Queen Rania Al-Abdullah

Annie Besant

Admits that “ I have a great fear from height, but when I m on set doing things for the role, the anxiety just shuts off” In fact the last time Yeoh high-kicked her way across the silver screen, she saw saving James Bond’s hide in Tomorrow Never Dies’. It was a dazzling Hollywood debut for a Hong Kong movie queen, who seemed poised for a world wide breakthrough. But that was in 1997.

 Having already received rave reviews and awards at Cannes, the Golden Globes and the Toronto Film Festival, the film won four Oscars for the best foreign film, best art direction best cinematography and original score.  The film shot in Mandarin Chinese is based on a novel by Wang Du Lu set in the early 19^th century. Yeoh plays a martial artist, Yu Shu Lien, who is handled a jade sword called the Green Destiny for safekeeping by a legendary warrior.  

When it is stolen, suspicion falls on the household of Jen, a beauty about to be given away into a loveless marriage, who conceals both her martial arts prowess and her passion for a fiery bandit leader she once fought in the desert. “Crounching Tiger is like Sense. And Sensibility with martial arts” says director Ang Lee. “It is an art house movie attempting to go mainstream. And I cannot think of any other actress in the world who could understand such a project. Michelle Yeoh has such a chameleon quality”. 

Very true, in fact, Yoeh is not even a Michelle. She was born Yeoh Choo Kheng in IPO, Malaysia; she later changed her name to Michelle Khan, and then became Michelle Yeoh. Having grown up in the tropics with wide, open spaces and endless summers, Yeoh was on the go every moment she could –swimming, cycling , boating , playing table tennis or squash as she admits that she was a tomboy and still pretends to be.

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