| On August 6 1962, Yeoh Choo-Kheng was born in Ipoh,
Malaysia. She was an active and athletic youth, taking Tae Kwon
Do and ballet lessons and eventually graduating with a Bachelor's
Degree in dance and drama from the Royal Academy of Dance in
London. When she returned to Malaysia in 1983, she found out that
her mother
had secretly entered her in the Miss Malaysia competition, a title
which she won along with the Miss Mooba title of Melbourne. She was
offered to star in a watch commercial
together with Jackie Chan and this proved to be the start of her
acting career. She met Dickson Poon, a Hong Kong billionaire and did
about half a dozen movies for his company. The two had become a pair
however, and when they married in 1988 he made her quit her
acting. The marriage only lasted until 1992 (they are supposed to
still be friends), and Michelle returned to the screen in Police
Story III: Supercop, the Jackie Chan movie which became her major
breakthrough.
In 1993 she did a total of six movies (Tai Chi Master together
with Jet Li, among others), but had some problems with injuries
during the following years. She does most (but not all) of her stunts
herself has suffered a lot of minor injuries like torn ligaments,
and dislocated shoulders. The worst happened during the
shooting of Ah Kam, when she dropped 18 feet and landed on her
head (fortunatly ending up with only a cracked rib).
She was choosen by People Magazine as one of the 50 most beatiful
people in the world in 1997, the same year which she got her big
international hit with the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never
Dies. Recently, she's starred in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Upon starting her filming career in Hong Kong, she went under the name
Yeung Chi-King, which is a rough transliteration of her
name into
Cantonese. Later on, the film company insisted that she needed
something a little more western-sounding, so some of her movie parts
are credited to a Michelle Khan. However, when she made
Tomorrow Never Dies, she reverted back to her old family name,
becoming Michelle Yeoh.
Although having taken both Tae Kwon Do and Wu-Shu lessons, she
does not consider herself a martial artist. In her movies she uses a
mix of different styles blended with dancing, and this seems to work
out well...
Finally, a list of her movies so far, blatantly ripped from The
Internet Movie Database:
- Wo hu zang long (2000), aka Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
- Moonlight Express (1999)
- Secrets of 007: The James Bond Files (1997), (TV)
- Tomorrow Never Dies (1997)
- Song jia huang chao (1997), aka The Soong Sisters
- Ah Kam (1996), aka The Stunt Woman
- Qi jin gang (1994), aka Wonder Seven (1994)
- Yong Chun (1994), aka Wing Chun (1994) (USA)
- Chao ji ji hua (1993), aka Supercop 2
- Tai ji Zhang San Feng (1993), aka Tai Chi Master
- Wu xia qi gong zhu (1993), aka Seven Princesses
- Xian dai hao xia zhuan (1993), aka Heroic Trio 2: Executioners
- Xin liu xing hu die jian (1993), aka Comet, Butterfly and Sword
- Jing cha gu shi III: Chao ji jing cha (1992), aka Police Story
III: Supercop
- Tong fong sam hop (1992), aka Heroic Trio
- Tong tian da dao (1987), aka Easy Money
- Zhong hua zhan shi (1987), aka Yes, Madam III
- Wong ga jin si (1986), aka Ultra Force
- Xia ri fu xing (1985), aka The Target
- Huang gu shi jie (1985), aka Yes, Madam
- Mao tou ying yu xiao fei xiang (1984), aka Owl vs. Dumbo (1984)
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