Amazon Chaser / Animated Films

• In The Book of Life, Manolo is very impressed by Maria's fighting skills. See his reaction here.
• Strange Magic has the Bog King making quite the awed face when Marianne punches him in the face. He is also impressed by her ability to hold her own in a duel with him and says so.
• Disney:
  • Aladdin: A downplayed example in this case. Aladdin was already in love with Jasmine the first moment he saw her, but this moment has him look surprisingly and pleasingly impressed by her feat in acrobatics. So it more cements his feelings.
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame: The reason why Phoebus went after Esmeralda. Clearly he was interested before, but when he saw her standing up to Frollo and kicking some ass... Yeah.
    • This is highlighted when Esmeralda is nicely taking care of the guards Frollo sends after her. Phoebus ducks a metal helmet that she flings at him, Frisbee-style, looks totally love-struck, and comments "What a woman!"
  • In Mulan, Shang is noticeably smitten with Mulan after she saves the Emperor from the Huns and it's heavily implied that he was confused about his attraction towards her while she was disguised as Ping.
  • In Toy Story 2, Buzz's interest in Cowgirl Jessie is clearly piqued when she uses a Hot Wheels car and track to catapult herself to the doorknob of Andy's room to let out Buster, causing Buzz's wings to, um, pop out.
  • WALL-E loves EVE, an explorer droid with incredible strength and a powerful blaster to boot.
  • Cars 3 gives us a rare female example. Natalie Certain is absolutely blown away by Cruz Ramírez when she wins the Florida 500.
  • In Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension, the Alternate Universe version of Candace faces off against a swarm of Mecha-Mooks at one point, while wielding only a staff. She utterly demolishes the robots in a matter of seconds, prompting this bit of dialogue:
    Buford-2: I am so in love with her right now.
  • Wreck-It Ralph: Felix falls for Space Marine Sergeant Calhoun. She's rough, tough, and knows her way around a gun, in contrast to his niceness and innocence; their first meeting involves her knocking him to the ground and almost shooting him as he's admiring her. Later on, when they are both stuck in a dire situation in which she is forced to batter him repeatedly in order to escape, he smiles through each blow and compliments her strength as she's hitting him.
  • In Frozen, Kristoff was dismissive of Princess Anna at first. The first spark appears when she clobbers an attacking wolf with a lute.
  • Downplayed with Tony in Incredibles 2. He did initially run after seeing Violet exposed in her supersuit, but it was only out of confusion. He actually feels really bad about her having to keep that a secret, and still has enough security to date her despite what happened. Too bad he got Laser-Guided Amnesia though...
  • Ratatouille: Linguini shows some interest in Colette after she demonstrates her toughness to him. His immediate reaction to her pinning his sleeve to a counter with several knives is a clearly infatuated "Wow!".
• DreamWorks:
  • Shrek: After Shrek sees Fiona beat up Robin Hood and his merry men, he starts to fall in love with her.
  • Kung Fu Panda: Po intensely admires Tigress' martial arts skill as an Ascended Fanboy.
  • Monsters vs. Aliens: Mad Scientist Dr Cockroach is noticeably smitten with Susan after she defeats the giant alien robot. Given his less-than-stellar looks size and species this has a certain element of squick.
  • In How to Train Your Dragon (2010), Hiccup has a major crush on Astrid who is introduced assisting the adults with a dragon raid. Her Gaussian Girl effect is caused by the flames she unflinchingly walks away from. This is followed by a close up of Hiccup's awestruck face.
  • In The Croods, Eep is almost the same height of Guy, possibly twice his weight, impossibly fast and nimble and more than capable of kicking his ass (and does so repeatedly). Guy is absolutely fascinated with her.
  • The Prince of Egypt: When Tzipporah is first presented as a concubine at the palace banquet, the then-Prince Moses takes a real liking to her feisty attitude. After he helps her escape from the palace without being seen by the guards, Moses follows her to the edge of the city and watches her ride off into the desert, completely smitten.
• Illumination:
  • In Despicable Me 2, Gru becomes enamored with superspy, Lucy. They have a Love at First Punch meeting, he was in awe of her kicking open a door, but his Love Epiphany came when she knocked out his obnoxious date via moose tranquilizer.
  • In The Secret Life of Pets, Max is completely oblivious to Gidget's crush on him for most of the movie... until he sees her single handedly kicking ass and taking names against Snowball's minions during the climax. He's so dumbstruck that he immediately develops a crush of his own on her.
  • In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Mario develops a subtle romantic spark for Princess Peach partly due to her Action Girl status.
• Justice League: War: Superman is attracted to Wonder Woman after seeing her in action. Diana for her part, is instantly smitten with Clark after seeing him kick ass. The two are a Battle Couple in the sequel, Justice League: Throne of Atlantis.
  • This is given a dark twist in Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox when Aquaman's penchant as one of these causes him to become smitten and cheat on Mera with Wonder Woman. The resulting infidelity indirectly results in Mera's death and sparks the war that's been decimating the planet for several years.

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