1984: Advertisement for Gee LaRoche watches
Michelle Yeoh’s first appearance on the screen was in a commercial for Gee LeRoche watches. She was cast in the commercial after she was crowned Miss Malaysia at the age of 20 and competed in the Miss World competition. In the commercial, she rides a scooter and causes Jackie Chan to get confused and fall off his bike. This starting point marked the following. Eight years later, the combination of Jackie Chan and a two-wheeled vehicle would catapult her to the next stage of her career.
In between she began appearing in Hong Kong martial arts films and became known for performing her own stunts. Unlike most stars of the genre, she did not study martial arts, but relied on her experience in dance. Yeo began studying ballet at the age of four, and continued until her graduate studies at the Royal Academy of Dance in Great Britain. Only a spinal injury prevented her from becoming a professional dancer, sending her to perform dangerous stunts in films. According to her, she still practices every morning in bed and in the bathroom.
1985: Yes, Madam
In her third film, Yeo was cast in the lead role as a police inspector with short hair, and together with the American martial artist Cynthia Rothrock beat up a lot of bad men. It will take years for this idea to reach Hollywood. Watch the attached clip to see Yeo do a pageant on a grand piano (as mentioned, she studied ballet) while she kills a man with a mustache:
1992: Police Story 3: Supercop
In 1988 Yao got married and retired from acting to focus on starting a family. Four years later, when she found out that she could not bear children, she divorced and returned to the screen in the third in a series of police films starring the famous Jackie Chan. She was the first woman Chan let fight alongside him (he claimed action was not for women). Yeo played an Interpol inspector, and in the most memorable scene in the film, she rode a motorcycle and jumped with it on the roof of a moving train. As mentioned, she really did it, just like you see in the movie.
“Supercop” was released in the US with an English dub four years late, but Quentin Tarantino, who is known to be a fan of Hong Kong martial arts films, saw it earlier, and has spoken on numerous occasions about being Yeo’s number one fan. He said he conceived the character that plays Uma. Thurman in “Kill Bill” (2003) was inspired by Yeo’s appearance in the film. When Yeo asked him why he didn’t cast her in a film inspired by her, he replied “Who would believe that Uma Thurman can beat you (kick your ass)”.
1997: Tomorrow Forever
When James Bond #18 hit the screens, there was a lot of talk about the fact that for the first time it had a Bond girl on par with 007. In her 19th film, and the first in English, Yao played an agent of the Chinese government who cooperates with Bond in his fight against a malicious media mogul. At the age of 35, she got to show a western audience how high she can kick (even in this expensive production, she performed her own stunts). She sat on a motorcycle again, but this time she was handcuffed to Pierce Brosnan, and hugged Bond as he did the wild ride through the streets and on rooftops, while she tried not to get in the way. In the end they also kissed.
2000: Tiger, Dragon
It was Ang Lee’s Mandarin-speaking film that revealed Yeo’s abilities as a dramatic actress as well and earned her her first BAFTA nomination in the Best Actress category. As a Malay and English speaker at home, she learned the language phonetically especially for the beauty of the historical sword films released from China to the West. Yeo played the friend and widow of a legendary warrior’s best friend (Chao Yin Pat). Alongside jaw-dropping action scenes where the heroes float in the air tied to invisible cables, the film has a mature, sad and painfully understated love story. “Tiger, Dragon” was one of the few to receive Oscar nominations in both the Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film categories. It was a big box office hit, turning Yao into a legend.
2005: Memoirs of a Geisha
Yao, Gong Li and Zhang Deze Yi, three stars of Chinese origin, were cast in Japanese roles in the sloppy Hollywood adaptation of Arthur Golden’s bestseller. why? Because the producers claimed that there were no suitable Japanese actresses. The casting caused widespread outrage, in the US, Japan and China, where Zhang was declared an “embarrassment to China”, and the film was banned. Yao played an old geisha who trains novice geisha in the film, giving it a degree of respectability, but it will not be remembered as one of the best films its.
2011: Advertisement for the cosmetics company Guerlain
In 2011, Yao was chosen to serve as an ambassador for the French cosmetics company Guerlain, and starred in several commercials for the company’s skin care products. It is not unusual for screen stars to promote beauty products. It’s a little rarer when it happens at the age of 49. Contrary to her image as an action star, Yeo is here back to her starting point as a glamorous beauty queen. In the same year, she also gave her voice to the character of the old fortune teller in “Kung Fu Panda 2”.
2018: rich in surprise
The romantic comedy-drama starring Constance Wu and Henry Goulding took Hollywood by surprise with $240 million in revenue, despite being cast exclusively with Asian actors. This has not happened since Wayne Wang’s “The Circle of Fortune”, which was a great success in 1993, but did not change the visibility of Chinese in Hollywood cinema. Yeo plays the groom’s mother, who expects him to return to manage the family’s real estate business in Singapore, and thinks that the bride he has chosen is too American in the sense that she will want to fulfill her dreams and not devote herself entirely to the family. Yeo excels in the role of the elegant lady who sends arrows dipped in lip candy towards her intended bride The dramatic focus of the film is the battle of the minds that the two have with each other, and they are much more interesting than the beautification they are fighting for.
2021: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Marvel’s first film about a Chinese superhero was a great success, even though its Canadian star, Simo Liu, paled next to his Asian colleagues – Tony Long and Michelle Yeoh, who at this point it seems impossible to produce an Asian Hollywood film without her. Yeo plays the protagonist’s aunt, who serves as the guardian of the magical village of Ta Lo, and teaches her nephew some important lessons. This was not her first role in the Marvel Universe. In 2017, she briefly appeared in “Guardians of the Galaxy 2” as the space pirate Alta Ogurd (who in the original comics was depicted as blonde). The film’s director James Gunn cast Yeo due to his sympathy for the films she made in Hong Kong in the 1990s. Now that he’s overseeing the next round of DC Comics movies, he might cast her in a more substantial role.
2022: Everything everywhere at once
After 40 years of a unique career that made her an icon of coolness, at the age of 60 Yeo won the role of her life. The initial version of the script was written for Jackie Chan, but when the Daniels decided to make the hero the heroine, they were clear about who they wanted for the lead role. Unlike the larger-than-life characters she played, Yeo plays a simple woman – an immigrant who owns a laundromat, who once had big dreams (among other things, she dreamed of being a kung fu star, like Michelle Yeo), but her life went into a loop. During a visit to the income tax offices, she discovers that the universe she lives in is part of a multiverse, and that for some reason only she is the one who can stop the entity that threatens all universes. In one of those universes she did become a glamorous kung fu star, but in the end she realizes that her disappointing life as a mother and wife was wonderful despite everything.
Yeo is desperate, and funny, and annoying, and exciting, and still kicks ass, and for that she won an Oscar. One can only hope that more interesting lead roles will be found for the talented 60-year-old Chinese woman. It’s been a year since “everything everywhere at once” hit the screens, and it still hasn’t happened. In the near future, we will see her as the director of the University of Witchcraft in the musical “Sinister” and as a scientist in “Avatar 3”. In both cases these are small supporting roles in big films.