Ourweekly columnStaff Pickstakes you back to a time when video stores reigned supreme andthe "Staff Picks" section was the placetofind outwhat films were worthy of one's time.Of course, our version ofStaff Pickshas a decidedly skintillating angle, as we suss out the films from a particular subgenre are the best to find great nudity. This week, lethal ladies are the order of the day as we check out the first crop of Girls with Guns movies we love from the pre-2000 era!
There's no official consensus as to when the "Girls with Guns" subgenre began in earnest. Many folks point to the 1985 Hong Kong classic Yes, Madam starring female action legendsMichelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock as the first, but that sort of ignores a huge swath of films made long before then which, in hindsight, fit comfortably within the milieu. Yes, Madam was perhaps the first of the modern "gun-fu" flicks that have become all the rage in the last thirty years to feature primarily female characters wielding deadly weapons, but it was truly far from the first.
While it may seem self-explanatory to some, allow me to give some context to the "Girls with Guns" subgenre. Beyond the obvious featuring of ladies carrying firearms, the films are very often female empowerment-based in some way or another. Some wear the message brazenly on their sleeves while others rely on subtext to carry the day. Sometimes the girls with guns are avenging an injustice perpetrated upon them, sometimes they're taking over for a dead man in their lives, and some are just about a bunch of badass chicks who don't take no guff from men. It's a surprisingly robust subgenre with a wide variety of messaging.
For our first "Girls with Guns" installment, we'll be going way back before 1985 and then a little past it to cover five of our favorite flicks from the subgenre. Since we're going to be coming back to it again in the future, I'm not going to be making any recommendations for other films to check out, but it's truly one of the only subgenres where you kinda can't go wrong. If there's a girl, with a gun, you're golden. Here are five of our favorite Girls with Guns flicks...
Branded to Kill (1967)
Japanese cinema in the 50s and 60s was known for its formality, dovetailing nicely from the formal nature of Japanese culture. Filmmakers like Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu, and Kon Ichikawa, but there were three major outliers in Japanese cinema duringthis golden age. In the Realm of the Senses director Nagisa Oshima and Vengeance is Mine director Shohei Imamura did most of their subversive work in the 70s, but Seijun Suzuki got a head start on them with his wildly imaginative work in the 1960s. Beginning with 1963's Youth of the Beast, Suzuki established himself as one of the slickest visual artists in film, churning out "cool" flicks about gangsters throughout the 60s.
His two best known works were made in consecutive years, first with the masterful Tokyo Drifter in 1966 andthen with Branded to Kill the following year, films that redefined the Japanese gangster flick. Where Tokyo Drifter was a technicolor delight, filled with combinations of music and imagery that presaged the music video movement of the 1980s, Branded to Kill is a down-and-dirty black and white affair.Joe Shishidostars as Goro Hanada, the third best hitman in a yakuza outfit who has ambitions of becoming the number one gun. The only problem is that his laziness outweighs his ambitions, as does his incessant skirt chasing.
We're not sure why he's chasing tail all over town when his wife (Mariko Ogawa, in her only appearance in a film) walks around the house nude! We get to see all three of Mariko's Bs in the flick, including a controversial full frontal scene that caused an outrage in Japan at the time of the film's release...
He is soon enlisted by femme fatale Misako (Annu Mari), a woman with an unhealthy obsession with dead butterflies, whois part of a plot to get him killed by the current number one gun (Koji Nanbara), all so Goro's boss can sleep with his wife. Unfortunately, she falls for Goro, which only ends up putting her own life in danger as his boss uses her as bait to lureGoro into a trap...
**Available to stream for members viaThe Criterion Channelor to rent or own via Amazon Prime Video
Foxy Brown (1974)
Pam Grier turned into afull-onBlaxploitation legend with this 1974 flick, becoming forever synonymous with the title role in this flick! When her government agent boyfriend is gunned down by members of a drug syndicate, Foxy goes on a rampage to find the men responsible. This leads her to a secretive modeling agency that's actually a cover for a prostitution ring servicing rich and powerful men, with Foxyposing as a lady of the evening to gain favor with the agency. Once she's infiltrated the agency, she begins helping the various women imprisoned there to escape the life, and it isn't long before her cover is blown. We get a nice peek at Pam's peaks when she is tied to a bed after she's ratted out...
It's by no means Grier's best nudity of the time, but there are plenty of other bare beauties along the way to soften the blow of lessPam Griernudity. The lovelySally Ann Stroudand the sensationally stackedSharon Kellyalso bare their breasts as other women in the employ of the evil agency...
Like most of the best examples of the genre, it features everything you could want from copious amounts of nudity and violence, and an appropriately gruesome comeuppance for the film's main villain, who gets castrated by the Black Panthers. Honestly, what more could you want from a Blaxploitation Girls with Guns flick?
