Girls with guns
Sub-genre of action films and animation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Girls with guns is a subgenre of action films that portray a female protagonist engaged in shootouts. The genre typically involves gun-play, stunts and martial arts action.[1]
Live-action
The 1985 Hong Kong film Yes, Madam, directed by Corey Yuen and starring Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock, was described by film and gender scholar Lisa Funnell as the first "girls with guns" film.[2] The 1987 Hong Kong film Angel has also been credited with establishing the genre.[3][4] More films of the subgenre were produced until 1994, featuring the likes of Yukari Oshima, Moon Lee, Cynthia Khan and Sharon Yeung. In the early 2000s, films that were part of what has been called a "girls with guns revival" were produced. They included Martial Angels (2001), The Wesley's Mysterious File (2002) and So Close (2002).[5] The 2002 Japanese films Gun Crazy: A Woman from Nowhere and its sequel Gun Crazy 2: Beyond the Law are also of this genre.[citation needed]
Animation
The subgenre has also permeated the anime space. Some examples include Akiba Maid War, Aria the Scarlet Ammo, Black Lagoon, Bubblegum Crisis,[6] Dirty Pair,[7][8] Girls' Frontline, Gunsmith Cats,[7] Gunslinger Girl,[7] Lycoris Recoil, Noir, Madlax,[9] El Cazador,[10][11] Ghost in the Shell and Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex as well as Yasuomi Umetsu's works Kite, Mezzo Forte, Mezzo DSA, Kite: Liberator, and Virgin Punk.[12] Chrono Crusade has a "nun with a gun" as its protagonist.