Great scene of female dominance and superiority, when he snapped and tried to fight back against her it was no problem for her to overpower him and give him a beating. xD She clearly got the better of Bond in the movie and it's such a shame they then made her out as some neurotic. The bond films have always angered me due to their misogyny. Whenever you have badass fem supremacists matched as assasins/villains against bond like Fatima Blush and Bambi and Thumper at first they seem all powerful and unbeatable, as they should, but the films then twist it to make fun of women and portrays them as weak laughing stocks. Makes me mad! While the good girl bond women are always submissive and compliant to a sexist jerk. After she said the line 'you're quite a man Bond, But I am a superior woman!' it would of been more realistic and better to see her beat the crap out of Bond like she does the guy in the above clip. in much the same way as it would have been more realistic if Felix and the CIA came just in the nick of time to rescue Bond from the clutches of Bambi and Thumper in the swimming pool because there is no realistic way he could have really turned the tables on them like that!
Great analysis as always ACE :) Yeah I love the way he fought back too, summoning all of his male aggression and rage, but it didn't phase her one little bit, it just wasn't good enough to put her off delivering the beating he deserved ha! I totally take your point about the Bond films reinforcing the male "Stud" stereotype and the female "Damsel in distress" stereotype and although I have no interest in these conventions, I also recognise that Bond films have also allowed us glimpses of properly strong females too - however fleeting, it was usually enough to leave a lasting impression. I also loved that line "You're quite a man Mr Bond, but I am a superior woman" - and at that point she had proved it too - she actually did have him beat! It was only an exploding Bond gadget weapon that saved him - an underhand method I think and for me, the personal and moral victory was hers.
There was a really good interview with Barbara on youtube (I will try and find it again) where she explained how much she loved playing the character of Fatima Blush and loved the fact that she was a man-killer and loved just being considered dangerous to men. She talked about her heels being weapons and even one of her hats had embroidered images of weapons on it. She was superior to Bond and this amongst many other things is what inspired me to write my stories so that we can see the correct outcomes not the conventional ones....
I agree Bond films have also allowed us glimpses of properly strong females, they brought us ‘she fu’ through the acrobatic fighting fighting styles of bambi and thumper and the Octopus cult which although fantastical to the untrained eye have such groundings in reality - Gymnastics was developed by the ancient Greeks as an exercise for hand-to-hand combat. No one disputes women make the best gymnasts and so the fighting art of ‘she fu’ first seen in the bond movies which features deadly females doing backflips, somersaults, and gymnastic cartwheels to approach, evade and defeat her opponent are accurate portrayals of female ability The actual reality and hence believability behind the female power action scenes is what is cool about the Bond films. I think in part this is because though just stories, real life people and events that have flown under the radar off mainstream history have inspired characters and scenarios in bond films. For example before the ninja were introduced to the west in you only live twice, they were previously unheard of outside of japan. But what’s even cooler are the parallels between Octopussy and her elite squad of warrior women, the Octopus Cult with the real life16th century female shinobi ninja Mochizuki Chiyome and her army of Kunoichi Koga clanswomen
in the film Octopussy, the Octopus Cult are a group of female assassins and thieves who also double as circus a troupe of Amazon circus women. The girls that comprise the cult are a fierce highly elite squad of warrior trained in the deadly arts and acrobatics. The girls who comprise the cult usually have had some kind of troubled past, and are often in need of help and spiritual discipline. Octopussy takes them in , she feeds, clothes and trains them, giving them "sisterhood and a way of life". In reality the cult members help within the jewel smuggling ring Octopussy runs with Kamal Khan. Many of them are highly trained gymnasts and are capable of fighting using their circus acrobatics, with which they act as guards They also hold various positions as spies in Octopussys business intersts, including shipping, hotels, carnivals and circuses
This is just like Mochizuki Chiyome who founded the school that trained the most feared ninja in Japanese history – the female shinobi known as the kunoichi, an insanely formidable posse of female assasins, secret agents, intelligence operatives, and espionage experts whose skills were unparralled. Mochizuki Chiyome was a direct descendent of the shinobi Mochizuki Izumo-no-kami, the founder the Koga Ninja Clan. Chiyome worked for the samurai Lord Takeda who had many enemies and set her up to be his special secret weapon and ‘CIA’ style agents. She travelled the countryside, from cities to little villages, constantly keeping an eye out for promising young girls who were down on their luck but still had fire in their eyes. Prostitutes, orphan farm girls, young widows and dirt-poor street urchins alike were brought back to the Koga Province, ostensibly to be given a fresh start on life to go to a school and recieve religious training, but in reality the school was a ninja dojo and she was training these girls in the fine art of the total destruction of your enemies and burning their castles to the ground. Just like the Octopus cult in Octopussy In fact one of the greatest moments in movie history, the scene in Octopussy where a small group of acrobatic women raids Kamal Khan's palace demolishing an army of men in the process in an uninterrupted barrage of female power bears remarkable similarity to some of the deeds of Chiyome’s kunoichi. The Koja Ninshi yushosho manuscript from 1816 describes how, In 1570, Takeda enlisted the help of Chiyome to in his battle against the Imagawa clan. She sent eighty of her kunoichi to raid a castle of the Imagawa clan. They managed to infiltrate the castle, set fire to its towers, and kill and dismember the castle commander along with four hundred of his men – quite a feat for such a small number of attackers who a few years before were street girl orphans.
