I finally got around to seeing Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest last night, and I have only one gripe: cross-dressed Keira Knightley and the swampy voodoo priestess aside, where are the women? (I know, the headline was way too easy.) Pirates 1 had a feisty female pirate, but no such luck here. I want to see someone like Cheng I Sao, who’s featured in our current issue:

Cheng I Sao was eventually responsible for nearly all the piracy in the [South China Sea] and her fleet exceeded the size of many countries’ navies. She also expanded the scope of the business, branching out from simple attack-and-pillage jobs to protection scheems, blackmail, and extortion. … [Her] most famous laws applied to the taking of female prisoners. Ugly women were returned to shore, free of charge. Attractive captives were auctioned off to the crew.

In Pirates 3, Chow-Yun Fat plays a new villain, Sao Feng. He’s supposedly based on a real Chinese pirate, Chang Pao — who just happens to have been Cheng I Sao’s partner in love and crime. Here’s hoping Sao Feng will have an equally swashbuckling wife.