Flourishing Fighting Feminism —Warrior Women in Wuxia Films and Evolution of Feminist Discourse
By Michael Chow
While Hollywood struggled with a burgeoning feminist discourse in terms of a subservient, passive female as the subject of the powerful male gaze in the 1960s Hollywood New Wave (Smith; Cai 442-443), women have been stock heroines in Chinese martial arts films, also known as wuxia (武侠) films since the 1950s. These heroines have multiple terms attached to them: warrior women, female fighters (打女 dǎ nǚ) and female knight-errants (女侠 nǚ xiá), all referring to the strong, physically capable protagonist women that have been prominently featured in martial arts discourse—both in wuxia literature and cinema—typically fighting with similar physical prowess as their male counterparts (Teo 17-37). Come Drink With Me (大醉 俠 dà zuì xiá) (1966), hereinafter referred to as Come Drink, was one such significant production by King Hu in the 1960s, prominently featuring Golden Swallow (金燕子)(Zheng Pei-pei) as the physically talented female knight-errant seeking to right a moral wrong: the abduction of her brother by a group of bandits. Come Drink’s commercial success fostered a stronger popularization of the female knight-errant figure as a standard protagonist in the wuxia genre (Teo, 117-146). Since then, the warrior woman has been a consistent feature in wuxia films. Yet, by the turn of the millennium, Western critics still misperceived Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (卧虎藏龙 wò hǔ cáng lóng) (Ang Lee 2000), hereinafter referred to as Crouching Tiger, feature of three prominent women warriors as “fresh figures” to the extent of claiming that “it was not common to see women cast so prominently in action parts” (Teo 187). While both films portray the genre-typical woman warrior, to claim that both are equally empowering in feminist representation is an oversimplification. This paper argues that Come Drink subsumes the female knight-errant under the male savior while not addressing issues of sexism, while Crouching Tiger directly challenges patriarchal norms and creates feminist discourse, both being reflective of their respective sociohistorical contexts of feminism.
While wuxia literature and cinema have a long tradition of depicting female warriors, the female knights-errant run against conservative Chinese portrayals of female characters as demure and passive, preserved as social hierarchy under the cultural belief of Confucianism (Cai 445-446). Come Drink reflects wuxia cinema in its Sino-centric infancy, deriving much of its socio-cultural influence from colonial Hong Kong in the 1960s rather than international influences (as in Crouching Tiger, which will be touched upon later). In 1960s Hong Kong, Confucianism was a common Chinese traditional belief that focused on morality and specific gender roles. According to Hiramoto and Teo, Confucianism prescribed that women belong in the inside sphere (内 nèi; sphere of domesticity and servitude), whereas masculinity belonged to an outside sphere (外 wài; sphere of martial rule and society) (480). These social structures created a gendered social hierarchy that was reinforced through the British policy of elite co-optation and non-intervention in ruling Hong Kong (Lee 4). While it should be celebrated for its seminal shift in portraying female power, Come Drink still carried patriarchal baggage when it came to portraying women. In order to be culturally relevant, it could not stray too far from the latitude of acceptance of 1960s’ Chinese conservative beliefs regarding the role of women. When applying Confucianist assumptions to the context of wuxia films, the martial arts community (or jiānghú 江湖) clearly belongs to the outside sphere. In wuxia literature, heroes are defined by their scholarly and martial traits (wénwǔ 文武) and their adherence to a chivalrous honor code (xiáyì 侠义) (Teo 17-37). Due to the nature of such traits existing in the outside sphere, heroes were typically masculine. Come Drink appears to empower the female knight-errant by placing her in the outside sphere, dealing with the public issue of the abduction of a governor’s son and giving her the ability to demonstrate wénwǔ and enforce xiáyì. However, such ability is only ascribed when she attaches masculine traits to herself. Disguised and dressed as a male knight-errant in the genre typical action set piece of an inn, Golden Swallow is mistaken but respected as a man. She demonstrates supernatural martial talent, emphasized through editing simulating special effects, including deflecting a pot of wine with just one hand and inhumanly pinning coins thrown at her together to the ceiling using three chopsticks. These superhuman abilities are seemingly taken away when Swallow engages in combat while in fully feminine attire at the temple and loses the fight. There, she is at her most vulnerable, being caught in an ambush and having to be repeatedly saved by Drunken Cat (Yueh Hua) (which will be elaborated below). She is constantly on the retreat in the fight sequence, and, unlike the inn set-piece, displays none of such fantastical combat tricks, underscoring her apparent ‘weakened’ state. In using gendered costumes, Come Drink reiterates that martial prowess is firmly associated with masculinity and is incompatible with femininity. Furthermore, Golden Sparrow’s female agency in the story is eventually subjugated under the male knight-errant of Drunken Cat. This would have been apparent to Chinese-speaking viewers, where Come Drink’s original Chinese title 大 醉俠 means ‘The Great Drunk Hero’ when translated directly. This evidently refers to the male protagonist Drunken Cat/Fan Da-pei, directing the audience’s focus to the story of the male hero focused on righting moral wrongs in the community over the novel actions of Golden Swallow. While the first half of the plot focuses