In another castle siege of the period Chiyome sent just 10 Kunoichi in to infiltrate a castle in an operation of psychological warfare to demoralise the enemy. In disguise they entered the castle, gathering information on its defences and discovering secret passwords. They would steal bags of food and perform random assassinations leaving their own special markers letting the scared castle inhabitants know that it were the kunoichi amongst them.
between 1561 and 1573 Mochizuki Chiyome had around 300 agents spread out throughout the Japanese countryside, all feeding info directly back to her so she could present it to Takeda. Their network was efficient, reliable, and extremely powerful. if Takeda was looking for any kind of mission carried out Chiyome was the person who could get it done. But not only that the Kunoichi brutally disposed of any rival ninja clans and allied shinobi/ninja were forced to pay tributes to Chiyome. In 1573 Takeda died under mysterious circumstances that could be anything from natural causes to being assassinated by an enemy agent. Mysteriously Mochizuki Chiyome and her clan is never again mentioned in history after his death. She simply disappears into thin air, along with all of her agents, many authorities speculate that when Takeda was no longer of any use to them the Kunoichi themselves bumped him off, to disappear into the night very wealthy women. Outside of specialist ninja historians Mochizuki Chiyome and the deeds of her kunoichi are still wildy not known about. She is mentioned in the he Bansenshukai a manuscript written in 1676 by Fujibayashi Yasutake. The Shoninki was written in 1681 by Natori Masazumi and various Koga clan manuscripts pay great honour fear and respect to Mochizuki Chioymoe such as the Koja Ninshi yushosho written in 1816 and the Koga niju ichi ke from 1789 Badass of the week has a brief entry on her, http://www.badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=33837513055 And as well as being the possible inspiration for Octopussy and the Octopus cult, she was the model for one of the best movie villains of all time, the supreme ninja Yagyu Sayaka (played by Kayo Matsuo) and her female Akashi Yagyu Clanswomen in the 1980’s Japanese shock film Shogun Assasin. There is one scene in the film where the Shogun first sends a representative, Lord Kurogawa to the clanswomen to hire them. Lord Kurogawa doesn't believe the Akashi Yagyu Clanswomen are up to the task, so Yagyu Sayaka proves otherwise by asking Kurogawa to show her his strongest man. She then invites Kurogawa’s strongest ninja to try and match her minion by leaving the room. We then get an amazing display of female supremacy and dominance. Everywhere the strong man ninja turns his path is blocked by a kunoichi who take it in turn to slowly but surely dismember the opposition opponent bit-by-bit from nose to ankles as they take it in turns to fight him. One by one they systematically chop off every piece of the man starting with his hose ears and fingers to his arms and legs. Pretty soon he is nothing but a bloody torso. After her women have slaughtered the best ninja Yagyu Sayaka turns to Kurogawa and asks ‘This is your best of men?’ then bursts into hellish laughter, an awesome moment! I think any man who has seen this would be totally demoralised and intimidated by femsupremecy I tried to find a clip of this scene on youtube but the best I can manage is a part of the scene is in this montage at 1.16 to 1.40 which misses out loads of it, but if you look also at some of these tumblrs from the film as well get the idea, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41UGyylAI4k https://www.tumblr.com/search/kayo%20matsuo
Thanks so much for educating us once again. Our society has a wonderful way of blotting out episodes of history that are positive for females and here is another example to add to all of the other examples you have shown us. The truth is out there, if only one cares to look for it. The story of Mochizuki Chiyome and her female Ninja clan is further proof that women can not only compete against men in the physical realm, but excel to become completely dominant over them. This is not a mere fantasy....there is a bona-fide blueprint...many in fact if you study history. This certainly gives creedence to the New Amazon Nation. Together with observations from modern life, it is not too difficult to take the notion of a modern female dominated society seriously. I found it quite easy to put together the guiding principles and back-story of how the New Amazon Nation came into being. Have you read the book "Octopussy" or are your detailed and accurate insights derived from the film alone?. I love the comparison between the Octopus Cult and Mochizuki Chiyome's kunoichi, how they started by picking up waifs & strays, turning their lives around whilst at the same time creating a formidable female force. The New Amazon Nation originates in much the same way, but grows exponentially as the female victims of everyday sexism make easy recruits and young women up and down the country start to see the benefits of concentrating their minds on developing their physicality and taking up their correct roles in society. Women united can never be defeated!
