Female Action Star Mount Rushmore

Cafe Society
61

I’ve only ever seen Jackie Brown but, checking out action clips from her older blaxploitation films on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pam+grier+action+scene

I dunno… I feel like the general aim of the scenes is to be titillating more than it is to be like a well-choreographed fight. I don’t get the feeling like the fights are going to go anywhere, they’re just an excuse to watch some girls wrestle for a bit. And the gun violence is too quick (no missed shots) for it to really count as action.

That said, for the time period, this might have been the closest thing to what we would now consider an “action sequence” that existed. I can certainly see a closer connection between Grier’s scenes and 80s action films than I do between the Spaghetti Westerns and 80s action films.

I think that I would have to leave it to someone from that time period to try and determine whether the movies felt like action films and whether she was really leading them, or if it was more just “I like to see Grier wrastlin’ around on the ground in a bikini”.

62

If you count stunt work and bad acting in cheesy movies, I would think Zoe Bell should be the first face on the mountain. But for me personally, I wouldn’t even consider using criteria like that.

For me, an “action star” is someone who headlines action movies that people want to go see because they’re headlining them. For example, Arnold in Commando. It’s not even like Arnold is famous for doing his own stunts like Jackie Chan or Tom Cruise. And Jackie Chan absolutely, 100% qualifies, but he’s not on my mountain simply because he’s not in my top 4. (He’s in my top 10.)

By contrast, I don’t think anyone in this entire thread has been confident that their 4th pick even qualifies. I’m shaky at best on my 4th pick of Linda Hamilton, who never opened an action movie in her career.

Angelina Jolie opened an action movie with Tomb Raider ($131 million)
Scarlett Johansson opened an action movie with Lucy ($126 million domestic)
Charlize Theron opened an action movie with Atomic Blonde ($51 million domestic)
Milla Jovovich headlined a legit action franchise with Resident Evil

The first three on that list are movies where the headliner was the draw; people went to those movies specifically to see Jolie, Johansson and Theron kick ass. By contrast, tons of people went to see Fury Road because it was a Mad Max movie, not necessarily because they wanted to see a Charlize Theron action movie. But even with that, Fury Road is quite the feather in her action movie cap.

The Resident Evil franchise has a pretty impressive box office arc: $40 million for the first one, then $51 million, $50 million, $60 million, $42 million, and then finally $26 million for the last one. I don’t know that I’d credit Jovovich with opening the first one (though she is why I was excited to see it) but I would credit her for opening the sequels, which were surprisingly successful. I think that earns her a rightful spot.

So I’m changing my list: Linda Hamilton is out, Theron is in: Jolie, Johansson, Theron, Jovovich. (What’s up with all the “J” names?)

As far as I’m aware, Michelle Yeoh has never opened an action movie. She costarred in an action movie that Jackie Chan opened, which is a very different thing.

Pam Grier was before my time.

63

This thread has focussed mostly on movie stars, but how about a TV star?

To be sure, the actress I have in mind did not make a career of action-oriented projects after her TV show ended; indeed, her career since then has been, for the most part, fairly low key.

But the truly iconic character she portrayed for seven years on TV saved the world a lot, and was virtually synonymous with ‘powerful female hero’ in her time (and arguably to this day). That character, of course, is Buffy Summers.

Therefore I nominate Sarah Michelle Gellar!

64

She was the headliner for about a dozen films:

Dynamite Fighters
The Heroic Trio
Holy Weapon
Heroic Trio 2
Supercop 2 (There’s no Jackie Chan in this one)
Wing Chun
7 jin gong
A Jin de gu shi
The Touch
Silver Hawk
Reign of Assassins

65

Realized from the trailer that I posted that the first film in my list didn’t actually headline her, they’ve just changed it for the American release. I deleted the entry but forgot to remove the trailer link.

Here’s some clips from Yeoh’s first lead role:

I'd watch it. :D
66

I’m noticing that the names given are fairly recent-ish.

How about some classic ones? Problem: I’m not really all that familiar with action films from long ago that had women doing serious stuff. So I’m mainly guessing here.

Maybe Katherine Hepburn. Seems she did stuff like The African Queen and Rooster Cogburn that had some action.

Barbara Stanwyck did some hard-nosed stuff. Anything that would qualify her for this thead?

Would someone like Dale Evans qualify as an action star?

What about some of the B-movie ladies of the 50s?

