rejectedprincesses:Searching for Lady Kung FuThe New York Times has a fun piece on Angela Mao, one o
rejectedprincesses:Searching for Lady Kung FuThe New York Times has a fun piece on Angela Mao, one of the world’s first great female martial arts movie stars - who disappeared from the scene, leaving many fans wondering what happened to her.“She was the first female kung fu star — name above title,” said J. Hoberman, a longtime movie critic who now writes about video for The New York Times. He has fond memories of seeing Ms. Mao’s movies on triple bills at Times Square grindhouse theaters in the 1970s. “She basically had one act, which was going from an obedient character to a machine-like avenger,” he added. “A lot of people saw her films as feminist statements the same way as Pam Grier films.”…“Men ran things,” he explained. “Hong Kong had lots of machismo then. Women were considered ‘jade vases.’ They didn’t speak on screen. They were considered decoration.”When asked about this epithet, Ms. Mao snapped, “I was never anybody’s ‘jade vase.’” She shifted in her seat. Moments later, she dispatched her son to tend to a customer she noticed from the corner of her eye.The somewhat anticlimactic answer as to where she’s been all this time? Queens. She had a family and is running a restaurant.“This is not a gender situation,” she said with a baffled expression. “I just played myself. I am strong and I am powerful. That is how I became the most important female kung fu actress of my time.” -- source link
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