I watched Kung Fu Panda at its premiere last week.  In the first place, I had little interest in the Kung Fu genre. I went only because my favorite singer hocc  was doing the voice of TIGRESS and my girlfriend had managed to get us premiere tickets. Unexpectedly, I was utterly impressed by the film, and in particular, by the heroine, TIGRESS.

 Before I watched the film, I had imagined the Kung Fu mistress to be

an archetypal ‘girly-girl’ figure such as Chun Li 春麗 in the Street Fighter series, who wears ridiculously short and tight Qipao showing her curvy figure and long legs, with hair pulled up in two childish buns (and I’m sure those buns are cast-molded on her head because they never come off even when she is up-side down doing the spinning bird kick). 

 As it turns out, the TIGRESS, leader of the FURIOUS FIVE, is a very androgynous character.  She is not personified to speak with a high-pitched voice or wear silly ribbons and short Qipao; instead, she is sturdy, flat-chested, and she wears mannish martial arts vest and trousers. In terms of character, the heroine is fierce, strong, determined, cool, who takes on herself to challenge the enemy and leads the group to evacuate the village.   Dreamworks has once again done a good job in breaking gender stereotypes (Princess Fiona in Shrek is one good example), and I’m just thrilled to see a butch  character in this big animation production! And wIth hocc, the current lesbian icon in Hong Kong, doing the voice of Tigress (In US version it’s Angelina Jolie, who is likewise very popular among the LGBT community), can’t you sense just a subtle lesbian vibe here?