San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
11 Asian films with female action heroes.
Before Sigourney Weaver’s groundbreaking portrayal of Ellen Ripley in the “Alien” film franchise rewrote the Hollywood script when it came to female action heroes, there was Cheng Peipei.
Cheng, at age 20, became the first modern female action movie star when she chopped and kicked her way through King Hu’s Hong Kong actioner “Come Drink With Me,” and since then Asian cinema has set the standard with stories built around female warriors.
So it comes as no surprise that the makers of Disney’s liveaction version of “Mulan,” which is inspired by this grand tradition, made sure to carve out a small role for Cheng, now 74. As Matchmaker, she’s the film’s unofficial good luck charm, passing the torch to Liu, the movie’s dynamic star.
Here are some Asian films with female leads that might have inspired “Mulan,” in chronological order:
“Come Drink With Me” (1966) Cheng was a dancer when she was tapped by director King Hu to make history. Cheng is Golden Swallow, who brings a gang of thieves to justice, beginning with a classic set piece at an inn, in which she wipes out many of the bad guys.
She soon became a box office queen in Asia for several years, alternating action films with musicals (“Hong Kong Nocturne”), where her dancing talents were put to more obvious use.
Watch it: Stream for free on Amazon Prime (English dubbed); rent or purchase on iTunes (the only platform offering the original Mandarin), Google Play, YouTube or Microsoft.
“A Touch of Zen” (1971) Hu was the poet laureate of the martial arts subgenre of wuxia, basically martial arts fantasies set in medieval times. “A Touch of Zen,” the first martial arts movie to win a prize at the Cannes Film Festival, is a threehour philosophical epic starring Hsu Feng and is widely considered one of the greatest films ever made in the Chinese language.
Watch it: Stream for free on the Criterion Channel; rent or buy from Amazon, Google Play, YouTube or Vudu.
“Deaf Mute Heroine” (1971) One of the wildest, silliest and most entertaining martial arts movies ever made has Helen Ma as a bounty hunter who proves unbeatable despite her disabilities. A true cult item. Watch it: Stream for free on YouTube.
“Hapkido” a.k.a. “Lady Kung Fu” (1972) Angela Mao was billed as the female Bruce Lee; she even appeared as Lee’s illfated sister in “Enter the Dragon.”
Retitled “Lady Kung Fu” for the international market, “Hapkido” was a staple at U.S. grindhouse cinemas in the 1970s.
Watch it: Stream for free on Amazon Prime.
“Lady Snowblood” (1973) Japan finally hopped onto the female martial arts bandwagon in the 1970s, and the key actress was Meiko Kaji, who starred in two major series, the “Stray Cat Rock” and “Female Prisoner: Scorpion” films. She also starred in two “Wandering Ginza Butterfly” movies and two films as the Lady Snowblood, perhaps her most iconic role.
Centered on a female samurai out for revenge, “Lady Snowblood” and its sequel, “Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance,” were a prime inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” movies — Tarantino including the theme song, “Flower of Carnage,” sung by Kaji, over the climactic fight between Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu near the end of “Kill Bill: Volume 1.”
Watch it: Stream for free on HBO Max and the Criterion Channel; rent or buy from Amazon, Google Play, YouTube and Vudu.
“Yes, Madam!” (1985) Young fans who know Michelle Yeoh from her recent roles in “Crazy Rich Asians” and “Star Trek:
Read Chronicle movie critic Mick LaSalle’s review of “Mulan” on datebook.sfchronicle.com.
Discovery” might be surprised that 35 years ago she revolutionized the female action genre with a series of films in which she performed not only her own martial arts fight scenes but also her own deathdefying stunts.
She burst onto the scene with “Yes, Madam!” as a Dirty Harrylike Hong Kong cop who teams with a British agent (American martial artist Cynthia Rothrock) to bring down a team of international criminals.
Watch it: Rent or purchase on Amazon Prime.
“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000) Ang Lee was profoundly influenced by Hu’s
films, especially “A Touch of Zen,” and paid tribute to the movies and stories he loved as a boy in Taiwan with this philosophical actioner that became the first Chinese language film to break the $100 million barrier at the U.S. box office and was nominated for a slew of Oscars, including best picture. Yeoh and Chow Yunfat are old lovers brought back together by the case of a missing sword of immense value and the possible involvement of a young noblewoman (Zhang Ziyi). Martial arts blends with Zen philosophy in the best Hu tradition — Lee even casts Cheng as the villainous Jade Fox.
Watch it: Stream for free on CBS All Access and IMDb TV.
“Lady Vengeance” (2005) While South Korean cinema is among the most vibrant in the world, femaleled action films are few and far between. One exception was “Lady Vengeance,” the third film of Park Chanwook’s thematic “Vengeance” trilogy (preceded by
“Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance” and “Oldboy”).
Lee Youngae stars as a woman released from prison after serving time for a murder she didn’t commit; no sooner is she out of the hoosegow than she begins her quest to hunt down the real murderers.
Lee deftly handles weaponry and emotions in this immensely satisfying thriller.
Watch it: Stream for free on Kanopy, Mubi, Tubi, Shudder and Popcornflix.
“Chocolate” (2008) There’s a new generation of female action heroes in Southeast Asian cinema, which makes up the final three entries on this list. We start with “Chocolate,” a Thai film from the director of “Ong Bak” that introduced the cinematic world to the wonders of Yanin Vismitananda, a martial arts champion turned actress.
Watch it: Stream for free on Hoopla, Tubi and FlixFling.
“BuyBust” (2018) Although more of an ensemble piece than a film centered on a female action fighter, “BuyBust” is a tensionfilled thriller from the Philippines about a drug bust operation in the slums of Manila by special agents, led by Anne Curtis, a Filipina Australian actress.
Director Erik Matti also made the topnotch thriller “On the Job” (2013).
Watch it: Stream for free on Netflix and Hoopla.
“Furie” (2019) Veronica Ngo has balanced a successful Hollywood career as a supporting actress (”Star Wars: The Last Jedi,” “The Old Guard,” “Da 5 Bloods”) with starring roles in her home country of Vietnam. Her charisma is on full display in “Furie,” in which she plays a villager whose daughter is kidnapped by traffickers; she goes to Saigon to get her back by any means necessary.
Watch it: Stream for free on Netflix and Hoopla.