on Golden Swallow, she is repeatedly assisted and saved by the Drunken Cat. The audience converts the initial impression of Drunken Cat as an irrational figure into admiration of his cunning, while simultaneously undercutting Swallow’s capabilities. His behind-the-scenes assistance of Swallow’s fight at the temple (where, as mentioned above, she is at her most vulnerable) further underscores this, as he saves her from death by intervening from the shadows. The agency of Swallow is thus placed in the direct influence of a male savior, implying that female figures are unable to survive without the male. This is more blatant in the second half of the film when Fan Da-pei’s quest for moral righteousness (xiáyì 侠义) to avenge his master by killing Abbott Liao Kong overtakes Swallow’s quest in saving her brother as the narrative in focus. In the penultimate set piece at the valley, the audience is not shown what happened to the sedan with Swallow’s brother, implying that Swallow’s xiáyì quest to rescue him is inconsequential. Swallow is once again defeated while in proto-masculine attire, being identified as female by letting her hair down. Her daggers that serve as symbols of combat strength (wǔ 武) and her masculinity are broken by the Abbott, leaving her vulnerable and to be saved by Fan Da-pei. Swallow is missing in the final action set-piece as it strictly revolves around the xiáyì of male vengeance. Da-pei and the Abbott resort to a supernatural air control (qì 气) ability that only they possess (and not Swallow), implying the lack of female power and her unimportance. The film completely removes the female warrior’s agency and narrative significance, in favor of the conflict between men. The male knight-errant is the one who ultimately gets to enforce xiáyì, while the female knight-errant neither has wǔ (武) nor is she shown to uphold xiáyì and hence is placed under the male in hierarchical importance.
Come Drink ultimately remains a passive participant in feminist discourse. Swallow reinforces the patriarchy by virtue of being enlisted under her father’s service and does not challenge her place in society, given her enemies are traditional amoral bandits. While villain Jade Faced Tiger (Chan Hung-lit) faced eventual comeuppance at the hands of Swallow, his moments of objectification, such as his implicit sexual desire while fighting Swallow at the temple, as well as his laughter at the revealing of her undergarments, were not problematized directly. This reflects feminist discourse in 1960s Hong Kong, which was not just limited to academics and elites (Lee 11), but was also silenced by the colonial state which blatantly claimed ignorance to the discrimination of women demonstrating “systematic lack of gender sensitivity if not negligence about women’s interests” (Lee 5).
On the other hand, two key historic movements occurred between 1966 and 2000 that influenced the greater feminist discourse using the female knight-errant in Crouching Tiger. Firstly, China opened up economically and culturally to the West from 1978 to 1992 under the leadership of Deng Xiaoping. While Hong Kong was not directly under China in that time period, it facilitated mainland approval of exporting Chinese culture (such as wuxia films unbanned by China and embraced as national cinema) as a means of asserting soft power (Overholt). Furthermore, globalization allowed for transnational interactions and cross-cultural influences by capitalist pressures. Thus, Chan rightfully extends the globalized postmodern title to Crouching Tiger (5). Globalization shaped a vastly liberal and internationally educated filmmaking process, creating “transnational circumstances of production” with “complicated globalized financing”, an American-educated Taiwanese director, an American writer, and “intermixtures of Taiwanese, Chinese, Malaysian and Hong Kong talent” (Teo 177). Globalization thus shaped a film production not limited to Chinese gender influences (as it was for Come Drink), one that embraced more explicit international feminist discourse.
Specific to the industry, the Hong Kong martial arts cinema was also notably elevated to international (namely American) popularity. Bruce Lee brought Hong Kong martial arts to the United States for the first time and Jackie Chan made inroads regionally, collaborating with Taiwan and eventually Hollywood. Hollywood began “appropriating Hong Kong talent and action in its productions” in the late 1980s (Cai 442). With the global popularization of Chinese martial figures such as Lee, Chan, and eventually the female knight-errant figure with the release of Mulan (1998), the genre was not bound to just Sino-centric sociocultural influences and in fact, became subject to a global (particularly Western) audience. This carried an implicit pressure to display more explicit gender discourse that challenges gender roles which is unique to Western feminism (MacKie 180–206). With Mulan, Western audiences had also been primed to accept the Chinese female knight-errant figure. Even in China, globalization spearheaded the awakening of a collective Chinese woman identity and activism that challenges state-perpetuated patriarchal systems (Wesoky 185–235). Thus, there was a global demand for feminist discourse. The confluence of globally influenced filmmakers and internationally increased demand created a perfect storm for Ang Lee to redefine the wuxia genre. The production team was evidently motivated to cater to a global audience rather than a Chinese-centric one. Writer Schamus reflected that the team wanted to create "an eastern movie for western audiences and in some ways a more western movie for eastern audiences” (Chan 3). Zhang posits that this manifests in producing Crouching Tiger as a cross-cultural product, merging Chinese cultural aesthetics and philosophy with Western values, specifically feminism (108).
