5 movies that made Michelle Yeoh one of the great action stars
Michelle Yeoh is having a moment, and we’re all better for it. Yeoh is the star of the new “multiverse masterpiece” Everything Everywhere All At Once, and recently brought her movie star charisma and considerable action movie bona fides into a rich new role to Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Crazy Rich Asians, and Star Trek: Discovery. Up next: James Cameron’s Avatar sequels and Blood Origin, Netflix’s Witcher prequel series. It’s a great time to be a fan of one of the world’s most captivating movie stars.
Before Everything Everywhere, before her other recent successes, before even Crouching Tiger Hidden, Dragon and Tomorrow Never Dies, Yeoh was one of the best action stars in the world. She starred in some classic action movies from arguably the best era in the genre’s storied history: 1980s-’90s Hong Kong.
After representing Malaysia at the 1983 Miss World pageant, Yeoh first caught the attention of the Hong Kong movie industry when she was in a Guy Laroche commercial with Jackie Chan. She went on to perform in about a dozen Hong Kong action movies as Michelle Khan, performing many of her own stunts and generally kicking all sorts of ass, using her skills as a former ballet dancer to seamlessly transition to being one of the world’s best screen fighters.
With Everything Everywhere All At Once hitting a wider theatrical release this weekend, what better time to revisit some of the early classics from one of our great screen presences?
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What it is: Yeoh’s first opportunity as a movie lead is also one of the standout action movies of the 1980s. Yeoh teams up with world champion martial artist Cynthia Rothrock as her co-star in this movie that is often cited as kicking off the “girls with guns” subgenre
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