Across the country female moviegoers no longer dream of being saved by Jean-Claude Van Damme, but of kicking and chopping the bad guys till they cry for mercy. Since the release of “Charlie’s Angels” in October, martial-arts schools from New York to Missouri to L.A. have seen attendance by female students jump as much as 50 percent; their phones, they say, are ringing off the hook. “These movies are giving positive role models to women–you’re not the damsel in distress anymore, you’re the hero,” says Master Paul Koh, who runs the Bo Law Kung Fu Association in New York City. Today, his class is at least half women; “the majority,” he says, are professionals: lawyers, doctors, architects.
These women are inspired by a new breed of lip-gloss-wearing warrior, far different from the cheesy movie master your big brother imitated decades ago. Computerized special effects allow characters to fly across rooftops and ricochet from wall to ceiling to floor. And the kinetic choreography of kung-fu masters Yuen Wo Ping and Yuen Cheung Yan, who worked on “Crouching Tiger,” “Charlie’s Angels” and “The Matrix,” gives these films a hip appeal. TV’s “Dark Angel” and “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” also rely on martial arts to spice up their female leads’ fight scenes.
Inside Master Koh’s studio, a class of students in black pants, jackets and slippers practices kicks, punches and sparring moves with knives. One of the newer students, Catherine Han, says she decided to try kung fu after seeing “Crouching Tiger” (the film has been available before its U.S. release via bootleggers in New York’s Chinatown). “There’s a cool factor to it now,” she says, “to be a woman and be strong and be able to be a crimefighter, even though I’m a quantitative analyst by day.”
In China, of course, female kung-fu masters have been sparring for years on screen, and martial-arts-film connoisseurs throw around names like Michelle Yeoh and Cheng Pei Pei (both of whom have roles in “Crouching Tiger”) as if they were nothing. “People were referring to Rene Russo as an action star after ‘Lethal Weapon’,” says Sophia Chang, manager of Manhattan’s USA Shaolin Temple, dismissively. “She only did a couple of kicks. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those Chinese kung-fu movies, but those women seriously kick ass.”
It’s a power that American women are now flirting with. “Over the past few years, it’s become very attractive and appealing for women to be strong and defend themselves,” says Cynthia Rothrock, who holds five black belts and is called “the Queen of Kung Fu.” “Guys used to be like, ‘Yikes, I’m not gonna ask her out on a date!’ Now guys are like, ‘Wow, I’d love to ask her out.’ Attitudes have definitely changed.”
