Michelle Yeoh

Despite having no formal martial arts training, Yeoh is best known for her roles in action and martial arts movies (notably The Heroic Trio 1992, Wing Chun 1994 and the Police Story series). She relies on her dance training and instructors, and does many of her own stunts. She is one of the few women Jackie Chan allows to do her own stunts in his movies; they first worked together on a commercial in 1984.

Yeoh learned English and Malay before Chinese, and still cannot read Chinese. In some of her early films she recited her dialogue by rote.

In 2001, Yeoh was given the title of datuk[?], an honorary Malaysian title somewhat like an English knighthood.

Like other Hong Kong stars, Yeoh has attempted to break into Hollywood. Despite starring in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and the popular Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which she starred with Zhang Ziyi (2000), she has not won a mainstream audience in the English-speaking world.