Okay, so maybe these videos won’t teach you to dance. But they are lots of fun to watch:
I’m decidely not feeling kick-ass today. I have a nasty cold, and have stayed home from work to try to get some sleep. Unfortunately, sleep eludes me. And my mind keeps wandering back to the Action Heroine Blog-a-thon.
I’ve spent a lot of time putting together lists of shows and movies with kick-ass women. But so far, I’ve largely avoided committing to any sort of ranking. Sure, the first list of movies and the first list of shows had more of my favorites than the later lists in those series. But I generally have listed things by order of release date. So here I climb out on my limb, to make some sort of ranking.
Mind you, these are not necessarily my all-time favorite movies and shows, though many of those provide the source of the characters. It seems my list is a bit heavy on TV vs. movies, but let’s face it, TV shows give more opportunity for character development. And this list is about the characters themselves.
These are kick-ass women I’ve most admired for all their talents, skills, wit and strength. The kick-ass women I’ve most wanted to be like.
Supercop (1992) Jing cha gu shi III: Chao ji jing cha, or Police Story III: Supercop¹
Starring Michelle Yeoh.
Directed by Stanley Tong.
(Oh, yeah. It also stars Jackie Chan)
Supercop is a seriously fun Hong Kong action movie: it’s got oodles of martial arts, chase scenes galore, big fireball explosions, crazy stunts, really bad bad guys, really good good guys, and the streak of comedy that Hong Kong cinema does so well. But what this movie really has going for it is Michelle Yeoh.
Michelle Yeoh kicks some serious ass in this movie. On so many levels.
Jackie Chan plays a Hong Kong cop sent to help an investigation in mainland China. Michelle Yeoh plays a higher up in a Chinese security agency. The two go undercover together in pursuit of a big bad guy.
The contrasting characters are set up right from the start, starting with this introduction:
This is Chief of Security Yang. She can teach you a great deal.
Jackie Chan is smiley and charming, casual and friendly. Michelle Yeoh is serious and formal in her military uniform. Jackie Chan shows that he’s a bit slack in some areas, Michelle Yeoh shows him up. Michelle Yeoh plays the competent foil to Jackie Chan’s amiable buffoonery.
This movie is in many ways another buddy cop story: two characters with different backgrounds and personalities are partnered up for a short time to fight some crime. Like Lethal Weapon or Beverly Hills Cop. Or like another one of Jackie Chan’s movies, Rush Hour, about which Roger Ebert coined the term wunza:
“Rush Hour” is our reliable friend, the Wunza Movie, pairing two opposites: Wunza legendary detective from Hong Kong, and wunza Los Angeles cop. And wunza Chinese guy, and wunza black guy. And wunza martial arts expert and wunza wisecracking showboat. Neither wunza original casting idea, but together, they make an entertaining team.
In this case, one’s a loveable clown, and one’s all business. One’s from Hong Kong, one’s from Communist China. And one’s a man, one’s a woman.
In spite of the man-woman partnering business, this is a woman-man partnership that is not gooped up by sexual tension and romance.
It’s not that Michelle Yeoh is asexual, she’s feminine even. Neither of them is asexual. It’s just that their partnership isn’t about sex. Yeoh’s gender comes up a few times in the movie, such as when Chan worries that she’ll get in the way of his policework because he’ll be worried about her. “I can’t look after you,” he tells her. She retorts that she was supposed to “look after” him. It’s totally believable that she should be the one looking after him.
I love it that even the undercover character, the little sister “Hana” to Jackie Chan’s undercover role, is still a strong woman. She stands up for, and to, her “brother” in the interactions they have for the benefit of the bad guys. When Chan slaps her as a ruse to keep their cover from being broken, he explains to the bad guy onlooker: “She gave me some of her female backtalk, so I thought I’d teach her a lesson.” Hana/Yang/Yeoh’s response? She slaps him right back, saying:
You think you’re superior, huh? Mao Tse Tung said that women are the real power of society.
She’s a partner to Jackie Chan, not a sidekick. If anything, he seems a bit like her sidekick. She’s an agent, not just a pawn. She doesn’t need to be rescued. She comes to the rescue.
In fact my absolute favorite scene, and I don’t think I can possibly do it justice, is when Yang (Yeoh’s character) comes to the rescue in a country restaurant. She and Chan have gone undercover with a group of minor thugs in order to go after a big bad, and the group goes out to dinner in a restaurant. Some local police recognize some of the bad guys, and move in for an arrest. While Yang is out of the room, Chan and the bad guys have a fight with the police, and are rounded up. Enter Yang. She jumps in, and I mean literally jumps in, to the rescue. Taking down two guys at once with a single double kick. What follows is a brief but well-choreographed fight scene where Michelle Yeoh gets to show off her skill and grace, fighting off at least two at a time.
