A cat whipped into shape

In July’s hotly anticipated action adventure “Catwoman,” Halle Berry plays Patience Philips, a shy artist who is murdered for witnessing acts of corporate espionage. In true comic-book style, a magical cat brings her back from the dead -- and in the process, gives her super-feline strength, speed and agility. Seeking to avenge her own death, Batman’s former nemesis -- now reinvented as a super-heroine -- purrs softly but cracks a big whip. “This is her weapon of choice,” says Alex Green, whip coach on the film. “She keeps it tied to her belt and doesn’t use any other weaponry. And she fights like a cat -- scratches you if she has to.”

Berry, who had never used a whip, underwent a crash course, working with Green 90 minutes a day for three weeks using custom-designed whips made of Australian kangaroo leather. The actress learned how to catch, cut, wrap and fight with the whip -- and in the process, nearly caused herself bodily harm more than once, says Green, an Australian whip master with whip stunts in some 35 films to his credit. “Within three weeks, she was as good as anyone I’ve ever taught.”

In the movie’s initial whip encounter, Catwoman pursues a thug named Armando through a nightclub during a costume ball. She grabs a whip from a guest, cracks it loudly and when Armando escapes out the back door, she pursues him into the alley where he pulls out a pistol. “She does some very fast moves with her whip-fighting technique and takes the gun away from him,” Green says. “It’s very delicate, like fly fishing. It’s all in the wrist.”

When she leaves Armando in the alley, in the end, Catwoman uses her whip to spin him into a wall, knocking him unconscious. “She leaves down the alley and you see her flipping the whip back and forth in the shadows,” Green says. “And you realize what the whip represents: her tail.”