Pearl (Payback)

Pearl (Lucy Liu) is an antagonist in the 1999 film "Payback".

Pearl when first seen in the film is the main "squeeze" of the main bad guy, Val Resnick (Gregg Henry). She is a prostitute who is also a dominatrix. She wears leather and fishnet stockings.

Resnick is likely the only client that she allows to hit her back, both because that's the key to their arrangement of quid pro quo sadism, and because he just likes abusing girls. However, Pearl always gets the last blow.

Resnick is a gangster who is being tracked down by Porter (Mel Gibson), who betrayed him following a $140,000 heist from the local Chinese triads. In order to find him, Porter enlists the help of Rosie, a call girl, who is affiliated with the Outfit, a criminal gang.

After locating Val, Porter began interogating him and Pearl happed to be on top during a session and unable to go anywhere. Porter is about to beat him, and Pearl decides to do it for him. Porter looks on, as Pearl beats the crap out of him.

Porter later kills Resnick in Rosie's apartment when Porter catches him abusing her. Then he proceeds to kill three members of the Outfit's gang, who have been sent to kill him.

Later in the film, we see that she has vast connections to the Triad, a Chinese criminal organization, that makes trouble for Porter in his attempt to reclaim his stolen money. Porter gets involved in a shootout with the Triad, Pearl and Arthur Stegman, a crime boss of the Outfit. All of Pearl's men are killed, but despite having her at gunpoint, Porter spares Pearl's life and walks away.

Porter proceeds to blow up his captors, save Rose, and steal the $70,000 the mob owed him.