Movie

Die Hard 4.0 (2007) (aka Live Free or Die Hard)

With all the Die Hard clones on my list, it’s only fair to include the series that started it all. The franchise is better than some for female villains, but the first two movies – the original 1988 action classic and its 1990 sequel – pitted the hero John McClane against only male baddies. However, the other three entries featured villainesses worth mentioning.

By the time McClane made it to 4.0 – Live Free or Die Hard to American audiences – he’d battled terrorists (or thieves masquerading as them) in a Los Angeles skyscraper, Dulles Airport in Washington DC, and New York City. With events escalating to ever grander proportions and John perpetually in “the wrong place at the wrong time”, it’s no wonder he’s gone bald. To make matters worse, villains have become technically savvy, and McClane is… old school to say the least.

A group of cyber-terrorists hacks into the US government systems to cause chaos over the Independence Day weekend. Being villains, they eliminate underlings once they’ve served their purpose, and so the American teenage hacking population takes quite a dent. One guy (Justin Long) survives, and by chance McClane is the cop bringing him in for questioning. This veteran is an excellent ally to have on your side, even if he isn’t computer literate.

The baddies led by Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant) aren’t especially memorable, but the action comes thick and fast. A little too thick in the final sequence, which sees the hero targeted by a fighter jet (!). An entire highway is demolished, but John miraculously survives to say his trademark sendoff line.

Villainess

Mai Linh (Maggie Q)

The female villains in the third and fifth instalments had their moments, but their contributions were disappointing. And while the bad girl in 4.0 is seen off 60% of the way through, the Asian hacker and martial arts expert Mai Linh is the most formidable of the bunch. Plus, she proves very hard to kill, which is always a bonus.

Early indications aren’t promising, with Mai wearing headphones doing generic techie stuff. After sitting on the sidelines for the first half hour, Gabriel sends his lover / lieutenant to lead an assault on a utility control station. The villainess poses as an FBI agent, which conveniently gives her the excuse to wear body armour. She shows her ruthlessness by executing on-site personnel with a silenced pistol. And when she beats down a gate guard, that’s a good sign of things to come.

Not long after the raid, McClane and his sidekick show up to investigate. John has no trouble eliminating Mai’s mooks, but the boss lady soon turns the tables and gives him a proper battle. This is pleasantly brutal, and the hero shows his foe the lack of respect she deserves. He even tears out a lock of hair as he knocks her out. Perhaps he should have killed her though, because Mai soon recovers and kicks McClane through a window.

While the villainess strong-arms the hacker into compliance, the hero returns in an SUV (!) and drives himself and the villainess into an elevator shaft. Even that doesn’t stop this woman, because she climbs back up and fights McClane in the vehicle. Eventually – after a few advantage shifts – the hero escapes his predicament and sends the persistent henchwoman plummeting to her explosive doom. One of the better male vs. female fights on the list, enough to elevate Mai to the middle tier.

Honourable Mentions: Die Hard Series and Clones

Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) – Katya (Sam Phillips)

After two serious action movies, the series broke with tradition by opting for a revenge plot (or so it seems at first) and a more humorous outing. Samuel L. Jackson provides comic relief as Zeus Carver, which makes this entry a fan favourite. The cops are actually intelligent, even though the main villain – Jeremy Irons as Simon Gruber – is even smarter.

Like almost all Die Hard villain plots, this is ultimately about a heist. In this case, the theft of gold bullion from the Federal Reserve Bank. The mute villainess Katya gets a brutal introduction when she drills her way into the vault and slices up a guard. After that, she mostly stays in the background until the climax. It turns out she’s the lover of the tough henchman and in a secret relationship with Simon. Guess she likes the main baddie more, since she murders his competition during a double-cross.

After a brief, non-explicit love scene, Katya pilots Gruber’s chopper during the showdown against the heroes. She’s incinerated after McClane brings down a power line, a great send-off capped by that trademark line.

A Good Day to Die Hard (2013) – Irina Komarov (Yulia Snigir)

The final Die Hard film has the shortest runtime at approximately 95 minutes, which is merciful because it all feels tired and pedestrian. This time around, McClane is in Mother Russia to help his estranged son and – to nobody’s surprise – things soon get messy. John Junior is a spy on a mission to liberate a political prisoner, and the man’s daughter Irina is working with the baddies.

The prisoner ends up being a villain too, and plans to steal enriched uranium from a secret vault in Chernobyl. The plot is just as stupid as it sounds, and Irina doesn’t feature much until the end. There she finally gets to dress in black, shoot a gun, and pilot a gunship. Another helicopter showdown to finish things off, and Irina gets the honour of being the last main villain of the franchise. A pity her death is an unsatisfying suicide crash, a failed last-ditch effort to eliminate those troublesome McClanes.

Skyscraper (2018) – Xia (Hannah Quinlivan)

Almost every setting has been used for “Die Hard on an X” films, and some have even dared to reuse the lone hero in an office building plot. In fact, there are two films called Skyscraper. One had Anna Nicole Smith in the lead and was expectedly awful, so won’t be discussed further. The other starred Dwayne Johnson as an ex-hostage negotiator turned safety inspector, who uses his artificial leg in inventive ways.

A group of criminals sets the world’s tallest building on fire, forcing the hero to battle them and rescue his trapped family. Plenty of clichés abound, but the blend of Die Hard and The Towering Inferno (1974) is original enough to maintain the viewer’s interest. The movie is not overlong and packed with stunts, and there’s a decent (if under-used) female baddie in the mercenary Xia.

The villainess’ best scenes are early on, where she murders scores of people with a silenced pistol and knocks out the hero. After that, she’s mostly absent, and never sets foot in the title skyscraper. The hero’s wife and Xia have a catfight that’s very brief, and the villainess gets arrested. That’s right – not even a deserved karmic death for this cold-blooded killer. She’s the only baddie to survive, which smacks of double gender standards.