This manifests strongly in Crouching Tiger where the female heroes remain front and center of the narrative. In contrast to Come Drink’s original title, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon’s title presents a feminine gender emphasis. “卧虎藏龍” directly refers to the female knight-errant Yu Jiaolong (玉娇龍) (Zhang Ziyi) being the ‘hidden dragon’ referred to in the title. Moreover, the figurative meaning of 卧虎藏龍 as an idiom (成 语) refers to one’s deliberately hidden talents and passions. In a story about various female fighters and their struggle in showcasing, controlling, and withholding their fighting prowess and freedom to love in a patriarchal society, the phrase’s meaning alludes not just to Jiaolong, but females at large, biding and masking their talents under male dominance in Chinese society. Thus, Crouching Tiger’s title sets up a more outwardly feminist thesis compared to Come Drink.
Dated gender roles are actively challenged as part of Crouching Tiger’s central thesis. The three female warriors of the story (Yu Jiaolong, Yu Xiulian, and Jade Fox) represent and collectively address the self-censorship and the patriarchal subjugation of women. Yu Jiaolong is the central female knight-errant that ambiguously serves as both the villain and the protagonist. Her desire to break free of an arranged marriage that serves the career needs of the patriarch in order to pursue the freedom to love is central to her motivations in the story. Her theft of the Green Destiny Sword which precipitates the story is also seen as a direct challenge to the patriarchal order. Many academics agree that the sword is a “phallic symbol” evoking “masculine power and authority” (Chan 12), as well as both martial prowess (wǔ 武) and cultural elegance (wén 文) when swordsmanship is compared to calligraphy by Yu Xiulian (Michelle Yeoh). Thus, Jiaolong’s theft is a usurpation of the male order and talent, serving as a marked shift from Swallow and actively challenging the male order.
Xiulian on the other hand represents the status quo: traditional obedient female knight-errant bound by Confucian and Taoist morality. When Jiaolong encourages Xiulian to pursue her love for Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat), Xiulian defends that she is bound by “tradition,” having married before. She withholds her own freedom to love on the basis of adhering to Taoist customs. Hiramoto and Teo argue that “tradition” in the English subtitles should be more accurately translated to “Confucian ethical code” (道德合理教) and thus is the “heroic nǚxiá” for abiding by “Confucian ideology” (498) and the dominant patriarchal structure. Jiaolong and Xiulian’s duel, which serves as a centerpiece in the film as the longest fight scene, is therefore a clash of feminine ideals between Jiaolong’s feminist desire for freedom to love and Xiulian’s resistance to change, upholding the lack of agency in the patriarchal establishment. Crouching Tiger also embraces femininity as a display of martial strength in this duel (in contrast to Come Drink’s strict masculine depiction of martial ability), where they fight with the feminine dressing of a hair bun (instead of Qing dynasty queue hairstyle to denote masculinity) while displaying exceptional martial prowess.
Jade Fox (Zheng Pei-pei) as a character problematizes the moral purity of the Confucian patriarchal order. When Li Mu Bai confronts her, she reasons that her villainy and murder of Master Southern Crane (江南貉) emerged as retribution for his condescension towards women, seeking sexual favors from her but refusing to teach her the martial arts and thus “deserved to die by a woman’s hand.” The master that is meant to be the epitome of Confucian virtue causes villainous deceit in his sexism and objectification of Jade Fox. Jade Fox “disturbs the essentialist moral categories...and moral authority of Chinese patriarchal traditions that legitimize the masculinist social structures” (Chan 11). The death of Jade Fox also provides intertextual meaning to Zheng’s non-diegetic myth of playing many notable female knight-errants of the previous generation (such as Golden Swallow in Come Drink and Yen Hsing-kung in Brothers Five (1970)). Thus her death represents the metaphorical end of conservative female knights-errant and the emergence of a new wuxia generation of feminist discourse heralded by Yeoh and Zhang, indicative of challenging patriarchal assumptions of wuxia films, creating feminist discourse.
While much of the literature surrounding Crouching Tiger disputes whether it is truly feminist (Zhang) or it reinforces structural patriarchy (Hiramoto and Teo; Cai), particularly due to Jiaolong’s ambiguous actions in seeking to save the dying patriarch of Li Mu Bai and her ‘suicide’, it is undeniable that Crouching Tiger is seminal in the wuxia genre. It is the first to confront the patriarchal realities that the female knight-errant exists in, reflective of postmodern globalized discourse pushing the latitude of acceptance. Crouching Tiger’s success in being “able to transmit this figure across the globe” (Teo 179) led to a wave of globalized feminist knights-errant in the 21st Century with Hero (2002) and House of Flying Dagger (2004). Come Drink in its own right was revolutionary in its popularization of the female knight-errant figure within the limited latitude of acceptance in conservative Confucian culture. A combined analysis allows for an appreciation of how each film approached feminism in its respective period and the emergence of explicit feminist discourse in the wuxia genre.
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