Bad Girls - Tough Girl Cinema and female movie icons

by Magda Knight

There's an exploding genre of action films with uber-tough sassy girls. They kick righteous ass but never smudge their lipstick... and only bat their eyelashes at a guy for smooches, not assistance. Tough girls of cinema, we salute you!

Run Lola Run

This film is so cool you will die. It's German (subtitles) but you mustn't let that stop you. SEE THIS FILM. The plot is that a young woman has twenty minutes to find and bring 100,000 Deutschmarks to her boyfriend before he robs a grocery store. Through a strange stroke of fate she gets to replay those fateful twenty minutes again and again, running through hoops to find the perfect combination that will solve all her and her boyfriend's bizarre problems.

Lola's got red hair to murder for, the punky-techno-pop soundtrack is delirious and exciting, the film is spliced with crazy action cartoons like a pop video, and she runs like hell. You will feel out of breath just watching it. This is one of the best-fun films you will see, ever.

Amazon: Run Lola Run dvd

The Descent

It's a gripping horror movie. It's an action film. It's a chick-flick. It's basically a suspenseful, claustrophobic thriller, set almost entirely underground, where horrible things happen to a group of women exploring a cave system. Even though it stars a bunch of girls - not a bloke in sight - the tension never lets up, and the fabulous direction never lets you know what's going to happen next. Even if you wanted to in the first place, this film will make sure you never want to go head-first into a dark hole again.

The critics loved it but it didn't get nearly enough press so you may not have heard of it. Highly recommended. See it, then tell your friends.

Amazon: The Descent dvd

Female Convict Scorpion trilogy

Verging on the ridiculous, this japanese trilogy (yep, you'll have to wade through subtitles) is about a complete nutter (Meiko Kaji) who escapes prison and whorehouses and does all kinds of crazy things. She's an escaped convict, right? She's always on the run. Every film has a bit in where she runs, to make this point, and there is usually a mournful traditional japanese song attached to make the point even more. Running convict, called Scorpion, on the run. We get it now. Oh, and did we say she's mad as a snake? A policeman handcuffs her on a train? No problem. Meiko Kaji just cuts his arm off and runs through the city streets with this silly prosthetic arm flapping along beside her, which sounds like exploitation of the worst kind and so awful, but it's so surreal and so great, like a pop video!

Okay, although the action is silly and the fights are a bit slappy and giggly, the lead girl is super, staring balefully at everyone who crosses her path with glinty Clint Eastwood eyes, bringing on the pain like no-one's business, and generally being a hard-ass, um, 'female convict scorpion'. Whatever that means.

It's all gory and silly and a bit surreal, but not entirely weird - some good feminist points are made here and there.

Amazon: Female Convict Scorpion dvd

5th Element

'Multipass'! Okay, so this is just a harmless piece of fluff, and supermodel Milla Jovovich is admittedly a total male wank fantasy in this film and unlike Michelle Yeoh would be useless in a real-life scrap. But her designer-made strappy outfits are really cool, and so is her foxy red hair, and we love her squeakiness as she learns to speak english and then reveals she is a superbeing who can do anything, including encouraging us all to say 'multipass'! for no reason at all.

Crazy colourful must-see.

Amazon: 5th Element dvd

Faster, pussycat! Kill! Kill!

This sixties film is a timeless trash classic. Director Russ Meyer is obssessed with ladies with big wazoomies, so the female stars (Tura Satana, Lori Williams and Haji, now booby cult icons in their own right) bounce gaily all over the place. The girls have great kitschy chemistry together as they play go-go dancers by night, thrill seeking criminals by day.

A wild, camp, rockingsome ride. Switch off your brain and enjoy.

Amazon: Faster, pussycat! Kill! Kill! dvd

Barbarella

Okay, this is another male wank fantasy. A pretty silver bikini'd girl who does naughties with camp blonde angels and totters around in kinky boots? Yeah, uh-huh. But this sixties rompathon is pretty funny, and it's great to see Barbarella just rolling with whatever her strange villains throw at her, never getting overly fussed, assuming everything will be alright if she just thinks the best of everyone and shoots people with her corner-store plastic pop-gun once in a while. Actually, does she shoot anyone? We're not sure. Make the gun is actually a hairdryer, who can say?

Barbarella, just for the record-breaking bigness of your hair, we salute you!

Amazon: Barbarella dvd

Alien

As tough girl action movies go, this has to be the mother of them all. What really makes a tough girl flick work is when a woman is put in a difficult situation where she has to learn to fight back. Men are just gun-ho's from the get-go. Women are intelligent and have a tendency to see another's point of view. They're not stupid. They need an actual reason to bring on the pain!

Lieutenant Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) starts off engagingly fragile in Alien, but as the film - okay, the series - continues, she gets bitch-ass to almost superhero levels.

