Action flicks are my junk food– you name the genre: superhero, martial arts, fantasy, sci-fi and of course, SPY. When I heard a new TV series based on Luc Besson’s french 1990 film, La Femme Nikita, was coming to the CW soon as most die hard fans of any film would, I was excited but mostly skeptical. I had watched the original film a handful of times and sighed in disappointment when it was remade in 1993’s Point of No Return with Bridget Fonda. The latter version was definitely inferior, matching the story line for the most part to the tee but the performances and leading lady in PONR was not as muscular, crazy or sexy as Anne Parillaud in the French version. I don’t really understand when Hollywood remakes films from foreign countries just basically to change the language, where is the creativity in that? Use subtitles people.
I held the same sort of skepticism for the new TV series. But of course everyone who is versed in the original film had to ask themselves who was granted the leading role. And the drumrole…. Maggie Q.
Wow. Really?
I was stunned. All of those years of watching minorities in action flicks land roles as expendable sidekicks flashed before me, and I’m not talking about the 50s, as recent as The Matrix, 2005’s King Kong, etc… Unfortunately in some genre’s they don’t even land in the film. Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings was a huge disappointment. In general, universal descriptions of elves highlight their tendency to have slim, hairless bodies and slanted eyes and if this doesn’t scream “insert an Asian actor here” then I don’t know what can. Of course there were races in LOTR that did have features reminiscent of people of color: these belonged to the bad guys. Now Maggie Q, an actress of Vietnamese/Polish-Irish-American descent was slated to have a leading role on network television.
CW’s Nikita did not disappoint– once one realizes they are watching network television, it is hard not to enjoy this lighter, campier extension of the original. The main storyline follows Nikita, forced to once live the life of an assassin working for the Division, has escaped and been in hiding for 3 years only to emerge again with hopes of taking the Division out. Maggie Q’s Nikita is beautiful, tempestuous and although supermodel thin, she does have the moves and muscle tone to make it believable (unlike Fonda). Q actually comes from a line of martial arts movies and trained with Jackie Chan. My very first introduction to her was in the over-produced and over-sexy Naked Weapon. Thankfully here her acting is more on stage and we are able to see her expressing various sentiments beyond the easily enjoyable sexy and fierce…there are also some delightful twists to the plot.
Lien Truong
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