67

Being in an action movie does not make you an action star. I one would remotely consider Alan Rick an action star even though he was in “Speed” and “Twister.”

68

Mt. Rushmore, so they have to be American.

69

This is about the best analysis of who is on the Mount that I’ve seen in this thread (or maybe it’s just the one I agree with)

Although I’m still not counting Jolie (maybe I just don’t like her?) and I’d replace her with Sigourney.

Makes sense, but as the starter of this thread I say they don’t have to be American.

70

Jennifer Garner got bigger ratings winning a Golden Globe for headlining Alias year after year after year after year after year on TV, during which time she was also up on the big screen doing spin kicks and weapon stuff (and after all of which she, what, just did that gun-toting vigilante revenge flick?)

71

It’s certainly the most reasonable system that allows us to fill out 4+ names.

72

[quote=“Sage_Rat, post:64, topic:835855”]

She was the headliner for about a dozen films:

Dynamite Fighters
The Heroic Trio
Holy Weapon
Heroic Trio 2
Supercop 2 (There’s no Jackie Chan in this one)
Wing Chun
7 jin gong
A Jin de gu shi
The Touch
Silver Hawk
Reign of Assassins

[/QUOTE] For me, these are examples of "bad acting in cheesy B-movies" that I wouldn't even consider. The first one (Dynamite Fighters) looks like a straight-to-video camp-fest, so I skipped straight to Supercop 2. That's not even listed on boxofficemojo, and the first one with Jackie Chan only grossed $16 million, so it's not like it was a successful franchise in to start with. I stopped looking after those two.

To be clear, I don’t think Michelle Yeoh is a bad actor by any stretch of the imagination. I thought she was great in Sunshine, Morgan, and she elevated Babylon A.D. to a B+ or A- movie, as opposed to B-movie schlockfest. (It was a Vin Diesel cheese-fest, unquestionably, but she elevated it a little bit.)

This same logic is also why I haven’t mentioned Rhona Mitra: Doomsday ($11 million) and Skinwalkers ($1 million) just aren’t successful enough to count. Consider that my previously mentioned example of Arnold in Commando grossed essentially the same box office as the original Terminator despite Commando being a total schlockfest compared to the quality of Terminator.

73

[quote=“Sage_Rat, post:64, topic:835855”]

She was the headliner for about a dozen films:

Dynamite Fighters
The Heroic Trio
Holy Weapon
Heroic Trio 2
Supercop 2 (There’s no Jackie Chan in this one)
Wing Chun
7 jin gong
A Jin de gu shi
The Touch
Silver Hawk
Reign of Assassins

[/QUOTE]

Yeah, Michelle Yeoh has opened/starred in quite a few action movies.

Would you watch this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m3srtfE3eI

It’s from Royal Warriors (sometimes called In the Line of Duty), which I don’t see mentioned. It’s one of my favorites.

74

“Opened” to me means the movie is successful largely based on the draw of the star who is credited with opening it. Calling back to my previous post, Rhona Mitra failed to open both Doomsday and Skinwalkers, and it appears that those action movies Michelle Yeoh starred in either didn’t make money in the theaters or never even got a theatrical release in the first place.

Not really, no. That looks like a cheesy B-movie, the kind of thing I used to watch as a kid on Saturday afternoon after the cartoons were done.

75

I read a short review of her films and none of them seem like she had a role that would be called “action hero”. Granted, it’s hard to tell much about a movie from a sentence or two.

Katharine Hepburn: Dragon Seed might have some fighting, but it’s hard to tell. I think it’s mostly a drama. The African Queen’s plot description makes it sound like Charlie does all the work and she just helps out. (I’ve seen the African Queen, but I don’t recall it.) Rooster Cogburn - Yup.

Barbara Stanwyck: Hard to tell how active she is from most of the descriptions of her films, but a lot of them seem like it’s likely that she is doing some stuff. Here’s her in a chase scene: https://youtu.be/uHy8ypvRcE8?t=2803 I feel like there might be more given the number of Adventure and Western films where she’s the top-billed role and is shown looking pretty tough on the posters.

Dale Evans: Not a lot of information about most of her films, but the general impression I get is that Roy Rogers had a regular crew of people cranking out films where everyone was doing stunts and getting into trouble pretty non-stop, at such a frequency that no one could avoid being part of the action. E.g.: https://youtu.be/tYySF1M-vfk?t=1133

I feel like Dale might count; Stanwyck might, but it’s less obvious; Hepburn, probably not.