You should know the plot by now: a space crew intercept an SOS signal from an unfamiliar planet and go and investigate, and from then on it's claustrophobic chest-ripping action all the way.

Because the film has such superb pace, look and music score - especially when compared to most sci-fi/horror movies at the time - Alien rises head and shoulders above the rest, even to this day.

What really holds it together though is Sigourney Weaver's performance, with her believable determination, tall athletic frame and intelligent, strong expression as the bodycount rises and she evolves into a soldier who stops running and starts fighting.

She is truly the tough girl screen queen, and a worthy template for the million films that followed.

Charlie's angels

The girls are clearly having such a good time making this. Lucy Liu looks lethal and perfect, Cameron Diaz is the best bad dancer we've ever seen, and Drew Barrymore is an adorable rock-chick genius for making this film and bringing all the girls together. The fight scenes are fun and the girls seem like they're practically talking by telepafone, their movements are so in synch.

The baddie in the first film was better, but the Irish guy with the washboard stomach in Full Throttle is a honey. Role models and eye candy, what more could you ask for?

Thelma and Louise

Thelma and Louise was the first women-only buddy movie and became a cultural icon. Audiences cheered as these two repressed ladies took the law into their own hands.

The film starts with Louise making her first choice as a woman and a human being for ages - namely, running off for a fun weekend with her best friend without telling her horrible silly husband what she's up to - and from this teeny-tiny act of rebellion the two girls become increasingly daring (yay! they blow up lorries and light cigarettes with the explosion!) until the film's kinda heart-warming and yet jaw-dropping climax.

One to make you laugh and cry and cheer 'you go, girl!' to strangers in the street. We also get to see Brad Pitt's bum.

Kill Bill

Quentin Tarantino nicks ideas and fight scenes wholesale from chinese kick-flick cinema to create a whirlwind movie that is basically a feast of cool women stylishly beating the crap out of each other to music. Uma Thurman is glossy and yellow-suited just like Bruce Lee, Daryl Hannah and her wacky eyepatch are hilariously OTT, and Chiaki Kuriyama (who first found fame in Battle Royale, a crazy satire where a bunch of Japanese teenagers have a big fight on an island) only has a short sequence but she is the coolest of all as the Japanese school bodyguard with a talent for swinging balls on chains and looking menacing instead of knocking her bad self flat on her feet.

There may not be much of a story but with eye candy like this, who cares?

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

There are so many good kung-fu flicks starring women or giving them strong roles it's hard to pick just one. Princess Blade is worth seeing because it's cyberpunk with swords and The Matrix steals from it shockingly. House of Flying Daggers has fighting chicks in beautiful swishy clothes doing amazing things. Kung-Fu Hustle has the funniest, most kick-ass chainsmoking landlady of all time.

But Crouching Tiger has Michelle Yeoh as the older teacher and Ziyi Zhang as the young thief princess who wants to live free and wild and untamed by pooky old convention, and therefore it wins. Amazing fight sequences with people prancing over rooftops, great girl-on-girl fighting, and brave girls making tough decisions. This film set the pace for a host of tough girl action films getting good box office. Hurrah.

Amazon: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon dvd
Amazon: Princess Blade dvd
Amazon: Kung-Fu Hustle dvd
Amazon: House of Flying Daggers dvd
Amazon: The Matrix dvd

Serenity

We all heart Joss Whedon for having the gonads to bring this movie out independendently when his fan-worshipped sci-fi series Firefly bit the dust. And everyone, not just his fans but critics too, agree that Serenity is a killer movie with great character development, humorous dialogue and plenty of action for your money.

Wheedon is most famous for creating fun, believable action girls - think Buffy! Yes, he created Buffy too! Is there nothing this man can't do?

There are several great girlies in Serenity. River, a former child prodigy, has been the subject of ghastly brain experiments by alliance scientists - and she is hardly getting more normal with time. She looks great and a bit gothy, and does a nice line in twitchy paranoia masking great strength.

The other women are good as well but we won't go on about it. Everyone's already seen the film and loved it anyway.

Amazon: Serenity dvd
Amazon: Firefly dvd
Amazon: Buffy the Vampire Slayer dvd

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

Angelina Jolie is clearly a mad bint but she sure gives good tough-girl face on the movie screen. What with swapping vials of blood with her boyf and and bragging about her bisexual kinky bed marathons, she is clearly a strong lady in touch with her dark side.

Her personality and life really come through in her films, which is usually the only thing that makes them watchable (she also stole the limelight from Winona Ryder in that film about girl delinquents, we can't remember the name). She looks just like the computerised Lara Croft in this movie, and fights and pouts and grins like a mad snake all over the place. What more could you want? A decent plot? Ah well, back to the drawing-board...

Amazon: Tomb Raider dvd

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