For most movie lovers, the best part of action movies is the fight scenes where the main character is ass-kicking and taking names. It’s even more impressive when it’s a woman who’s doing the ass-kicking. It just gets the blood flowing in a way that rarely happens when it’s a guy dishing it out. The prevailing theory is that most of these scenes are fake, and it’s hard to dispute this because the movement often feels unnatural, or the actresses have stunt doubles step in to do the work (not that the men don’t have stunt doubles too – they do).
The actresses on this list stand out with real-life martial arts skills. Whenever they appear on screen, audiences automatically notice the difference. There are no stunt doubles, the punches land harder, and their movements are smoother. Simply put, they make their fight scenes more realistic than those that depend on clever editing and CGI. These are the top 5 actresses with real-life martial arts skills.
1. Katheryn Winnick
Vikings fans remember Kathryn Winnick as the shield maiden known as Lagertha. The woman made sword fighting look beautiful, and she only pulled it off because of her impressive martial arts background. Winnick started taking Taekwondo classes when she was seven years old, which is just… remarkable. She bagged her first black belt at thirteen, and by the time she was twenty-one years old, she had opened three of her own Taekwondo schools. That’s why when she swung an axe or sword on screen, she did it like someone who knew what she was doing. Not some amateur who took some lessons during lunch break.
2. Cynthia Rothrock
Cynthia Rothrock is arguably the OG of Hollywood female action stars. Long before studios believed women could handle being the face of action movies, Rothrock was already out there snapping limbs and collecting trophies for her efforts. Yes, trophies, including multiple world championships. Her kicks look real and fast in movies because she’s fast, and she could actually do them. The China O’Brien star is literally called the Queen of Martial Arts, and she didn’t earn that title lightly. She holds black belts in seven different fighting styles. Read that again: Seven!!! Also, she’s the first woman to ever appear on the cover of Karate Illustrated magazine, and that’s no mean feat.
3. Ronda Rousey
Before she joined Hollywood, Ronda Rousey literally fought for a living. She became the first American woman to earn a medal in Judo at the Olympics when she bagged the bronze medal at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Then she moved to the UFC, where she absolutely dominated for a long time, becoming the first UFC female champion by winning the inaugural Women’s Bantamweight Championship in 2012. What’s more, she successfully defended that title six times. So there’s no faking her action scenes since her debut as Luna in The Expendables 3 (2014). Beyond her well-documented martial arts skills, she brings an intensity most actors still struggle to pull off with tough-guy dialogue alone.
4. Gina Carano
Before Ronda, there was Gina Carano. She’s the one who helped put women’s MMA on the map when most people didn’t even know it existed. At one point, she was ranked the world’s third-best female fighter in her weight class. Her pro MMA record stands at 7-1, her only defeat coming in the massive Strikeforce title fight with Cris Cyborg in August 2009. A fight, which by the way is still talked about with so much reverence because of what it meant for women in the industry.
Carano’s fighting style is anything but pretty. It’s heavy, messy, and brutal. Her punches and kicks are doled out with genuine intent to inflict the maximum damage on her opponent. That’s why her fight scenes in movies like Haywire and shows like The Mandalorian worked so well without needing endless slow-motion shots to make it look cool.
5. Michelle Yeoh
Last, but definitely not least on this list is the iconic Michelle Yeoh. Watching her fight is like watching a beautiful ballet showcase, which is funny because she grew up doing ballet. But somewhere on that journey, she kinda figured out the connection between ballet and fighting. So she trained really hard, did her own stunts, got banged up a few times, but kept going. It’s normal to see bulging veins and angry faces in fight scenes, but she almost always looks graceful, yet deadly.
Movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon showed how effortlessly she blended elegance with danger. Then Everything Everywhere All at Once reminded everybody she still has it decades later. Yeoh closes this list because she does more than sell action scenes. She turns them into moments that don’t fade away with time.
Alright, your turn. Did we miss out on a trick by not including any particular name? Who’s the one person on this list you’d rather not face in a dark alley alone? Let us know in the comments.
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