Lucy Liu

The daughter of Chinese immigrants from Queens, New York, Lucy Alexis Liu had been turning up in TV roles (The X-Files, Ally McBeal, etc) and movie bit parts (Jerry Maguire, Play It To The Bone) for years before someone was farsighted enough to cast her as a dominatrix in Mel Gibson’s Payback.
The film itself was woeful, but she had found her calling, and has since tended to stick to the kind of roles that get the bondage enthusiasts in (like with Charlies’Angels where she’s easily the most intimidating of the gang, and gets to strut around in black leather occasionally). When not acting, she’s hugely interested in her Chinese heritage. She not only holds a degree in Mandarin, but is a skilled practitioner of the martial art Kali-Eskrima-Silat – a fearsome form of knife and stick fighting. No wonder Tarantino hired her for the role of Kill Bill Vol. 1’s O-Ren-Ishii, the half-American yakuza boss, given to immoderate bouts of violence and profanity.
The explanation of O-Ren’s origins (through a dazzling manga sequence by the creators of anime classic Ghost In The Shell) lets you know that she’s tough, and the ruthless way she smites her enemies during a yakuza board meeting for a non-PC remark more than confirms this.
Still, true to the spirit of swordplay, she fights fair during the climactic Sonny Chiba-inspired battle with The Bride. After all, in samurai movies it’s one thing to chop people up into little pieces, it’s quite another to lose face.
Not the kind of people you’d want to use the wrong fork around…