When Michelle Yeoh represented Malaysia at the Miss World 1983 at the age of 20, she had already been a ballet veteran with 16 years of dance experience. She placed 18th at the pageant and won first place at the Miss Moomba International the following year. Though never formally trained in martial arts, the grace and sense of ease she had in her movement, thanks to years of dancing, caught the attention of action movie producers in Asia.
In 1984, the dancer was thrust into her first role in the Hong Kong film The Owl vs. Bumbo with no martial arts training and relied on agility, balance, tempo and rhythm from her decade and a half of ballet.
Starring alongside action icon Sammo Hung, Yeoh was intrigued by the dynamic action choreography. This first film steered her towards the path of an action star and opened doors for her to learn various kung fu disciplines with some of the biggest names in Chinese martial arts and Hong Kong cinema. Starring in films with titles like Butterfly and Sword (1983), Tai Chi Master (1993), and Wing Chun (1994) required her to train rigorously across wushu disciplines from both Northern and Southern China.
She studied under several Chinese martial artists, including Tai Chi master Chu King Hung, and became a rare face in the male-dominated action film industry in Hong Kong. Yeoh worked with different teams that supplied the city’s action stars and stunt people, including the Jackie Chan Stunt Team, in hits like Police Story 3 and Supercop.
“It's so important for me to do my own stunts. The sense of achievement is so immense,” she revealed in a 2008 interview with The Guardian.
She went on to do 17 action films before landing the role of Wei Lin in the 1997 film Tomorrow Never Dies, starring alongside Pierce Brosnan. Playing a Bond girl proved pivotal in that it introduced Yeoh to a western audience beyond those who saw her as a female version of Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan from her Chinese-language roles.
With that recognition, she thoughtfully curated her next move to bring attention back to what she loved most: action sequences with heavy martial arts influences. She took on the role of Yu Shu Lien in director Ang Lee’s 2000 movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, playing one half of a love-torn, sword-yielding Qing Dynasty couple with Chow Yuen Fat.
Decades before Hollywood began having serious conversations about diversity and inclusivity, Yeoh had already been quietly walking the walk. “The reason why I decided to wait two years after the Bond movie, and to work with Ang Lee in a martial arts movie, is because I really believe that this genre deserves more respect and dignity than it's ever been given,” Yeoh said in a 2000 BBC interview.
The film was a critical and commercial success both at home and overseas. It marked the start of an incredible two-decade journey in Hollywood that saw her cast in a diverse range of roles, from an ageing performer in the 2005 Memoirs of a Geisha, and warrior alongside fellow Asian action star Jet Li in The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, to a fortune-telling goat in the animated film Kung Fu Panda 2.
In the 2010s, she began landing roles that transcend cultural and ethnic boundaries while still showcasing her prowess as a martial artist. She joined the Star Trek saga as Emperor Philippa Georgio, and two had separate roles in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol: 2 (2017) and Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021).
And still, the multi-faceted Yeoh proved she had a grasp on acting beyond kicks and punches. In the 2018 all-Asian cast Hollywood blockbuster Crazy Rich Asians, Yeoh played tiger mother-in-law Eleanor Young with sensitivity and nuance beyond the toughness audiences saw in her Crouching Tiger or Bond girl performances.
Her Oscar-winning performance in Everything Everywhere All At Once is a culmination of everything she’s done at every turn of her career. The best actress winner weaved the heartache of a struggling matriarch, an exhausted mother, wife and daughter, with that of a keyboard-wielding hero fighting to save the universe, into the tax-troubled laundromat owner Evelyn Wang. As with many of her past roles, she supported the emotional dimension of her character with the confidence she carries in her movement and her martial arts-trained body.
This role of a lifetime would not have been possible if not for Yeoh’s unique martial arts journey and her determination to push wushu into the forefront beyond the stereotypical 1990s cop-and-robber genre.