Women up in arms
Hong Kong singer-actress Kelly Chen gets down and dirty in the period costume epic An Empress And The Warriors. Clad in metal armour and helmet, she commands an army of foot soldiers and fights to save her kingdom. She charges into battle on horseback. She is a mean archer and gets her head stomped into the dusty ground during a swordfight. In the genre of period war epics, An Empress And The Warriors is unusual because it casts a woman in the central role of a warrior who goes to battle.
Men have tended to dominate as warriors in films 'beeause of the patriarehal society in China', says Dr Stephen Teo, a research fellow at the National University of Singapore's Asia Research Institute.
Media Correspondent BOON CHAN reports.