V. Other Excesses
“I feel that she’s half human half animal”
(Carrie Ng, “Sex Medusa”)
The Japanese “Other”
As in most cinema world wide, the role of the
foreigner is frequently that of the villain. In HK action films Westerners
occasionally feature as the criminal or hired muscle of the criminal mastermind
or as barely respected police supervisors. Historical animosity with
Japan is reflected in the counterposing of Chinese wushu against the martial
artistry of Japan in period genre films, while contemporary crime actioners
have frequently located the disruptive source of tension as a Japanese
yakuza.
Roles for Japanese female actors in HK films have
been particularly problematic, involving contrasting extremes of sexual
objects in Cat. III productions or terrifyingly aggressive femmes fatales.
The privileging of their roles in HK action cinema should not be underestimated.
Three women of Japanese origin – Yukari Oshima, Michiko Nishiwaki and Nadeki
Fujimi – between them appeared in approximately 90 HK or Taiwanese action
films – approaching half of the all these genre films foregrounding female
action performers that were made through the mid-1990s, and comprising
many of the best-known GWG titles.
If not actually playing the villain, in many instances
their roles were ambiguous and transgressive. The transgressive nature
of their casting may be examined relative to their counterparts of Chinese
(HK or Taiwanese) origin. Moon Lee, Sibelle Hu, Cynthia Khan and
Kara Hui appeared opposite or alongside the Japanese performers, as well
as in many of the remaining GWG titles. With the exception of isolated
parts for Moon Lee (“A Serious Shock! Yes Madam!,” 1992) or Kara
Hui (“Roar of the Vietnamese,” 1991) these performers were seldom cast
as villains. When they were, it was due to the force of external
circumstances. On those rare occasions when their characters died
(e.g., Kara Hui, “The Real Me,” 1991), they did not do so bloodily – with
the interesting exception of martial artist Sharon Yeung (“Angel Terminators,”
“Princess Madam”). Most of these performers were more generally identified
with delegated official authority and aligned with traditional patriarchal
power structures. Even the rare triad boss role for Cynthia Khan
(“Queen’s High”) was inherited from her deceased brother. However,
when playing a homicidal lesbian in “The Love That Is Wrong” (1993), Ellen
Chan was explicitly cast as a Japanese executive.
Potential manifestations of the monstrous feminine
primarily associated with Japanese performers include transgression of
gender identifiers, gender identity or even species. Yukari Oshima’s
androgynous clothing and manner virtually defined her screen persona (e.g.,
“Brave Young Girls,” 1990; “Beauty Investigator,” 1992) to the extent that
in “The Direct Line” (1992) she utters the line “I always wear men’s clothes”
and endures gratuitous remarks about lack of breast development.
Jackboots, riding breeches, and black leather complement Oshima’s vengeful
mood in “Vengeance is Mine” (1997). Nadeki Fujimi would likewise
progressively harden and masculinize her clothing so that by the time of
her appearance in “Erotic Passion” (1993) her character appears harsh and
gender-indeterminate.
While Michiko Nishiwaki clearly favored feminine
coded clothing, gender identifiers were blurred once the clothes were off.
Aggressively sexual in many of her parts, her muscular body and dominating
manner subvert expectations. Other boundary transgressions include
Oshima playing a man (“The Story of Ricky,” 1992), a half-human, half-cat
shape-shifter (“Devil Cat” aka “The Cat” 1991) or sexually assaulting a
woman (“That’s Money,” 1990). Miho Nomoto (who has appeared in Japanese
GWG films as well as numerous HK Cat. III titles) played a half-human snake
(perhaps the ultimate phallic symbol) who, while in human form, could be
seen abjectly consuming a rat and an entire feathered chicken (“Sex Medusa,”
2001). In one of her Japanese roles she also played a fully functional
hermaphrodite! The sexuality of Nishiwaki’s characters is also open
to question in a group sex scene (“Princess Madam,” 1989), as the focus
of lesbian desire (“Passionate Killing in the Dream,” 1992 – incidentally
by a female martial artist), as traumatized and dysfunctional (“The Avenging
Quartet,” 1993), and as frankly sadistic (“Princess Madam,” 1989; “Hero
Dream,” 1993).
Where Nishiwaki’s characters were often the focus
of unusual, intense desire, Oshima’s characters tended to be more frequently
decontextualized – fanatical, dour, and responding to idiosyncratic, barely
glimpsed private agendas. Fujimi’s characters most closely resemble
the Final Girl construct of horror films. Both Oshima and Nishiwaki
were each described in Bey Logan’s review of HK action cinema as a “Nipponese
nutcracker” (Note 1)
– an alliteration that perhaps reveals their characterization as castatrice.
The passion that sometimes explodes from these performers is dark and unsettling
rather than reassuring. Their sexually ambiguous characters feminize
death, aligning them with transgressive, abject figures of horror.
Additional clues concerning the status of GWG
films may be gained by brief consideration of the status of the female
“Other” in Japanese films themselves, since the Japanese film industry
seems to feature prominent female roles in an even broader range of film
types. Most distinctively, the prodigious output of anime frequently
foregrounds the characters of girls or women in roles that transgress boundaries.
Common themes (Note 2)
include bodily transformations involving robotics, crises of personal identity
and role, or other abject transformations. Both animated and live
action productions vigorously explore genre conventions of the horrific
or monstrous. Examples include “Tima” the appealing girl cyborg of
“Metropolis” who destroys her city-state, the young contemporary swordswoman
of “Blood” and the beautiful but deadly monster of “Parasite Eve.”
These embody the destructive forces of Creed’s monstrous feminine.
When considered alongside other forms, such as period ninja or swordswoman
titles (e.g., the original and re-make of “Lady Snowblood”) as well as
pornography, these films can perhaps be regarded as constituting a family
of genres of excess. All involve filmic referents to gender roles,
but all are constructed as spectacles of excess.
When considered in this context, Japanese GWG
films may be regarded as one among a number of genres that involve excesses
of power, dominance and lethal force that are prominently counterposed
with conventional signifiers of physical attractiveness and stereotyped
behaviors. This is made clear by similar conventions in other Japanese
film forms. Accordingly, Japanese GWG films generally do not feature
“Final Girls” in the sense argued by Clover, but instead present conventional
female display roles and codes that are deliberately subverted by the exercise
of violence and power in traditionally masculine coded ways. The
result is an exaggeration of female display codes blended with an exaggeration
of male action codes. It is this conflation that defines the violation
and supplies the excess.
By contrast, many HK GWG films – especially those
deliberately foregrounding the physical or martial prowess of Japanese
women – may align the viewer with the spectator of horror. The combination
of repulsion and fascination involving an urge to look at their ecstatic
aggression seems aptly descriptive of a viewer experience that is at once
more intense than viewing “conventional” (male-centered) action film, yet
is less sexualized than “conventional” (female-centered) romantic or erotic
displays. This textual space is narrow yet compelling, the very ambiguity
of the image trapping the viewer in a conflict with no satisfactory narrative
resolution. This is, at once, the genius of both the popular filmmaker
and the performers, and the essence of the distinctive allure of these
films.
Notes: Other Excesses
1. Logan, op. cit., states, “One of the foremost
furies in the industry, that Nipponese nutcracker Yukari Oshima” (p. 170)
and, “she [Cynthia Khan] also had to compete for screen presence with Nipponese
nutcracker Michiko Nishiwaki” (p. 161).
2. See Napier, op. cit.