How Michelle Yeoh went from ballet dancer to martial arts star – and the three 1980s Hong Kong action movies that made her name
- Despite having no martial arts training, Yeoh’s background in ballet dancing gave her the bodily control and flexibility to allow her to play tough action roles
- She gives some of her most impressive performances in three 1980s films – Royal Warriors (aka Police Assassins), Yes, Madam! and Magnificent Warriors
Michelle Yeoh is an anomaly when it comes to martial arts stars – how can someone be so amazing at kung fu without any formal training?
Yeoh, who was born in Malaysia, never studied martial arts, and her first love was ballet. She planned to embark on a career as a dance choreographer after finishing a dance degree in the UK, having dropped any thoughts of acting after she experienced stage fright on a drama course at college.
Yeoh’s film career started by chance. A friend in Hong Kong was dining with businessman Dickson Poon, co-founder of D&B Films with Sammo Hung Kam-bo, and Poon mentioned he was having difficulty finding an actress to appear with Jackie Chan in a commercial he was filming to promote his jewellery business.
The friend suggested Yeoh, who had won the Miss Malaysia beauty contest, and she flew to Hong Kong and got the job. This led to a contract with D&B Films, and a non-action role in the 1984 action-comedy The Owl Versus Bombo.
Watching Hung choreograph the action sequences, Yeoh realised that the bodily control she had learned during her dance training, and her dancer’s flexibility, would allow her to play martial arts roles, and she pressed Poon to let her perform in action films. (Yeoh and Poon were married between 1988 and 1992.)
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“In Hong Kong, I’m delighted to say that people have happily accepted seeing a woman throwing guys around,” she said in the Post in 1987.
“Until I came along, the market was totally monopolised by men. They were the stars, and women were just flowerpots – something pretty to look at. Women have been thrilled by my success, and I’m amazed to say that the guys have taken it in their stride.”
Yeoh had no formal martial arts training for the film, learning on the set from the choreographers and by training in a gym alongside veteran action stars like Dick Wei.
“I don’t have a particular style,” she told me in 1993. “I’m versatile – I have picked up many different styles, and I can do a lot of different moves,” she said.
Yes, Madam! (1985)
“It was tough at first, but I am by nature quite strong,” Yeoh told the Hong Kong Film Archive. “When I have to learn something new, I work at it. I succeeded thanks to the coaching of my martial arts masters Lam Ching-ying and Corey Yuen.”
Yeoh says she picked up the martial arts routines quickly, but Yuen constantly said she needed to hit with more power. “I could imitate the moves,” she told the Screen Actors Guild, “but one thing that has to come from you is the power.
“It’s not about how hard you hit, it’s about the speed you go and the point of retraction,” she said, pointing out that filming a fight scene is mostly about trying to appear powerful without actually hurting your opponent.
Royal Warriors (also known as Police Assassins) (1986)
“In Police Assassins I was half-paralysed because of an injury to my lower back,” Yeoh said in her interview with the Post. “I also dislocated my shoulder and tore ligaments in my leg. We know that every stunt we do is possible, but we also know that they are dangerous.”
Magnificent Warriors (1987)
There’s no let-up in the action in this warlord-era action-drama. Yeoh plays an adventurer, clad in a leather flying jacket, who teams up with Derek Yee Tung-sing and Richard Ng Yiu-hon to save a town from Japanese invaders.
Yeoh, whose performance flips between martial arts and stunts, knocked her vertebrae out of place during the shoot, and had to wear a neck brace for the whole film, only removing it for the close-ups. “After that, I had to take six months off doing any martial arts after severing an artery in my leg. But I always knew what I was in for,” she said.
Although there are big stunt scenes involving explosions, motor vehicles, and a biplane, the martial arts – choreographed by Stephen Tung Wai and actor Fung Hak-on – are not neglected. In his book It’s All About the Style, Blake Matthews notes how Magnificent Warriors highlights Yeoh’s skill at handling a rope dart, even though she has no formal training.
“The best rope dart in a Chinese movie that we’ve seen in terms of application and choreography is performed by Michelle Yeoh … Yeoh performs just about all the techniques of the rope dart you can think of like an old pro … Yeoh’s coordination is simply awesome,” he writes.
