CANNES -- The Malaysian-born, Chinese movie star Michelle Yeoh faced a huge obstacle when she tackled her role in Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

"I never learned Chinese," she said yesterday of growing up in an English-speaking household in Malaysia before moving to Hong Kong, where she became a martial arts superstar.

"Apart from my own name, I don't read the language. I learned to speak better when I first moved out to Hong Kong, but that was Cantonese."

Crouching Tiger, Lee's first Chinese-language movie in six years, is in Mandarin.

"And that is very different and very difficult. I learned each word, individually. I had a dialogue coach. And it's like Shakespearean English. It's in the Ching dynasty so it's very formal. Half the time, Chow (her male co-star and on-screen romantic interest is Chow Yun Fat) and I would sit there after a scene and say: 'Now what did you just say?' "

That made Crouching Tiger -- one of the most popular films at Cannes this year -- an amazing contrast to doing her 007 flick, Tomorrow Never Dies, with Pierce Brosnan.

"It's like heaven and earth. It's like the north pole and the south pole. The Bond movie, it was fun. There is a genre there. It already has its own packaging. It's out there. You can be campish with it. But, with Ang Lee, it's a completely different ball game."

Crouching Tiger combines martial arts, ancient history and politics, romance, adventure, humour and tragedy. Which is why it should be in competition.

"But I don't really care," Lee said. "It seems to be important to some of the crew and the cast because of the prestige, but it doesn't matter to me at all. Winning the Palme d'Or is not of concern. Being here in Cannes to launch the film internationally is important."