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Lucy Liu - A Career Retrospective

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2010 Nomads
2009 Dirty Sexy Money (TV)
2008 Cashmere Mafia (TV)
2008 The Year of Getting To Know Us
2007 Watching the Detectives
2007 Rise: Bloodhunter
2007 Ugly Betty (TV, Guest spot)
2007 Code Name: The Cleaner
2006 Lucky Number Slevin
2005 Domino
2005 Three Needles
2005 Joey (TV, Guest spot)
2004 Maya and Miguel (TV, Guest spot)
2003 Kill Bill Vol.1
2003 Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
2002 Chicago
2002 Cypher
2002 Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever
2001 Hotel
2000 Shanghai Noon
2000 Charlie's Angels
1999 Play It to the Bone
1999 The Mating Habits of the Earthbound Human
1999 Molly
1999 True Crime
1999 Payback
1998 Love Kills
1998 Ally McBeal (TV)
1997 City of Industry (Stripper)
1997 Gridlock'd
1997 Flypaper

Lucy Liu - City of Industry

Back when Lucy was a struggling actress, she made ends meet by taking on the type of roles that most good-looking young actresses take on early in their careers - the 'Eye Candy' roles - stripper, prostitute, mistress etc.

In 1997, Lucy landed the role of Cathi Rose, a stripper, in City of Industry. The film is notable today chiefly for containing one of her rare topless appearances. While not a great movie, it's far from a bad one. Starring Harvey Keitel, Steven Dorff and Famke Janssen, it is a solid urban action film and worth checking out. Great soundtrack by the likes of Massive Attack, Tricky and Death in Vegas too.

Lucy gets two short scenes and a few lines of dialogue.

Scene 1: Bare Elegance Strip Club

Lucy's first scene starts 47:14 into the movie, when Roy (Harvey Keitel) visits the strip club to follow up a lead. She performs a slow pole-dance to the laid back vibe of Tricky's 'Overcome'. Wearing sexy thigh-high leather boots and associated bondage-themed accessories, Lucy looks pretty damn hot. As you'd expect, its not a long scene.

Scene 2: Cathi's Apartment

Starting at 49:22, Roy follows Cathi's taxi back to her apartment and grabs her as she's going inside. He forces her into the lounge and asks her a few questions. As a minor character, she's not exactly given the choicest of lines, ranging from "I don't know" to "I don't fucking know".

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Lucy Liu - Watching the Detectives

Lucy gets to break out of type and play a quirky weird chick in this indy romantic comedy from 2007. Lucy has the main role here, and her performance almost single-handedly carries the movie.

There's very little pretense or glamor here, and her looks are played down in favor of personality. Her clothes are eclectic and ill-matched, and her hair shabby ... quite the opposite to her usual ultra-polished appearance. What we get instead is a lot of cute faces, cheeky grins, and of course that huge, infectious smile.

The movie is based around her character Violet, who wanders into a video store and tricks Neil the owner into taking her out. She then plays a series of practical jokes on him as their relationship develops. Violet is a real firebrand, with a love of adventure and wicked sense of humor.

Although a bigger budget may have allowed more visual spectacle, the story really doesn't require it. Its just a lot of fun with an emphasis on characterisation and comedy. While at its heart a romcom, its quirky enough not to feel sickly-sweet, and more interesting and smart than most in its genre.

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Lucy Liu - Code Name The Cleaner

God only knows what attracted Lucy to this role, unless it was a calculated effort to increase her bankability in the urban demographic. Admittedly, her role as a secret agent is not such a big stretch, and channeling her Charlie's Angels character once again was probably an easy paycheck. It's a mindless and insipid film, and the only thing it has going for it in my one-eyed opinion is the fact that it features Ms Liu.

Starring Cedric the Entertainer, there wasn't much entertaining going on unless you find the tired cliche of african-american jive talk amusing. And even if you find it amusing when delivered by an an african-american - would you say the same when delivered by an asian? Yes that's right, Lucy actually speaks and adopts the gestures of an african-american, and if this was meant to be funny then I must have missed the humor. To be fair to Lucy, lines such as "That's where you do your business, fool" and "Trust me you ain't hittin' nothin yet. You would've remembered hittin' mama." can't be pulled off by anyone. Ever.

On the upside, Lucy sports a sexy waitress costume in her first scene along with the obligatory slow-mo sequence - and looks memorably hot while doing so. And later in the film gets to kick some bad-guy ass, running around with a gun and using her martial arts skills. As always Lucy looks great in either role, being one of the few Hollywood actresses who can do 'sexy' and 'deadly' equally effectively.

I suspect most film-lovers (as opposed to film-goers) will find this a pretty hard film to sit through. I know I did, but then I'm certainly not in this film's target audience. Still, Lucy deserves much better roles than this bilge.

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Lucy Liu - Charlie's Angels

Charlie's Angels (2000), based upon the hugely popular 1970's TV show, was the film that established Lucy as a bonafide megastar. The movie is a sexy, light-hearted action parody that was a commercial, if not critical, success.

Featuring a bubbly blonde, an intelligent redhead, and a sexy asian meant there was a fantasy woman/ role-model (depending on your gender) for most tastes. Dressing them barbie-fashion in a series of costumes, and throwing them into a range of high-energy set-pieces was a surefire winner.

In her role as Alex, Lucy gets to inhabit a wide range of personas and sexy outfits. The most memorable being a leather-clad, whip-wielding, bespectacled schoolteacher - a killer combination of fetish archetypes.

Lucy looks gorgeous throughout, tossing her perfectly coiffed hair at every opportunity and gets to use quite a few of her martial arts moves as well. She gets loads of screen-time, ranging from cute to sexy to deadly by turns.