'You Killed my Master /Father/ Accountant': Martial Arts Movie Thread: Now Disc. Tony Jaa

Let?s take this in a different direction and talk about the ladies.

Michelle Yeoh aka Michelle Khan aka Yang Zi Qiong

A Malaysian born, ballet trained, beauty queen seems to be strange qualifications for the most successful kung fu female, but then again Michelle never did things the normal way. She grew up studying ballet in England and unbeknownst to her, Michelle?s mother sent in pictures for Miss Malaysia which got her accepted. She won the title of Miss Malaysia which led to a television commercial with Jackie Chan.

Her first film was in Sammo Hung?s ?Owl & Dumbo.? She followed this up in ?Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars? where she plays a karate instructor and she has a short comical fight with Sammo Hung. Her next film would change kung fu films for good. Produced by Sammo Hung & directed by his opera brother Corey Yuen Kuai, ?Yes Madam? is the story of a Hong Kong cop having to team with a British police officer to track down a murdered diplomat. This could have been standard fare but Michelle Yeoh is the HK cop & Cynthia Rothrock is the Brit. It?s a modern day action film with females in the leads & showing they are just as tough as any man working in films. The stunts are extravagant & fight scenes outrageous. To hear Michelle tell it, Corey Yuen at first didn?t want to work with women but changed his mind when Michelle took her lumps & didn?t complain even when the other stuntmen did. Hong Kong, notorious for rip offs, would make dozens of films looking to capture the success of this film.

Michelle?s next film was ?Royal Warriors? (known by at least 4 other names). More good action and she gets top billing. She would then play an Indiana Jones inspired character in ?Magnificent Warriors.? Due to injury she starred in ?Easy Money?, an HK rip off of ?The Thomas Crown Affair? with her in the Steve McQueen role. She then got married to producer Dickson Poon, and as Chinese tradition dictates to married actresses, Michelle retired.

Luckily for film fans her marriage failed and she came roaring back in Jackie Chan?s ?Supercop? (aka Police Story III). She looked better than ever & showed she was just as crazy as Chan. The scene where she jumps a motorcycle onto the moving train was supposed to be done by Chan but when Michelle decided to do it Chan had to do the even more dangerous hanging from the helicopter. Michelle is terrific in the film & steals it from Jackie. This stunning comeback led to a whole bunch of roles for a suddenly in demand actress.

During this period Michelle worked with some of HKs best & brightest. In ?Butterfly & Sword? she got to work with Tony Leung, Joey Wong & Donnie Yen. ?The Heroic Trio? & its sequel ?Executioners? teamed her up with Anita Mui & Maggie Cheung as costumed super heroes. She worked with Jet Li in ?Tai Chi Master? & a gaggle of talented actresses in ?Holy Weapon.? Finally she re-teamed with ?Supercop? director Stanley Tong in one of her finest films ?Project S.? All of those films came out in 1993.

Like most Hong Kong actors the year 1997 loomed large and many decided to try their hand at Hollywood. Michelle starred opposite Pierce Brosnan in ?Tomorrow Never Dies.? An unlikely choice for a Bond girl since Michelle works best in action roles and not as a seductress or an object of affection. This role led to her as a pitchwoman for Loreal. She would then get her biggest role opposite another HK actor trying to make his way in Hollywood, Chow Yun Fat.

Ang Li?s ?Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon? achieved financial & critical success probably no one could have imagined. Michelle & Chow play world weary fighters that have their love denied by society. Neither Michelle nor Chow speaks fluent Mandarin but they have chemistry in their scenes and their cinematic pasts bring emotional baggage to their characters. Along with the chemistry she displayed with Chow, Michelle has some terrific fight scenes with another dancer turned actress, Zhang Zi Yi. The film would go on to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

Since that film Michelle

 

As she is now over forty Michelle is looking for more dramatic parts and establishing her production company. Hopefully this charming and beautiful woman will make more action films and not get hurt.

Once a woman passes 40, it gets more and more difficult to get roles,
good ones at least. Unless you're Kathy Bates or Meryl Streep.

 

Hong Kong is one of the few places where women can be every bit the equal of men in action films. The problem for women usually isn't age but the Chinese custom of retiring once a woman gets married. Michelle has already pulled off the impossible by coming back after retirement/marriage to world wide success. The two films that she produced were misfires that I think tried too hard to appeal to an international market instead of concentrating on what Hong Kong films do best. "Silver Hawk" opens with a fight scene where she steps in wet paint. She fights several different men & as the fight continues you can see where she has kicked the men by the paint marks left on their bodies. If only more of the film had this type of wit it would have been a whole lot better.

 

I've only seen her a few times, but I thought she was pretty kick-ass, if you'll forgive the very bad pun.