In this scene, she’s wearing her hair in braided pigtails with ribbons, and dressed in a bright red cardigan with a white-collared shirt. She looks a bit like a little girl, with her braids flying. At the same time, she’s kicking some serious ass. I love it.
The movie’s not ideal as far as being all about women kicking ass. There is a woman in distress, in the form of Chan’s girlfriend, played by Maggie Cheung. Her role is in part as the woman who moves the plot forward by means of her cluelessness, and who ultimately finds herself bound up, gagged, and in need of rescue. In spite of that, she shows some spine and wit of her own. Overall, the women characters are strong, intelligent, and more than just pretty faces.
Michelle Yeoh’s character is not flawless, either, mind you. She makes a few mistakes here and there. After all, the plot does need to move forward, and it is Jackie Chan’s movie, primarily, so he can’t be expected to make all the mistakes. At the same time her businesslike competence is never “softened up” and shown to be a flaw, as is all too often the formula. Her strength and strength of character remain assets through the end of the movie.
Michelle Yeoh’s character has everything I like to see in an action movie lead: she’s smart, competent, clever. She thinks on her feet (or sometimes up in the air with feet kicking), and doesn’t back down easily. She shows moral character. She’s calm, intelligent, resourceful. Witty and tough.
And since we’re talking action, let’s not forget all the action. Michelle Yeoh totally kicks ass in the action department. Can I just point out that, in this movie, Michelle Yeoh performed her own stunts? Yeoh not only gets her share of kick-ass fight scenes, she also gets some cool chase scenes. Can anyone top the chase scene where she perfoms a motorcycle jump to land on a moving train?
I rest my case.
This post is part of the Action Heroine Blog-a-thon.
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¹ I’ve only seen the dubbed version. As dubbing goes, it’s better than most. One thing is that Jackie Chan and Michelle Yeoh dub their own lines. I can’t compare the dubbed English script to the original Cantonese dialog. I’ll refer to this movie by the title on this dubbed release, since that’s the one I know.
Joss Whedon kicks ass.
I’m sure many of you already knew this.
I’ve been a fan of Buffy and Firefly/Serenity for a bit, and therefore had some awareness that Joss Whedon could produce, direct and write some cool stuff in the kick-ass woman department. However, I developed a whole new level of appreciation for his own kick-assedness when I saw this video of him talking about answering the big question: “Why do you write such strong women characters?” (Thanks to bs and orangerful for bringing my attention to this clip.)
I had been very excited to see that he was lined up to write a new feature-length film version of Wonder Woman. Cool, huh? However, I’m sad to say that I’ve recently learned that he is off the job. Damn.
In other kick-ass-woman-related news, there’s an upcoming blog event that should be worth checking out: The Action Heroine Blogathon. (hat-tip to Lazy Eye Theater, and thanks to jenny for making sure I knew about it.) I’m hoping to participate, with some sort of new post in the kick-ass women series. I’m even hoping that YTSL will have a new post of her own along the same lines. (Any chance?) Anyone else out there have some movies or shows with action heroines they want to write about?
It’s time for another helping of Themed Things Thursdays. It being vegetable week here, in honor of my first pick-up of my CSA veggies, this Thursday Theme for Things is vegetables. Okay, the list is a bit heavy on the onion bits (with apologies to those who don’t like onions), but you can pick them out.
some vegetables
Peter Peter pumpkin eater
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her
He put her in a pumpkin shell
And there he kept her very well
Bugs Bunny’s nonchalant carrot-chewing stance, as explained many years later by Chuck Jones, and again by Friz Freleng, comes from the movie, It Happened One Night, from a scene where the Clark Gable character is leaning against a fence eating carrots more quickly than he is swallowing, giving instructions with his mouth full to the Claudette Colbert character, during the hitch-hiking sequence.
Shrek: Ogres are like onions.
Donkey: They both smell?
Shrek: NO! They have LAYERS. There’s more to us underneath. So, ogres are like onions.
Donkey: Yeah, but nobody LIKES onions!
If you have ever peeled an onion, then you know that the first thin, papery layer reveals another thin, papery layer, and that layer reveals another, and another, and before you know it you have hundreds of layers all over the kitchen table and thousands of tears in your eyes, sorry that you ever started peeling in the first place and wishing that you had left the onion alone to wither away on the shelf of the pantry while you went on with your life, even if that meant never again enjoying the complicated and overwhelming taste of this strange and bitter vegetable.
Cucumbers circle Kalamazoo. Lima beans loom over Levittown. Artichokes advance on Anchorage.
Check out some of the illustrations on the publisher’s webpage for the book.
I’ve been putting together a number of lists of movies, TV shows and other media that feature women that I have called kick-ass. (For an index to the lists, see the kick-ass women project page.) The lists so far are mostly about movies and shows in the action genre, with lots of nods to those women characters who can really kick some ass. As in physical kicking of physical asses. It has recently been suggested to me that it would also be nice to see more about movies with women who kick-ass in a more figurative sense: strong, courageous, intelligent and in control. Possessing of dignity, integrity and wit. So, here goes:
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This post is being kicked over to the //engtech group writing project #3.
