Women Martial Artists

Only time for a brief entry today.

Check out this article:

http://www.jadedragon.com/martarts/women_ma.html

Women in Martial Arts

by Olivia Chang

"Silly me," I thought as I snapped out or my daydream. How could I possibly have imagined that I could fight side-by-side with Jean-Claude Van Damme to ward off evil villains. Maybe it was the movie Lethal Weapon 3 that shed a glimmer of hope. Rene Russo played a feisty Internal Affairs officer with impressive martial arts skills who held her own as she and Mel Gibson fought off "cop-killers" - hardly your usual femme fatale role. She repeated her role as Sergeant Lorna Cole in Lethal Weapon 4.

As a martial arts movie buff, it was refreshing to see a female action hero. In years past, martial artists Van Damme, Chuck Norris, and Bruce Lee were afforded the opportunity to bring their skills to their larger-than-life characters on screen. This was not so for their female counterparts. Russo's role seemed to be the exception. For decades, female action heroes were few and far in between.

Read the complete article at the link above.