On the podium of the 95th Academy Awards, actress Michelle Yeoh won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the movie "Instantaneous Universe", which is highly anticipated. For Michelle Yeoh and all the Asian actors, winning this award is exciting. After nearly 40 years in the industry, Michelle Yeoh's long-cherished flame has finally been set ablaze.
Reporter Song said
Rehearsed for 40 years
In the past few months of awards season, Michelle Yeoh has been the "big shot" that all Hollywood media have rushed to cover. She has won many blockbuster awards such as Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy Film at the 80th Golden Globe Awards and Best Actress at the 53rd Screen Actors Guild Awards, and she was also selected as the "Idol of the Year" in 2022 by Time Magazine, and was the first Asian actress to receive this honor. Throughout the awards season's thank-you speech, Michelle Yeoh frequently mentioned the word "seen." "This award is not just given to me, but to every girl like me," she said. Thank you for giving us a place, we need to be seen, we need to be heard. ”
"Instantaneous Universe" made Michelle Yeoh win the award softly, "Xiulian" won her first Oscar for Best Actress, becoming the first Asian/Chinese actress in Oscar history, Michelle Yeoh has repeatedly expressed her deep love for the role of Xiulian in many interviews.
In the imaginative and strong comedy of the plot of "Instantaneous Universe", Michelle Yeoh's Xiulian makes people deeply empathetic and is a very powerful and profound role. Like many middle-aged women, she is in a difficult situation, her husband wants to divorce her, her daughter is rebellious and alienated, her father is dissatisfied with her everywhere, and the laundry she runs has all kinds of troubles. However, in other universes, "Xiulian" can have a different life trajectory, becoming a kung fu superstar, a chef or even a stone. "She used all her strength to keep her family together and try to prove to her family that she was a successful person. I have seen Xiulian's shadow in many people, and I feel obligated to tell their stories. Michelle Yeoh said.
Michelle Yeoh lamented that "I have been waiting for the role of Xiulian for 40 years", and she once tearfully said that this is a role she has been waiting for for a long time and has "rehearsed for a lifetime".
The long transformation of "beating women"
For Michelle Yeoh, martial arts has been a screen feature for her for a long time, and it is a label that she constantly wants to break free. Michelle Yeoh's film career began in 1983, when she became the winner of "Miss Malaysia" and entered the entertainment industry in Hong Kong, China. When she first appeared on the screen, she filmed a commercial film with Jackie Chan, and then she filmed her first movie "Owl and Dumbo", Michelle Yeoh cooperated with Sammo Hung and Lin Zixiang to play a female teacher, at that time the fight scenes were also covered by the actors, Michelle Yeoh's soft and weak character style is more like a "jade girl", and there is no "beating girl" color on her body.
After that, Michelle Yeoh studied with Sammo Hung and filmed her first play "Royal Senior Sister" at the age of 23, but married Pan Disheng, who discovered herself, at the age of 26, and chose to retire at the peak of her career. However, the marriage lasted only 3 years, and after saying goodbye to married life in 1992, she turned around and plunged into action movies for her life. The first scene filmed by the comeback is "Police Story 3" with Jackie Chan, in this play, Michelle Yeoh is the heroic and sassy policewoman Yang Jianhua, who personally completed stunts including jumping on the top of the train on a motorcycle, which shocked Jackie Chan who cooperated with him. In 1993 alone, Michelle Yeoh took on six action movies, and high-intensity fighting scenes made injuries commonplace, and Michelle Yeoh once said in a joking tone that three people in Hong Kong were blacklisted by insurance companies that year: Jackie Chan, Jet Li and her.
In the 1995 movie "Akin's Story", she played the extraordinary and hard-working female warrior Akin, an action scene that fell from a height and almost paralyzed Michelle Yeoh. It is also in this movie that Xu Anhua sees that Michelle Yeoh not only has the toughness of "beating women", but also has abundant inner emotions. Later, in Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", Michelle Yeoh not only contributed to the flowing martial arts action scenes, but also shined because of the charm other than "beating women".
Michelle Yeoh constantly "breaks the game" in her character image and goes to Hollywood to find new opportunities. But for a long time, Hollywood didn't bring Michelle Yeoh works where she could showcase her talents. She participated in "The Mummy 3" and "Guardians of the Galaxy 2", and also served as a producer and producer of some films, until she played the role of the rich "evil mother-in-law" in "Crazy Rich Asians" that swept the 76th Golden Globe Awards, and was able to show her surprising charm in the limited space to play. After 40 years from film to the success of "Instantaneous Universe", Michelle Yeoh has truly become the "big heroine" in Hollywood's mind.
Qilu Evening News, 2023.03.17, A09 edition