No thank you for putting up this blog and providing a platform to spread the word not just about the typical emotional and mental female empowerment, dominance and supremacy we all know about, but also make awareness of the overwhelming supremacy not just in terms of beauty but also the physical and athletic ability of the marvel of biology that is the female body! You are right about patriarchy blotting out the history of female dominance - one more thing about the female ninja clan, is because they were so good at being predators, assassins, warriors, spies and agents, etc. they were considered the ultimate, and this is where the word ’kunoichi’ comes from, it means 9 + 1 a metaphor that a woman biologically has ten = nine plus one holes in her body comparing with a man who has nine holes in his body like eyes, ears, nose, mouth, navel, bum the woman has plus 1 with a vagina. So 10 is greater than 9 meaning the kunoichi were acknowledged to be superior to men, feared mistresses of death whose martial art, kunoichi-no-jutsu, was so brutally effective that they were thought to be supernatural with their physical powers. To add to the fear of them, kunoichi assassins were known to take on multiple opponents and would traditionally leave their victims dismembered – chopped up into bits! Homage to, and acknowledgement of this is seen in the Shogun Assasin movie where the head of the female ninja clan is referred to as the supreme ninja and as mentioned before the clanswomen are witnessed dismembering piece by piece the top male ninja. I have not read any Ian fleming, it is just observations from what they say and do in the film Ace. Xx>>xy #girrrlzrule xD
Great scene of female dominance and superiority, when he snapped and tried to fight back against her it was no problem for her to overpower him and give him a beating. xD
ReplyDeleteShe clearly got the better of Bond in the movie and it's such a shame they then made her out as some neurotic. The bond films have always angered me due to their misogyny. Whenever you have badass fem supremacists matched as assasins/villains against bond like Fatima Blush and Bambi and Thumper at first they seem all powerful and unbeatable, as they should, but the films then twist it to make fun of women and portrays them as weak laughing stocks. Makes me mad! While the good girl bond women are always submissive and compliant to a sexist jerk.
After she said the line 'you're quite a man Bond, But I am a superior woman!' it would of been more realistic and better to see her beat the crap out of Bond like she does the guy in the above clip. in much the same way as it would have been more realistic if Felix and the CIA came just in the nick of time to rescue Bond from the clutches of Bambi and Thumper in the swimming pool because there is no realistic way he could have really turned the tables on them like that!
Great analysis as always ACE :) Yeah I love the way he fought back too, summoning all of his male aggression and rage, but it didn't phase her one little bit, it just wasn't good enough to put her off delivering the beating he deserved ha! I totally take your point about the Bond films reinforcing the male "Stud" stereotype and the female "Damsel in distress" stereotype and although I have no interest in these conventions, I also recognise that Bond films have also allowed us glimpses of properly strong females too - however fleeting, it was usually enough to leave a lasting impression. I also loved that line "You're quite a man Mr Bond, but I am a superior woman" - and at that point she had proved it too - she actually did have him beat! It was only an exploding Bond gadget weapon that saved him - an underhand method I think and for me, the personal and moral victory was hers.
ReplyDeleteThere was a really good interview with Barbara on youtube (I will try and find it again) where she explained how much she loved playing the character of Fatima Blush and loved the fact that she was a man-killer and loved just being considered dangerous to men. She talked about her heels being weapons and even one of her hats had embroidered images of weapons on it. She was superior to Bond and this amongst many other things is what inspired me to write my stories so that we can see the correct outcomes not the conventional ones....
