Academic

More on action actresses

By Tung Yin

Steve Bainbridge throws down the gauntlet on my assessment of action actresses:

Don't watch Chuck? It's the best scripted show on TV. And you really don't want to mess with Strahovski's Sarah Walker.

* * *

And then Tung really went off the rails:

Uma Thurman was quite good in "Kill Bill" but . . . I dunno. I mean, Scarlett Johannsen beat up a bunch of guys in "Iron Man 2" but I'm not rushing to put her on my list of best action actresses.

I'm, sorry. The Bride doesn't just beat up a lot of people. She destroys them. Exhibit A: The NC-17 version of the fight with Gogo and the Crazy 88s. "Any more subordinates for me to kill?"

To some extent, I think Steve and I are maybe focusing on different things, which is understandable since I didn't define clearly the criteria that I was using in my assessment.  Since I was criticizing Maggie Q's acting in "Nikita," I was not looking at how lethal the female characters are depicted, but rather, how convincingly the actresses pull off depicting the characters.

I mean, in the comments to my original post, Steve says:

The Bride could kick Xena or either Nikita's ass with one hand tied behind her back. Sidney Bristow would last about 10 seconds against Sarah Walker and about a nanosecond against The Bride. I'll concede that Mrs. Smith could probably take Sarah Walker, but not The Bride.

Now, if we're talking about the characters, this is clearly wrong with regard to the Bride (Uma Thurman in "Kill Bill") versus Xena.  I mean, the Bride has an impressive kill count in the movies, but Xena has probably killed multiple thousands of people in the TV series.  And while the Bride has mastered that 5 step heart death strike, Xena can paralyze with finger strikes to the next.  But more importantly, Xena can kill Greek gods and goddesses!  So, no, I do not think the Bride could kill Xena.

Continuing on the characters, I'll grant that the Bride probably beats either Nikita, Mrs. Smith, or Evelyn Salt.  From the clip of Sarah Walker on Steve's blog post, I do not think that Walker beats Sydney Bristow.

* * *

Switching to what I had in mind originally, which is how convincingly do the actresses in question pull off the physical fight scenes, I will potentially stir up a hornet's nest here, but I was not that impressed by Yvonne Strahovski's fight scenes.  They weren't bad, but there were too many quick cutaways, and she didn't look like she could really beat up the guys in those scenes.  That's the problem that I have with Maggie Q; it's not that Nikita, as written, can't beat people up; she does.  She just doesn't look convincing.

Uma Thurman as the Bride?  I'll concede that she looks convincing.

Full post as published by The Yin Blog on January 31, 2011 (boomark / email).