Women Action Movies

[ggersten]

I'll take up Mr. Grant's challenge for good action movies with a woman in the lead:

The River Wild (ok, not great, just good/acceptable)
Aliens (sort of - Weaver is not really the "lead" even with her Oscar nomination - it's the aliens that are the lead)

[Dennis]

Do guys view female action heroes the same as women pro wrestlers? Would it be awful if the WWE eliminated the women's division. Hasn't the wrestling always been awful? It had more credibility with women like Chyna and Lita, but now they just have maxim pinup girls wrestling. Aliens is the best female action movie. Kill Bill is alright. and Crouching Tiger too. but are those movies more in the gimmick category. people are paying for the aliens and the chopsocky, not necessarily to see the performers.

[badMike]

I dunno, I kind of liked The Brave One (one of the films that inspired the Warner Bros. dictum -- which they say now never happened -- which of course it did). It's not a great film, it's quite stupid. But fun! Any movie that has Jodie Foster blowing away one of my idols, Larry Fessenden, has got to get an automatic positive rating.

Aliens, I think, is a given and you could also possibly squeeze in Terminator 2 in there, although Linda Hamilton isn't technically the main lead and you couldn't use her role to sell the film like you can Sigourney Weaver.

I also recently watched Pam Greer's Coffy for the first time and I have to include that in the list of great female action films -- i.e. if "great" equals sleazy and degenerate. I'm not familiar with Pam's other films, but those are probably worth consideration.

[FunkyGreenJerusalem]

I also recently watched Pam Greer's Coffy for the first time and I have to include that in the list of great female action films -- i.e. if "great" equals sleazy and degenerate. I'm not familiar with Pam's other films, but those are probably worth consideration.

Big Doll's House and it's sequel Big Bird Cage are up there.

Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! probably rates a mention if those do as well.

[hyzmarca]

Do guys view female action heroes the same as women pro wrestlers? Would it be awful if the WWE eliminated the women's division. Hasn't the wrestling always been awful? It had more credibility with women like Chyna and Lita, but now they just have maxim pinup girls wrestling. Aliens is the best female action movie. Kill Bill is alright. and Crouching Tiger too. but are those movies more in the gimmick category. people are paying for the aliens and the chopsocky, not necessarily to see the performers.

Women's Pro Wrestling can be done well. It can even be done well when the female wrestlers are hypersexualized. A small all-female promotion called Women's Extreme Wrestling does it well.
It just can't be done well when it is take on to a male-dominated promotion simply for sex appeal. When women's wrestling is treated as an afterthought, of course it will suck. If it is treated with the same seriousness and professionalism as the men's matches are, it won't suck.

The same is true of the female action hero, which is rarely treated well. The big problem, the huge problem, is that female actions heroes tend to be treated as women who just happen to be action heroes, rather than as action heroes who just happen to be women. A movie about a woman who kicks butt is very different from a movie about a person who kicks butt and just happens to have a vagina. It is the difference between a movie about a plastic sex fantasy and a movie about an actual person.

Of course, the tendency towards stylish CGI doesn't help matters, as it creates action scenes that can be hokey and unrealistic.

Nikita (Point of No Return sucks, however).
Eko Eko Azarak.
The Heroic Trio
Lady Snowblood
Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance
The Quick And The Dead
Underworld (if you can get past the light-generating bullets)

If we include Anime, the number of good female-led action films becomes staggering.

[bartl]

There is, of course, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (Kristy Swanson). Whoopi Goldberg made a few action/mysteries (Jumpin' Jack Flash, Burglar, Fatal Beauty) which were actually decent light mystery/adventure, but were advertised as broad comedy, and therefore failed to find an audience (not to mention being lambasted by the critics, who generally seemed to have an attitude, "How DARE they cast Whoopi Goldberg in movies where the fact that she is black and female is not relevant to the plot!").

Now, of course, there is the question, "How many good action movies have there been?" There are a lot of action movies that are fun, but not good (although I don't believe the reverse is true).

Television has shown, numerous times, that a woman can be sold as an action hero; I'm not sure why it hasn't translated well into the movies.

[Your Imaginary Pal]

I Spit on Your Grave.

GI Jane

Wing Chun

Monster

Hard Candy

Barb Wire:rolleyes:
but it was probably more successful than Elektra

[badMike]

Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! probably rates a mention

Yeah, I was thinking of that one, too. But, I saw it a long time ago and didn't remember how much "action" there was in it.

[badMike]

I Spit on Your Grave.
Monster
Hard Candy

Monster is not an action movie. I haven't seen I Spit and Hard Candy, but I think those are more thrillers than "action" movies.

[Melbourne Mew Mew]

Azumi and Azumi 2
Zeiram and Zeiram 2
Anything with Brigitte Lin or Michelle Yeoh

[mattx110]

Women's Pro Wrestling can be done well. It can even be done well when the female wrestlers are hypersexualized. A small all-female promotion called Women's Extreme Wrestling does it well.
It just can't be done well when it is take on to a male-dominated promotion simply for sex appeal. When women's wrestling is treated as an afterthought, of course it will suck. If it is treated with the same seriousness and professionalism as the men's matches are, it won't suck.

The same is true of the female action hero, which is rarely treated well. The big problem, the huge problem, is that female actions heroes tend to be treated as women who just happen to be action heroes, rather than as action heroes who just happen to be women. A movie about a woman who kicks butt is very different from a movie about a person who kicks butt and just happens to have a vagina. It is the difference between a movie about a plastic sex fantasy and a movie about an actual person.

Of course, the tendency towards stylish CGI doesn't help matters, as it creates action scenes that can be hokey and unrealistic.

Nikita (Point of No Return sucks, however).
Eko Eko Azarak.
The Heroic Trio
Lady Snowblood
Lady Snowblood 2: Love Song of Vengeance
The Quick And The Dead
Underworld (if you can get past the light-generating bullets)

If we include Anime, the number of good female-led action films becomes staggering.

and the number of bad skyrockets exponentially. just to keep things safe. but your point stands. it can potentially be done well.

[NatGertler]

Most of the films mentioned here aren't very good.

Run Lola Run, on the other hand...

[Michael P]

Wait, since when is Underworld a good movie?

[Sean Whitmore]

Most of the films mentioned here aren't very good.

Decades old too, for that matter.


SEAN

[Johnny_Luck]

Do guys view female action heroes the same as women pro wrestlers? Would it be awful if the WWE eliminated the women's division. Hasn't the wrestling always been awful? It had more credibility with women like Chyna and Lita, but now they just have maxim pinup girls wrestling. Aliens is the best female action movie. Kill Bill is alright. and Crouching Tiger too. but are those movies more in the gimmick category. people are paying for the aliens and the chopsocky, not necessarily to see the performers.

I seriously take it you haven't watched wrestling for a while now if you think Chyna was worthy while people with actually in ring ability like Melina, Mickie James, Gail Kim are not.

TNA let there women have a cage match and even let Gail jump off of the top to perform a move. Mickie vs Melina at Backlash this year is one of the best technical based female wrestling matches wwe has had in history.

In fact Melina/Mickie are the only reason raw is worthwhile other than HBK whose the best wrestler ever and been around since 89.

Wait, since when is Underworld a good movie?

Since it was made, though UW2 was better.

Also I know its a video game movie, but DOA is a cheesy but its also funny movie with a lot of sweet and killer put together fight scenes that make it worth it alone.

Other than that both Tomb Raider movies were decent/good and underrated
Charlies Angels Full Trottle was a good action movie
Buffy's movie was great(I grew up with it being one of my favs
Mr. and Mrs. Smith

and I could probably name a few others off the top of my head.