Feature Stories: Michelle Yeoh1 min read

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For years, Michelle Yeoh has lived and breathed the iconic Burmese freedom fighter Aung San Suu Kyi. In this exclusive interview, the actress speaks candidly to Mark Tjhung about how her controversial new movie The Lady changed her life forever.

As she swivels on her make-up stool while elegantly attired in a leggy champagne one-piece, Michelle Yeoh hardly resembles a kung fu movie star.  She bubbles with an exuberant air, laughs in a way that shakes her tiny frame and, perhaps most strikingly of all, even at the age of 49, radiates a youthful grace – all characteristics that suggest ‘beauty queen’ far more than ‘stunt starlet’.  It was decades ago that the Malaysian-born actress was first branded with the ‘action girl’ tag. She’s since been labelled as ‘Hong Kong’s Martial Arts Mistress’ and even ‘Asia’s Queen of Action’. Indeed, her breakout movies, from 1992’s Police Story 3 to The Heroic Trio and Yuen Woo-ping’s Tai Chi Master, all possessed a combative twist; and the films which propelled her to global fame, her motorcycling Bond Girl role in Tomorrow Never Dies and Ang Lee’s elegant, wildly-acclaimed Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – followed a distinctly ‘physical’ path. Yet in recent years, Yeoh has taken on more expansive, diverse roles outside the butt-kicking genre and somewhat, ironically, her latest role – easily the most important of her career, is about as non-violent as it gets.

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via TimeOut Hong Kong