If we want to expand into TV, we could probably throw in Batgirl (Yvonne Craig), Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter).

76

Of course Michelle Yeoh’s movies got theatrical releases! They were hugely popular. And successful not “largely based,” but “almost completely based” on her draw. Not all of them, for sure, but most of the ones listed in this thread, and even some others, gained her a worldwide audience.

Well, you and I have a *completely *different idea of what an “action” star screen portrayal is. To me, hand-to-hand fighting is more impressive than guns or whatever. There’s nothing cartoonish about getting pummeled, and beating the crap out of someone–unless there’s fakery and CGI involved. But doing it yourself? With fight choreography that very few can pull off without camera edit cheats? That’s a thrill ride I enjoy.

77

What’s funny is I ONLY know Shelley Winters from old adventure films that used to be on afternoon TV. In her filmography, I see a whole pile of movies with titles like Winchester '73, Untamed Frontier, The Treasure of Pancho Villa, etc. etc. And she was the lead in most of those!

78

Could you cite one or two examples of the more successful ones?

I think our main difference is the idea of what makes a good action movie. The linked video to me looks like a terrible movie even though the action looks good.

Similarly, both Wesley Snipes and Steven Seagal have been churning out straight-to-video action schlockfests in the past decade, and I imagine they probably have pretty good action sequences. But I wouldn’t consider any of those movies to be compelling evidence of their current “action star” status.

So really, the difference we have isn’t about what constitutes an “action” star, it’s about what constitutes an action “star.”

79

I have to side with Ellis Dee (and not just because he’s a fellow GIANTS fan). I’m not knocking Michelle Yeoh, but those aren’t Mount Rushmore action-hero quality films. They most likely made their studios money, but that’s because of shoestring budgets. This is not a knock on her skills or her status as an action movie star/hero. She is a better actress than Rothrock and Nielsen, but she’s never gotten the chance to show it as an action lead.

80

Ah, now I get where you are coming from. I do see this difference. Granted, Michelle Yeoh is not an action “star” in the worldwide sense of Jolie or some of the other big Hollywood names; but she is an “action” star for sure. Especially in her younger days.
That’s really her doing all that fighting. Depending on the movie, there might be a little (or a LOT) of wire-work involved, but she’s extremely talented for action.
As far as links go, you’ve already dismissed most as not your style of movie I guess.

Yes, Madam! has been mentioned. The final fight scene is amazing for the stuntwork and choreography and just the nonstoop pummeling, falling off balconies and such. The movie co-stars Cynthia Rothrock, but I’m willing to g out on a limb and say that Yeoh was the main draw for a HK movie. There is no male action lead to speak of.

Royal Warriors (which has MANY very well-choreographed and, to me, intense action scenes of hand-to-hand and kicks fighting), I already linked a scene. Yeoh’s the main draw. There’s no other “big” star in it to carry the film. It’s all her. I’m not sure the exact box office, but seeing that it (along with Yes, Madam!) almost singlehandedly started a series of guns/fighting movies with good female leads, they had to have mad some decent coin.

Magnificent Warriors, which was linked by Sage Rat (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB6cLK5v_po) you already dismissed. But the movie made money, and Yeoh is the main star, and she’s seriously kicking ass in this film. (I don’t know why IMDb calls this “Dynamite Fighters.” I’ve never in my life heard it referred to that until today)

Yeah is the star of Wing Chun. Yes, it also contains Donnie Yen, but SHE’s the star of the film. I think there are 8 (9?) fight scenes, and she’s in all but one, if I recall. This is a comedy, *wuxia *style movie, so lots of whooshing around.

The Heroic Trio. Here’s your cartoon-style movie! Sortof an action/horror/fantasy. It’s an ensemble cast with some other big female names (Cheung and Mui), so I can’t say the money it made was based on Yeoh’s draw singlehandedly, but certainly she contributed.

Supercop 2 was already mentioned. That’s her film. (The Jackie Chan cast reference is for a like 3-minute cameo). I’m not sure how profitable this one was, as it wasn’t super-great and didn’t really do her justice.

There’s a couple of more I might mention, but I hope you get where I’m coming from. I don’t know exact box offices, but most of these were filmed with low budget and certainly made money. You don’t get to be known world-wide if all your films bypass the theater and straight to the bargain bin. The fact that I own all these on DVD means they are *still *making money, lol.