Film has not been kind to these stereotypes. It has leaned into them and amplified them, giving audiences cultural fodder with which to reinforce their biases. The subversion of these is often found in the physicality of female rage. It transforms into steel. In Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003), when offended by one of her underlings (who calls her a “Chinese-Jap-American, half-breed bitch”) Yakuza chief O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu) quickly and quietly chops off his head. She is murderously calm, only raising her voice as a punctuation mark. O-Ren’s chokehold on power lies not just in how ruthless a killer
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