Abstract
Over the last several decades martial arts have become ingrained in the global cinematic imagination, yet the genre has remained overwhelmingly masculine since the electric presence of Bruce Lee first appeared on the silver screen in the early 1970s. In this essay, University of Oklahoma Professor of Film Studies Man-Fung Yip explores the powerful if lesser-known filmic archetype of the “woman warrior” that was prominent in late '60s and early '70s Hong Kong films like Come Drink with Me (Da Zui Xia ) and Kung Fu Girl (Tie wa ), and can still be seen in such films as Ang Lee's blockbuster Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Wohu Canglong .) in 2000. Martial arts films may offer a mixed bag of cultural and gendered stereotypes, but Yip reveals ways in which the genre has choreographed a space for emergent representations of gender in popular culture.
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