1. Moon Lee vs Yukari Oshima, Iron Angels
When asked to name a famous female martial artist, most would probably say Michelle Yeoh. Some of your more die hard fans may puff out their chest and say Cynthia Rothrock. I'd be willing to bet that no one would mention Moon Lee, an unappreciated and comparatively unheard of martial artist. Moon lee could of and probably should have been more recognized than Yeoh. You see, Lee didn't get the opportunities that Yeoh did. She didn't get the prestige/vanity projects like Magnificent Warriors or Wing Chun: she had to make her mark in the grittier Hong Kong 80's sub-genre know as Girls with Guns Cinema. Girls with Guns Cinema is certainly nothing to sneer at, but was certainly seen as strictly B-movie material. Whatever the letter, one thing is for sure, Moon lee brought her 'A' game to every picture that she was in. As I said before, it was a far gritter genre than say, what Chan was doing with his Lucky Stars film series. All of the films tended involve drug trafficking or various other sorts of debased societal ills. As a result, Moon Lee had the more visceral fights than Yeoh or Rothrock. So if what you see above is not the greatest girl vs girl fight ever, then it certainly is the most brutal. It comes from the film Iron Angels, which is the first in the Iron Angels' trilogy. Film series like these where female police officers did battle with drug kingpins and various lowlifes, were a popular staple of the Girls with Guns genre. In this final battle from Iron Angel, inspector Moon (played by Moon Lee) does battle with drug lord Madam Yeung (played by another goddess of the HK action scene, Yukari Oshima). You'll find no split-screen De Palma homages here and the sound effects don't provide an esoteric distraction since they're organic to the genre. Without the cinematic flourishes all you're left with is raw brutality and skill. There is nothing here to transcend, no barriers to break. Consequently, the fight is of the purer sort, meaning it's just plain old, good vs evil/right vs wrong. So you can leave the bra burning and folk songs to the feminists. Moon Lee had a job to do and the law to uphold, and nothing, save her death was going to stop her. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fTZ73AU9tU Did I miss one? Was there a (non-sexist) girl vs girl fight that should have made the list? Spill your guts about it in the comment section below.
Raymond Keith Woods
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Raymond Woods is too busy watching movies to give you a decent bio. If he wasn't too busy watching movies and reading books about movies and listening to podcasts about movies, this is what he'd tell you. "I know more about film than you. Accept this as a fact and we might be able to talk."
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