Thanks to bs, who suggested a version of the title of this post in a comment.
It’s Thursday once more. Which means it’s time for some Themed Things. This week’s Thursday theme is red folks, to follow up on those blue folks. Red-furred, red-skinned, red-shelled, or red cardboard, this post is red all over.
Dr. Zoidberg: Now open your mouth and lets have a look at that brain.
Dr. Zoidberg: No, no, not that mouth.
Fry: I only have one.
Dr. Zoidberg: Really?
Fry: Uh… is there a human doctor around?
Dr. Zoidberg: Young lady, I am an expert on humans. Now pick a mouth, open it and say “brglgrglgrrr”!
Literally “Red Youth.” Also often called Kasuga Akadouji 春日赤童子. A mysterious human figure said to have appeared on a rock immediately in front of the Kasuga 春日 Shrine gate. He often is shown as a youth (Jp. = douji), colored red (Jp = aka), standing on a rock, and leaning on a staff.
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So them’s the red folks. Want more color than just red? Feast your eyes on the latest Carnival of Colors.
I’ve been working for some time on an endeavor that I have dubbed “the kick-ass women project.” So far, the project has involved putting together various lists of movies and shows that have prominently featured women characters who, in my opinion, kick some ass.
However, I have yet to either define the term kick-ass or really describe what it is that I mean by the expression kick-ass woman. So here goes a try.
A kick-ass woman is a woman is more than ordinarily strong, courageous, and intelligent. Kick-ass women (or for that matter, kick-ass people in general) are those who face up to challenges that are beyond the ordinary, stand up for themselves and for others, and demonstrate their stength, courage and intelligence.
What do I mean by strength? Well, strength of character, primarily. Courage to stand up for her beliefs, for her rights, or even for her wants. Plus the brains to figure out what needs to be done.
Of course, I also enjoy the action genre, and added to these fundamental kick-ass qualities, I appreciate additional qualities. A kick-ass woman should ideally have some physical strength and the ability to hold her own in a fight. And I do have a penchant for women who can show off some martial arts skills, and literally kick some asses. Or other bits. In action or suspense movies, a kick-ass woman should also be able to outwit her opponents.
In some ways, a kick-ass woman character can also be defined by things she is not, things she does not do. For example, she doesn’t wait around for some man. To rescue her. Solve things for her. Notice her charms. Send her flowers. Marry her. She is not just the “love interest,” the prize, the trophy. She is not helpless. This is not to say that she can’t be a love interest, or accept some help, or be noticed for her charms. She can like getting flowers. She can even have romance, love, sex, marriage, whatever. More power to her. But these things are not the extent of her worth, her self worth, her role in whatever movie or show we’re watching.
I like to think of women as fundamentally strong, courageous and intelligent. This is the baseline. Sure, some women are stronger, others wimpier. Some brilliant, some not as bright. But generally, women have the potential to kick ass. It’s just that all too often in the media that is served up to us, whether it’s the more traditional male-dominated action and suspense movies, or the “chick movie” type romantic comedies, the women characters are overshadowed or underdeveloped. Watered down, or just gussied up.
Like many others, I want more movies and TV shows to feature women who demonstrate their strengths.
So, where am I going with this project? Well, I’ll probably put together a few more lists. It has come to my attention that I should put together lists of movies where the ass-kicking is more figurative than literal. While heavy on the action genre, my existing lists do include some such non-action movies, but there are certainly more out there.
I’ve also come across a number of other resources (books and websites) that discuss, rate or list kick-ass women movies and shows. I’ll get around to writing about them. At some point.
I also still have this plan of reviewing and actually scoring individual movies (or shows), based on the kick-assedness of the women characters.
I even have plans to write more about the expression kick-ass, and why I’ve chosen it over terms like sheroe or heroine.
I’ve decided I need to organize my things. I have a tendency to make lists of things, willy-nilly, whenever the urge strikes. Any old day of the week. Whether it’s blue dudes on a Saturday, balls on a Friday, or pigs on a Sunday, or cheese on a Tuesday. Willy-freakin’-nilly, I tell you.
So I was all like “hey, I should pick a day. Have a thing day. A themed thing day.”¹ So to go all out with the alliteration, I’m going with Thursdays. Thus creating the Themed Thing Thursday.
So in honor of the onset consonant of the words theme, thing and Thursday, the voiceless inderdental fricative, my first official theme of things for this Themed Thing Thursday will be teeth. Because without teeth, it’s really hard to say things.
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¹ I’m also inpsired by some folks I admire who have their own weekly theme days, like KC’s Medical Advice Mondays and Sage’s Word Wise Wednesdays.
collecting tokens 