8 Female Action Films You Probably Haven't Seen

In 2011, Marrie Lee (real name Doris Young) was presented with the Action Queens Honorary Award for her role as Cleopatra Wong, a character she played in three low budget movies shot in the Philippines in the late 70s. The pick of the bunch is 1978’s Cleopatra Wong, which Quentin Tarantino admitted was a "gigantic inspiration" on Kill Bill.

"There was even one time when I was writing Kill Bill that I was thinking of putting a character in a nun's outfit," he told The Straits Times. Had he done so, he could've re-used the film's best line: "Freeze - or you're a dead nun!"

There's fun to be had with this tale of a female Interpol agent tracking counterfeit money is, and if you can imagine a Filipino-lensed missing link between Faster Pussycat Kill Kill and Kill Bill you’re on the right lines. Then again, neither of those films featured machine gun-wielding gangsters dressed as priests or Kung Fu assassins that can leap walls in a single bound.

Lee returned to the role in The Return Of The Bionic Boy (1979) and Mean Business (1979), but it’s this first instalment you need to watch, if only for the climax that involves several running gun battles with nuns.