Friday, Dec. 19, 1997

by Melanie McFarland
Seattle Times staff reporter

Actress Michelle Yeoh's high-kicking Chinese secret agent Wai Lin, the hard-boiled heroine of "Tomorrow Never Dies," may be the toughest Bond girl since Pussy Galore. But while most of the actresses who play 007's undercover partners disappear into obscurity after the film is over, 34-year-old Yeoh's Hollywood star is steadily rising.

Though Asia recognized her beauty in 1983 when she won the title of Miss Malaysia, it took until 1997 for People magazine to add her name to its 50 Most Beautiful People list. Not everyone over here is slow on the uptake; her fans include Oliver Stone and Quentin Tarantino who, legend has it, bowed at her feet.

Mainstream America's introduction to Yeoh came with the 1996 American release of "Supercop," a re-release of the 1992 Stanley Tong film "Police Story 3: Supercop," in which she starred with Jackie Chan. Hollywood hyped Chan in the trailers and ads while barely mentioning Yeoh (billed as Michelle Khan, her English marquee name). Anyone who saw the film couldn't forget her jaw-dropping stunts, including a scissors kick that took out two men at once and her famous stunt where she rides a motorcycle onto a speeding train.

Like her heavily hyped Hong Kong cohort Chan, Yeoh brings to America a brand of action movie-making the likes of which most people have never seen.

She has a couple of other things in common with Chan, too: Yeoh is Asia's top female action star but unknown to the rest of the world. She also performs all of her own stunts. Just as Chan's soft spot in his skull from a hard fall in "Armor of God" is legendary to his fans, so is a recent back injury Yeoh sustained in her 1996 Hong Kong actioner, "The Story of Stuntwoman Ah Kam." In an unusual occurrence for the graceful actress, she bumbled a stunt and fell some 18 feet off a wall: "I landed on my head, and my neck went crack!" she said in a recent Time magazine interview. Kept immobile, weighted by cement, in the hospital, Yeoh returned to filming a month later.

An actress with an indomitable will, Yeoh Chu-Kheng grew up in Malaysia with Chinese, English-speaking parents. She eventually earned a bachelor of arts at the Royal Academy of Dance in London. After winning her beauty-queen title, Yeoh leapt into Hong Kong movies. Making a splash with just three films, she married Hong Kong movie tycoon Dickson Poon and retired. After their divorce, she made a comeback with "Supercop" and hasn't slowed down since.

Yeoh averages two films a year, except for 1993 when she made five. That's fewer than most Hong Kong action stars - some make 10 a year. Not all of Yeoh's Hong Kong films fit in this list, but here are a few of her best (all are available on video):

"Yes, Madam!" (1985, a.k.a. "In the Line of Duty"). Yeoh's action film debut is also one of her best, and it introduces American martial arts film star Cynthia Rothrock. Under the direction of Corey Yuen, they play a pair of cops looking for microfilm so they can take down some of Hong Kong's toughest gangsters. Fantastic action sequences show a younger Yeoh in top form.

"The Heroic Trio" (1992). After "Supercop's" success, Jonny To's fantasy movie teamed Yeoh up with two of Hong Kong's other favorite action starlets. Yeoh is Invisible Girl, the minion of an evil underworld emperor who is stealing babies in the hopes of creating a new dynasty. But eventually she joins forces with Wonder Woman (Anita Mui) and Chat, the Thief Catcher (Maggie Cheung). The film is now a cult classic among Hong Kong buffs and helped cement Yeoh's position as Asia's top action star.

"Wing Chun" (1994). This period-piece vehicle for Yeoh's talents, also directed by Yuen, is a lot goofier than most of her work. But it also shows off her amazing flexibility, particularly in a scene where she knocks out a man sneaking up behind her by kicking over her own shoulder. Yeoh plays a bean curd dealer who protects her town from bandits by inventing the Wing Chun style, better known as the first style Bruce Lee mastered.