Favorite Film Femme Fatales

She's the only one in the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad to have mastered the "Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique", a method of killing a person by quickly striking five pressure points around the heart with the fingertips. After the victim takes five steps, the heart explodes and he/she falls dead. And she's a bad ass Tiger/Crane Kung Fu master.

As the head female warrior in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Yu Shu Lien kicks major ass in her quest to deliver the Green Sword to Sir Te. She meets and inspires Jen- who is set up for an arranged marriage. The ultimate fight scene between Jen and Lu Shien is one of the best fight scenes in film history- male or female.

The film that made me change my mind about Lucy Liu- she is such a badass in Kill Bill. As the first Chinese-Japanese American female head of the Tokyo Yakuza, she slices the head off a subordinate when he questions leaving the Council in the hands of "a Chinese Jap-American half breed bitch".

Selene has got to be one of my all-time favorite kick ass females. A victim turned vampire warrior- she is proficient in all weaponry, both ancient and modern arms, she has superhuman strength, can hold her breath underwater for long periods of time, and can take a shotgun shot to the gut without flinching.

Alice is the heroine of the Resident Evil series. She isn't anywhere to be found in the video game series for which the film is based but, writer Paul Anderson took all the strong attributes from all females in the game and put them into Alice. I think Alice rocks because she's so human- in the first film she's just beginning to recognize her potential and it is fun to see her grow into a superhero fighting machine. She's a bio-weapon, has telekinesis, and is highly skilled in weaponry.

Elektra was brought to life by a blind martial arts master and is taught the art of Kimagure, an ancient martial arts discipline that provides its practitioners with precognition as well as the ability to resurrect the dead. Full of rage, she turns into a contract killer who ends up falling for her target which enrages a whole army of ninja assassins.

She has supposedly killed more men in Marvel history while remaining one of Marvel's most popular heroines. She is strong in gymnastics and swimming with human strength, speed, stamina, agility, dexterity, reflexes & reactions, coordination, balance, and endurance. She is resistant to pain and extreme heat and cold. She is also able to keep to the shadows and move with such speed that she can remain unseen even in daylight, thus explaining why she is one of Marvel's top killers.

Entertainment Weekly called her, ""one of the first female movie characters who isn't defined by the men around her, or by her relationship to them". The ultimate alien ass kicker, who survived having the Alien Queen inside of her, Ripley is tough and smart.She's not afraid to use a gun and let everyone know who's in charge, no matter what their species.

I had completely left out Sarah Connor and, ironically, I've seen T2 more than any other movie on this list. But, thanks to @woopak_the_thrill's friendly reminder, I had to update the list and add film's most definite kick ass female character. She's got muscles, smarts, amazing fighting/gun skills, and goes up against a killer robot that is pretty much impossible to kill. She's also incredibly badass because she's so human. Thanks Woo!

She's the youngest on the list. Hit-Girl aka Mindy is trained to be a superhero by her dad, an ex cop trying to take down the drug lord for framing him and uses Hit-Girl to infiltrate and take down the drug lord's gang. She's given all the fighting scenes in the movie at eleven years old and holds her own, genuinely kicking ass.

A dream world within a dream world full of amazing fight scenes, that is Sucker Punch in a nutshell. Babydoll, the lead character, is skilled in dancing, all forms of martial arts and weaponry. Most of the cast trained for 12 weeks. The combo of that and stunt coordinator (Damon Caro, who was the coordinator for 300 and the Bourne series) resulted in the coolest fight scenes with a predominantly female cast that I've seen for a looooong time.

Unlike the others in this list, Nikita is neither innocent nor a voluntary assassin. She was forced into a life as an assassin with a choice of that or death. After successfully killing a diplomat in a crowded restaurant, she becomes a sleeper agent. She is highly skilled in Krav Maga and Kali fighting styles. Krav Maga is an Israeli hand-to-hand fighting style and Kali is a Filipino weapon-based fighting style.

I like Tank Girl because she's so anti-heroine- she's punk rock in every possible sense of the word and I love her for it. Tank Girl and Jet Girl are captured by the bad guys and brutalized by the bad guys W&P, they escape to rescue their friend who ends up getting caught again so that they have to rescue her again, they use their feminine wiles to gain the aid of W&P's main enemy as well as entry into the W&P compound...hence the femme fatale label. I also love Tank Girl because she's just a badass, she doesn't seem to have any superhuman powers or any kind or master of fighting styles.

The TV show helped blaze a trail by showcasing strong, independent and sexy women as the three lead roles, the only male role was for comedic relief (you know to keep it campy, it was the 70s after all) and the other male lead was a speakerbox. They're bad asses because they're sexy, smart and they never use guns.

Natalie Cook: Loves anything fast (racing cars, helicopters, and motorcross are her faves) and a master of kung fu as well as other martial arts.

Dylan Sanders: The ultimate rebel girl, good with words, and a master of multiple forms of martial arts. Remember that scene when she took out a whole room of bad guys with her hands tied behind her back?

Alex Munday: Super intelligent, master of fencing and horseback riding, she's been an aerospace engineer and is an on-call consultant for NASA, learned levitation from Tibetan guru, expert in safecracking and bomb defusing, skilled in gymnastics, archery, computer hacking and neurosurgery. She's also proficient in multiple forms of martial arts.

She starts off as a vapid valley girl and ends up kicking vampire butt. Writer Joss Whedon wanted to make the antithesis of the typical female roles in horror films where the girl runs into the dark alley screaming. Whedon's influence for Buffy was Kitty Pryde from X-Men. Though she's a highly skilled fighter, the character truly blossomed when Buffy was turned into a TV series with Sarah MIchelle Gellar taking the lead.