I agree Bond films have also allowed us glimpses of properly strong females, they brought us ‘she fu’ through the acrobatic fighting fighting styles of bambi and thumper and the Octopus cult which although fantastical to the untrained eye have such groundings in reality - Gymnastics was developed by the ancient Greeks as an exercise for hand-to-hand combat. No one disputes women make the best gymnasts and so the fighting art of ‘she fu’ first seen in the bond movies which features deadly females doing backflips, somersaults, and gymnastic cartwheels to approach, evade and defeat her opponent are accurate portrayals of female ability
ReplyDeleteThe actual reality and hence believability behind the female power action scenes is what is cool about the Bond films. I think in part this is because though just stories, real life people and events that have flown under the radar off mainstream history have inspired characters and scenarios in bond films.
For example before the ninja were introduced to the west in you only live twice, they were previously unheard of outside of japan. But what’s even cooler are the parallels between Octopussy and her elite squad of warrior women, the Octopus Cult with the real life16th century female shinobi ninja Mochizuki Chiyome and her army of Kunoichi Koga clanswomen
in the film Octopussy, the Octopus Cult are a group of female assassins and thieves who also double as circus a troupe of Amazon circus women. The girls that comprise the cult are a fierce highly elite squad of warrior trained in the deadly arts and acrobatics. The girls who comprise the cult usually have had some kind of troubled past, and are often in need of help and spiritual discipline. Octopussy takes them in , she feeds, clothes and trains them, giving them "sisterhood and a way of life". In reality the cult members help within the jewel smuggling ring Octopussy runs with Kamal Khan. Many of them are highly trained gymnasts and are capable of fighting using their circus acrobatics, with which they act as guards They also hold various positions as spies in Octopussys business intersts, including shipping, hotels, carnivals and circuses
ReplyDeleteThis is just like Mochizuki Chiyome who founded the school that trained the most feared ninja in Japanese history – the female shinobi known as the kunoichi, an insanely formidable posse of female assasins, secret agents, intelligence operatives, and espionage experts whose skills were unparralled.
Mochizuki Chiyome was a direct descendent of the shinobi Mochizuki Izumo-no-kami, the founder the Koga Ninja Clan. Chiyome worked for the samurai Lord Takeda who had many enemies and set her up to be his special secret weapon and ‘CIA’ style agents. She travelled the countryside, from cities to little villages, constantly keeping an eye out for promising young girls who were down on their luck but still had fire in their eyes. Prostitutes, orphan farm girls, young widows and dirt-poor street urchins alike were brought back to the Koga Province, ostensibly to be given a fresh start on life to go to a school and recieve religious training, but in reality the school was a ninja dojo and she was training these girls in the fine art of the total destruction of your enemies and burning their castles to the ground. Just like the Octopus cult in Octopussy
In fact one of the greatest moments in movie history, the scene in Octopussy where a small group of acrobatic women raids Kamal Khan's palace demolishing an army of men in the process in an uninterrupted barrage of female power bears remarkable similarity to some of the deeds of Chiyome’s kunoichi. The Koja Ninshi yushosho manuscript from 1816 describes how, In 1570, Takeda enlisted the help of Chiyome to in his battle against the Imagawa clan. She sent eighty of her kunoichi to raid a castle of the Imagawa clan. They managed to infiltrate the castle, set fire to its towers, and kill and dismember the castle commander along with four hundred of his men – quite a feat for such a small number of attackers who a few years before were street girl orphans.
In another castle siege of the period Chiyome sent just 10 Kunoichi in to infiltrate a castle in an operation of psychological warfare to demoralise the enemy. In disguise they entered the castle, gathering information on its defences and discovering secret passwords. They would steal bags of food and perform random assassinations leaving their own special markers letting the scared castle inhabitants know that it were the kunoichi amongst them.
between 1561 and 1573 Mochizuki Chiyome had around 300 agents spread out throughout the Japanese countryside, all feeding info directly back to her so she could present it to Takeda. Their network was efficient, reliable, and extremely powerful. if Takeda was looking for any kind of mission carried out Chiyome was the person who could get it done. But not only that the Kunoichi brutally disposed of any rival ninja clans and allied shinobi/ninja were forced to pay tributes to Chiyome. In 1573 Takeda died under mysterious circumstances that could be anything from natural causes to being assassinated by an enemy agent. Mysteriously Mochizuki Chiyome and her clan is never again mentioned in history after his death. She simply disappears into thin air, along with all of her agents, many authorities speculate that when Takeda was no longer of any use to them the Kunoichi themselves bumped him off, to disappear into the night very wealthy women.
