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My Young Auntie (1981)
What happens when you mix a screwball comedy, a fish-out-of-water story, and a hysterically overpowered martial arts heroine? My Young Auntie, my favorite Shaw Brothers movie.
This month's sponsor: CELESTIAL PICTURES
For the next month, you'll be getting twice-weekly illustrations from RP. Half of those will be pioneering butt-kicking ladies of the early martial arts movies of the Shaw Brothers.
Come Drink With Me (1966)
One of the great early entries of martial arts cinema, this movie stars -- to the bafflement of its villains and possibly its audience -- one of the most legendary female kung fu stars of all time in her breakout role.
Executioners from Shaolin (1977)
Groins as strong as steel, kung fu stances that keep women's legs closed, androgynous martial arts masters -- this seminal action movie has a lot to say about the sexes, but not what you'd expect.
The 14 Amazons (1972)
When virtually all their family's male heirs were wiped out, the 14 widows of the Yang clan did not mourn. They did not hide. They got revenge.
Random Princesses
Takeko Nakano
When the end of an era was at hand, this samurai woman refused to go gently.
Vasilisa Vasilyevna
When the Tsar became hellbent on nailing down her gender, this clever gender-nonconforming heroine kept him guessing to the end.
Fredegund
Possibly the most cartoonishly evil woman to have ever existed, this Merovingian queen was an endless source of assassination attempts - including, on one memorable occasion, her own young daughter.
Nanny of the Maroons
Led colony of escaped slaves and protected them from the English using borderline supernatural abilities.
Molly Craig
The daughter of an aboriginal woman and a white man, her race led her to be kidnapped by the Australian government - only for her to escape and walk across the continent to get home... twice.
Freydís Eiríksdóttir
When attacked by Native Americans, this pregnant viking bared her chest, brandished a sword, and took them on by herself. And she won.
Malinche
Sold into sexual slavery to Hernan Cortes, this maligned woman became his interpreter, and it was with her words that…
Rebecca Lukens
First her father died. Then her sons. Then her husband. Pregnant, saddled with debt, a failing company, and an overbearing mother, Rebecca Lukens rolled up her sleeves and showed the world what she was made of: iron.
Velu Nachiyar
With a dead husband and a hostile foreign country on her hands, this Indian queen did the unthinkable - turned her loyal servants into some of the first suicide bombers in recorded history.
Te Puea Herangi
The reluctant royal who became the Maori's greatest leader.