 

She has developed into quite a good actress as well. I love the film "Project S". It was released in the US as "Supercop 2" but it was dubbed, cut & rescored . "Project S" was one of the few films that was shot with sync sound. For various reasons most HK films are shot MOS & dubbed. Despite Michelle actually dubbing her own voice into English for the American version, it loses a lot of the intensity of her performance. Finding the original film is difficult but it is a much better film. Michelle plays the mainland cop character from Jackie Chan's "Supercop". She has a boyfriend who turns out to be a gang leader involved in some illegal going ons that she discovers. Some thrilling action scenes & Michelle takes on a 7 footer a la Bruce Lee. The finale is a terrific bit of acting by her that isn't anywhere as good when viewed dubbed.

 

she is one of my heroines really, loved her in crouching tiger, hidden dragon

i hated geisha for several reasons, she, however, wasn't one of them.

 

That movie got a lot of bad press.

 

It deserved it. The biggest criticism was having various Asian actresses portraying Japanese. Instead of telling the truth and saying that Zhang Ziyi, Gong Li & Michelle Yeoh are simply excellent actresses that would draw a bigger audience, the filmmakers came up with horrible lie that they couldn't find any good Japanese actresses that could speak decent English. To anyone who has ever heard her speak, Zhang Ziyi can barely the language. Saying her English is terrible is putting it nicely. So nowhere in Hollywood, much less Japan, are there good English speaking actresses.

Originally the film was to be directed by Spielberg. At that time Maggie Cheung was cast in the part that Michelle plays. Once Spielberg quit Cheung also dropped the film. With Spielberg at the helm 99% of actors in the world would drop whatever they were doing to work with him. He doesn't need stars to make a film. He could have made the film with an all Japanese cast, in Japanese, & people would have gone & seen it. But from the outset this was a vapid film that didn't care to explore any issues in depth. Yeoh, Gong Li & Zhang Ziyi have all been far better in many movies but unfortunately this is the one most people may remember them for.

 

I was put off by the poster, in which the geisha had blue eyes. Please.

 

crouching tiger should have won best picture.

that is all.

 

Apparently she had those eyes in the book.

 

Crouching Tiger was the first film I saw Michele and thought she should have run away with the best actress oscar. I can't even remember who won that year but it should have been her. The problem for me with Geisha was that I thought it would have been a far more effective film if it had been filmed in Japanese instead of English. Every actor in that movie looked uncomfortable with their dialogue. I guess they figured no one would sit through a sub-titled film. If only film-makers would give American audiences a little more credit that that

 

As of now it looks like the future of Martial Arts films are in the hands, or I guess I should say knees & elbows, of Tony Jaa. He is the first generation to be raised on the films of Jackie, Jet & Sammo. He burst on to the scene with "Ong Bak" in 2003. The film had a limited release in the US but anyone who saw the film found a new action hero that recalled the glory days of Jackie Chan & Hong Kong cinema. Along with some amazing physical feats the Muay Thai style that Jaa uses is more vicious than other film styles. Taking a page from Jackie Chan, Jaa uses several cameras to film the same action & prove it is really him doing the stunts. These guys are crazy & mean. The film has a minimal storyline but the action is memorable. The first fight scene where Jaa has to fight, reluctantly of course, is a breath of fresh air for martial arts fans. Amazingly the fights get better as the film goes on.

His next film "Tom Yum Goong" was picked up for wide release by the Weinsteins. The film was re-edited, re-scored & given the new title "The Protector". Ironically this is the same title of an early Hollywood film for Jackie Chan that failed miserably at the box office. As of this writing the US box office total is almost equal to what it made in worldwide release. It may not be the #1 film at the box office now, but it is a success. Like "Ong Bak" the plot is simple and just enough to justify the fights that Jaa gets into.

Once again the action & Jaa's ability is what makes this film work. The stuntmen are crazy, Jaa is amazing & at no time should anyone take any of this fun film serious. His next film will be a sequel to "Ong Bak" but its supposed to be a period piece. I'm hoping that his budgets increase but that he stay away from Hollywood. As seen with Chan, Jet Li & Sammo, Americans have very little idea of what makes martial arts films so special. From what I've seen Jaa speaks little to no English and his voice is very feminine. Of course if the script calls for him to repeat the same lines like in "The Protector" it might not be a problem.

 

No one has mentioned Berry Gordy's The Last Dragon? Seriously?

[image=http://www.firstshowing.net/img2/Shonuff-last-dragon-original.jpg]

 

Sho Nuff!

That movie was quite ridiculous.

 

Where'd you dig up this old fossil

BTW I heard they're remaking "The Last Dragon". Perhaps you can catch a double feature along with the remaking of "The Karate Kid".

 

'Tis not ye olde fossil, s'truth.