Though a back injury ended her career as a ballerina, she returned to her home country to be crowned Miss Malaysia of 1983. From there, she appeared in a television commercial with Jackie Chan which caught the attention of a fledgling film production company called D&B Films.

Michelle Yeoh acted in bit parts in a number of forgettable films until her breakout role in the girls-with-guns action-comedy Yes, Madam! (1985) alongside noted kung-fu femme fatal Cynthia Rothrock. Though she did not know any martial arts before signing on to the film, Michelle Yeoh reportedly spent nine hours a day in the gym, working out and learning to take a punch. She had come a long way from the Royal Academy of Dance. Within the first five minutes of Madam, Yeoh emasculates a flasher and wastes a quartet of thieves. Yeoh immediately became one of Hong Kong's biggest female action stars and was soon appearing in films at a dizzying rate. Always performing her own stunts, she teamed up again with Rothrock in the kung-fu fest Royal Warriors (1986), and she starred in a violent Thomas Crown Afffair remake, Easy Money (1987). While making the Indiana Jones-style action epic Magnificent Warriors (1987), she got engaged to department store tycoon and studio head Dickson Poon (the D in D&B Films). Taking the lead of earlier martial arts divas such as Angela Mao, Yeoh retired from the movie biz in 1988 and retreated to a life of quiet domesticity. It didn't last long. The marriage was not a happy one (the Hong Kong press reported -- falsely it turns out -- that Poon suffered two broken ribs after a well-placed kick) and it ended in divorce in 1992.

In 1992, Yeoh became the most popular and highest paid actress in Asia with the release of Police Story III: Supercop, co-starring Jackie Chan. This film went on to become the top-grossing film in Asia that year. In the next two years, Yeoh made a total of eight pictures, including the cult classics The Heroic Trio and Tai-Chi Master.

In 1995, expanding her scope, she starred in two dramatic films in a row: the periodic epic The Soong Sisters, for which she was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress trophy by the Hong Kong Film Awards, and Stuntwoman, directed by Ann Hui, the acclaimed director of Summer Snow. In 1997, Yeoh co-starred in the box-office hit Tomorrow Never Dies for MGM, which was to become the top-grossing Bond film to date.

The American release of Supercop caught the eyes of Western producers, and soon she was cast opposite Pierce Brosnan in the James Bond-epic Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). Once again, Yeoh's natural charisma, along with her effortless ability to dispatch bands of baddies, threatened to outclass the male lead. That same year, Yeoh was named one of People magazine's 50 sexiest people of the year. Back in Hong Kong, Yeoh received accolades not for her kung-fu abilities but for her acting skills in her role as Soong Ai-ling in the widely praised historical melodrama The Soong Sisters (1997).

In 2000 Yeoh fused the popular historical aspects of her previous work with an unmistakably modern aesthetic, again displaying her unyielding skills and speed in the wildly popular Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Teaming with international superstar Chow Yun Fat in an epic and gravity-defying quest to recover a stolen Excaliber-like sword named the Green Destiny, Yeoh cemented her status as an incredibly graceful fighter with the unusual ability to display a remarkable dramatic range as well. Michelle Yeoh is now producing her own films. She established Mythical Films, in partnership with the Hong Kong-based Media Asia.

Extras

Yes! Madam! Collection Set	Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon	The Soong Sisters	Silver Hawk [DTS]	Tomorrow Never Dies

Related links

Jackie Chan
Bruce Lee
Jet Li
Chow Yun-Fat
Stephen Chow
Andy Lau
Tony Leung
Zhang ZiYi
Gong Li
Maggie Cheung
Shu Qi

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