**Available to stream for free for members via Amazon Prime Video and The Criterion Channel
Big Bad Mama (1974)
Angie Dickinson stars in thisDepression-eraclassic as Wilma McClatchie, the wife of amoonshiner who is gunned down, leaving her and her daughters Polly (Robbie Lee) and Billy Jean (Susan Sennett) to take over the family business. And cousin, business is a'boomin' when Big Bad Mama's in charge! Producer Roger Corman delivers another one of his signature exploitation flicks, complete with everything one could want from a film capitalizing on the success of Bonnie Clyde.
Wilma hits the bank to cash a fake check when the bank is held up by Fred Diller (Tom Skerritt), giving her and her girls the perfect opportunity to capitalize on the situation and make off with bags of money themselves.Diller and Wilma hook-up, but they soon cross paths with degenerate gambler named William Baxter (William Shatner), who becomes Wilma's new lover, setting up a showdown for the ages that threatens the very fabric of their tenuous existence.
This film is chockablock with great nudity, including both Robbie Lee and Susan Sennett getting down to some hanky panky with Skerritt...
Sally Kirkland also shows up as a woman shacked up with the girls' Uncle Barney (Noble Willingham), and we get aterrific topless scene from thebombshell...
However, this is Angie Dickinson's show and she's not about to let her co-stars get the best of her! An hour and eighteen minutes in, Angie goes full frontal while hooking up with Shatneronly to besummoned away to collect the ransom forthe daughter of a rich reverendthey've kidnapped...
Despite an ending that clearly indicates that Wilma does not survive the final shootout, the film received a belated sequel in 1987. Not even death can stop good box office!
**Available to stream for free for members via Amazon Prime Video
The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
While this is the least skin-filled of all the flicks we're covering today, this 1996 film was a major box office bomb in its day, but time has been very kind to this pairing of writer Shane Black, director Renny Harlin, and his then-wife Geena Davis. When we meet Geena, she's in the throes of a bout of amnesia, with no clue as to her past apart from the fact that she's clearly very skilled with a gun. She's been living as a schoolteacher in New Jersey for the last eight years, but when she hires sass-talking private investigator Mitch Hennessy (Samuel L. Jackson) to find out who she is, he discovers that she was once a lethal assassin named Charly.
The two then follow a trail of breadcrumbs which they think will hold the secret to getting her memories back, but it turns out that's not such a great idea as nearly everyone wants her dead. They eventually hook up with a guy named Luke (David Morse) whom she thinks may be her father, but it turns out he was her last target whom she failed to kill before getting struck with amnesia. He then uses a waterwheel to torture her, but it only helps to unlock her past memories and she's none to happy to discover the truth, putting his ass down in spectacular fashion...
What's a girl to do once she recovers her memory but go on a vengeance spree to take down those that wanted her dead. But first, she hits the shower, giving us a nice look at Davis' derriere as she formulates her plan...
The film is about a thousand times better than its reputation suggests and we've left the last hour of the film unspoiled, so do yourself a favor—especially if you're a fan of the rest of Shane Black's work—and give this flick a shot!
**Available to rent or own via Amazon Prime Video
Set it Off (1996)
Last, but certainly not least, is another underrated 1996 film that has only gained significant appreciation in the years since its initial release. Director F. Gary Gray made a big splash the prior year with his comedy hit Friday, but was determined to show his range as a director by going in the completely opposite direction for his sophomore directorial effort. Set it Offopens with a bank teller named Frankie (Vivica A. Fox) getting fired from her job when she recognizes one of the men in a group that robs the bank. She then joins her best friends Stony (Jada Pinkett Smith), Cleo (Queen Latifah), and T.T. (Kimberly Elise, in her big screen debut) working for a sleazy janitorial company run by Luther (Thom Byrd, aka Sweetness from He Got Game).
The four friends soon become fed up with their treatment at this menial job, coupled with some serious personal issues in all of their lives, and hatch a plan to become bank robbers. With Frankie's inside knowledge of the banking protocols, they pull off a series of successful robberies, though they also land on the radar of an LAPD Detective (John C. McGinley). Nothing good can last as they become beset on all sides by various entities, including Luther, but the ladies prove themselves to be tougher than they look.
Stony begins dating a bank manager played by Blair Underwood and he gives her a very sensual massage an hour and nineteen minutes in, though Jada Pinkett Smith utilized a body double for the nudity...
That's not it for nudity, however, as just three minutes later, the other three girls track Luther to a motel where he's having sex with a prostitute (Tamara Clatterbuck), whose breasts we see briefly as the camera pans across the room...
Girls with Guns movies can either end in triumph or in tragedy, it's a coin toss really, but Set it Off is one of the few that manages to do both. We will revisit this subgenre again this summer as there is an embarrassment of riches to be found, particularly once we cross over into the new millennium, so stay tuned!
**Available to stream for free for members via HBO Max or to rent or own via Amazon Prime Video
