oft explored in genre film, full of comical touches and fascinating tics. JeeJa Yanin's bluntly superhuman Muay Thai skills, withal, turn Zen into something even more special. The fighting in Chocolate is some of the most cruel ever committed to motion-picture show and fabricated all the more amazing past how artistic the fix pieces are.
Spotter Chocolate on Amazon
If you want to see a powerful woman beating the shit out of everyone in sight, you'll get few films that deliver the goods with as much flair and as trivial nonsense as Chocolate . It's a stunner.
humphreydithemethen.blogspot.com
Source: https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/10-essential-martial-arts-heroines/
0 Response to "The Best Martial Arts Movies of the 80s Starring Women"
Post a Comment