While she is now more commonly recognised for her Hollywood roles as Madame Morrible in the Wicked films and Eleanor Young in Crazy Rich Asians, I will always remember Michelle Yeoh from Supercop, an old Hong Kong cop movie from the 1990s that my dad used to play on repeat. Growing up in Asia before the rise and globalisation of Korean, Chinese or Japanese dramas and media around the world, you didn’t often see people who looked like you on the big screen.
So for a young girl like me, seeing someone like Michelle Yeoh, who not only got to star alongside big movie names like Jackie Chan, but who was also Malaysian and of Chinese descent like me, truly made me feel represented in the media. It made me feel seen and heard. And especially since she always portrayed strong female characters, ones that could really put up a fight and lived up to her title as the “Queen of Martial Arts”. As such, you could only imagine the joy I had when I watched her win an Oscar at the Academy Awards 2023 for her role in the Hollywood Everything Everywhere All at Once. I cannot not deny how proud I had been that day, to see how far she had in her career.
To see her rise above cinematic stereotypes and break boundaries in Hollywood. She was such an inspiration to me growing up, and seeing what she has achieved today has only continued to inspire me within my own career to keep going forth and aim higher.
-Janice Y