ReplyDeleteOutside of specialist ninja historians Mochizuki Chiyome and the deeds of her kunoichi are still wildy not known about. She is mentioned in the he Bansenshukai a manuscript written in 1676 by Fujibayashi Yasutake. The Shoninki was written in 1681 by Natori Masazumi and various Koga clan manuscripts pay great honour fear and respect to Mochizuki Chioymoe such as the Koja Ninshi yushosho written in 1816 and the Koga niju ichi ke from 1789
Badass of the week has a brief entry on her, http://www.badassoftheweek.com/index.cgi?id=33837513055
And as well as being the possible inspiration for Octopussy and the Octopus cult, she was the model for one of the best movie villains of all time, the supreme ninja Yagyu Sayaka (played by Kayo Matsuo) and her female Akashi Yagyu Clanswomen in the 1980’s Japanese shock film Shogun Assasin. There is one scene in the film where the Shogun first sends a representative, Lord Kurogawa to the clanswomen to hire them. Lord Kurogawa doesn't believe the Akashi Yagyu Clanswomen are up to the task, so Yagyu Sayaka proves otherwise by asking Kurogawa to show her his strongest man. She then invites Kurogawa’s strongest ninja to try and match her minion by leaving the room. We then get an amazing display of female supremacy and dominance. Everywhere the strong man ninja turns his path is blocked by a kunoichi who take it in turn to slowly but surely dismember the opposition opponent bit-by-bit from nose to ankles as they take it in turns to fight him. One by one they systematically chop off every piece of the man starting with his hose ears and fingers to his arms and legs. Pretty soon he is nothing but a bloody torso. After her women have slaughtered the best ninja Yagyu Sayaka turns to Kurogawa and asks ‘This is your best of men?’ then bursts into hellish laughter, an awesome moment! I think any man who has seen this would be totally demoralised and intimidated by femsupremecy
I tried to find a clip of this scene on youtube but the best I can manage is a part of the scene is in this montage at 1.16 to 1.40 which misses out loads of it, but if you look also at some of these tumblrs from the film as well get the idea,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41UGyylAI4k
https://www.tumblr.com/search/kayo%20matsuo
Wow, once again fantastic research ACE! Will come back on this wonderful article shortly....
DeleteThanks so much for educating us once again. Our society has a wonderful way of blotting out episodes of history that are positive for females and here is another example to add to all of the other examples you have shown us. The truth is out there, if only one cares to look for it. The story of Mochizuki Chiyome and her female Ninja clan is further proof that women can not only compete against men in the physical realm, but excel to become completely dominant over them. This is not a mere fantasy....there is a bona-fide blueprint...many in fact if you study history. This certainly gives creedence to the New Amazon Nation. Together with observations from modern life, it is not too difficult to take the notion of a modern female dominated society seriously. I found it quite easy to put together the guiding principles and back-story of how the New Amazon Nation came into being. Have you read the book "Octopussy" or are your detailed and accurate insights derived from the film alone?. I love the comparison between the Octopus Cult and Mochizuki Chiyome's kunoichi, how they started by picking up waifs & strays, turning their lives around whilst at the same time creating a formidable female force. The New Amazon Nation originates in much the same way, but grows exponentially as the female victims of everyday sexism make easy recruits and young women up and down the country start to see the benefits of concentrating their minds on developing their physicality and taking up their correct roles in society. Women united can never be defeated!
DeleteNo thank you for putting up this blog and providing a platform to spread the word not just about the typical emotional and mental female empowerment, dominance and supremacy we all know about, but also make awareness of the overwhelming supremacy not just in terms of beauty but also the physical and athletic ability of the marvel of biology that is the female body!
DeleteYou are right about patriarchy blotting out the history of female dominance - one more thing about the female ninja clan, is because they were so good at being predators, assassins, warriors, spies and agents, etc. they were considered the ultimate, and this is where the word ’kunoichi’ comes from, it means 9 + 1 a metaphor that a woman biologically has ten = nine plus one holes in her body comparing with a man who has nine holes in his body like eyes, ears, nose, mouth, navel, bum the woman has plus 1 with a vagina. So 10 is greater than 9 meaning the kunoichi were acknowledged to be superior to men, feared mistresses of death whose martial art, kunoichi-no-jutsu, was so brutally effective that they were thought to be supernatural with their physical powers. To add to the fear of them, kunoichi assassins were known to take on multiple opponents and would traditionally leave their victims dismembered – chopped up into bits! Homage to, and acknowledgement of this is seen in the Shogun Assasin movie where the head of the female ninja clan is referred to as the supreme ninja and as mentioned before the clanswomen are witnessed dismembering piece by piece the top male ninja.
I have not read any Ian fleming, it is just observations from what they say and do in the film
Ace. Xx>>xy #girrrlzrule xD
Is the girl anyhow related to Massimo Carrera?
ReplyDelete