Girls with guns is a subgenre of action films that portray a female protagonist engaged in shootouts. The genre typically involves gun-play, stunts and martial arts action.[1]
Live action
The 1985 Hong Kong film Yes, Madam, directed by Corey Yuen and starring Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock, was described by film and gender scholar Lisa Funnell as the first "girls with guns" film.[2] More films of the subgenre were produced until 1994, featuring the likes of Yukari Oshima, Moon Lee, Cynthia Khan and Sharon Yeung. In the early 2000s, films that were part of what has been called a "girls with guns revival" were produced. They included Martial Angels (2001), The Wesley's Mysterious File (2002) and So Close (2002).[3]
Animation
The subgenre has also permeated the anime space. Some examples include Black Lagoon, Bubblegum Crisis,[4] Dirty Pair,[5][6] Gunsmith Cats,[5] Gunslinger Girl,[5] Lycoris Recoil, Noir, Madlax,[7] El Cazador,[8][9] Masamune Shirow's and Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell and its television adaptation Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex as well as Yasuomi Umetsu's works Kite, Mezzo Forte, Mezzo DSA, and Kite: Liberator.[10]