Yeoh, Michelle

b. 6 August 1962, Ipoh, Perak, Federation of Malaya

The Soong Sisters

Aspects of Sisterhood in The Heroic Trio Films and The Soong Sisters

The contribution of Michelle Yeoh to national and international cinema represents an amazing achievement, crowned by a Best Actress Oscar in 2023 as the first Asian female recipient. In view of her other accomplishments elsewhere, it ironically represents a lesser achievement in terms of the film in which she appeared, one on the level of Elizabeth Taylor’s award for BUtterfield 8 (Daniel Mann, 1960) following her life-threatening illness and Scorsese’s undeserved Best Director Oscar for The Departed (2006), undoubtedly one of his worst films and an inferior remake of the much better Hong Kong Infernal Affairs (Mou gaan dou, Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, 2002).¹ All these nominees have accomplished better work elsewhere within their own national industries and, in the case of Michelle Yeoh (1962 -), her Hong Kong work is far superior to whatever she has done within the realms of Hollywood cinema. Recognition is often arbitrary, especially in a Hollywood film industry undergoing re-negotiation and re-identification in a changing world. But that changing world must also recognize past contributions. Hopefully, Yeoh’s Oscar will lead more people to discover her earlier work in the Hong Kong film industry and lead to better representations of the very important Asian role she embodies in the past and present for a “Better Tomorrow” leading to full recognition of that international contribution Hollywood benefitted from, developing towards an increasingly global and less rigidly national world.  

The road from Yeoh’s first appearance in The Owl vs. Bumbo (Mao tou ying yu xiao fei xiang, 1984), directed by Sammo Hung, to her first co-starring international Hollywood production Tomorrow Never Dies (Roger Spottiswoode, 1997) represents an interesting career trajectory that her first appearance as Miss Yeung very low down in the cast would never have envisaged. Following her equally brief role as judo instructor midway through the bottom level of the cast in Twinkle, Twinkle, Lucky Stars (Xia ri fu xing, 1985), also directed by Sammo Hung, to her starring role as Inspector Ng in Corey Yuen’s Yes, Madam! (Huang jia shi jie, 1985), she revealed both acting and martial arts abilities until her brief retirement from the screen following marriage to producer Dickson Poon (1956 -) in 1988 and her return in 1992. There, the former Michelle Khan (the surname previously chosen for her by D&B Films to appeal to international sensibilities) returned to her former Malaysian surname Yeoh, which she has retained for the rest of her career. This formed a break from the usual tradition of Hong Kong actresses such as Angela Mao Ying (1950 -) and Shang-Kuan Ling-feng (1949 -) who marry, retire from the screen, and run a chain of restaurants. By contrast, Yeoh remarried in 2023 to her present partner with whom she had a decades-long relationship and continues her career both as actor and providing voices for animated productions. 

Much material has already appeared around her various accomplishments in Asian stardom and martial arts, ranging from the superfluous to the serious.² Yet one aspect remains still open for further examination, namely her embodiment of certain aspects of sisterhood and female solidarity within certain films. Chief among these are The Heroic Trio films and The Soong Sisters (Song jia huang chao, Mabel Cheung, 1997), the last preceding her rise to international attention in Tomorrow Never Dies, though her heroine Wai Lin, despite her eventual succumbing to Bond charms is as far from being the traditional Bond girl as possible. Co-starring with Pierce Brosnan (1953 -) in an alliance to prevent a war between China and the United States envisaged by manic mogul Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce), Yeoh’s mission does bear certain similarities to the master plan of Evil Master Shi-Kwan Yen (1947 -) to restore the dominance of Imperial China back to its modern counterpart, though using less technological means in The Heroic Trio (Dung fong saam hap, Johnnie To, 1993). Significantly, Yeoh’s preceding performance as Soong Ai-ling opposite Maggie Cheung (1964 -) and Vivian Wu (1966 -) in The Soong Sisters bore no relationship to her following role in Tomorrow Never Dies but had much in common with those in The Heroic Trio and its sequel Executioners (Yin doi hou hap zyun, Siu-Tung Ching and Johnnie To, 1993) in expressing a form of female solidarity and sisterhood very rare in her other films. 

Police Story 3

Prior to the first Heroic Trio film, Michelle Yeoh teamed up with Cynthia Rothrock (1957 -) in Corey Yuen’s Yes, Madam! where she plays Hong Kong Inspector Ng. Initially antagonistic to British Inspector Carrie Morris (Rothrock), who equals her in martial arts fighting techniques, she soon moves from rivalry to co-operation in a manner of professional sisterhood. But the process is arbitrary, with little time for development due to action and comedy sequences intruding into this potentially powerful plot direction. Her subsequent films see her in solitary roles often counterpointing the male prowess of the hero, such as Jackie Chan in Police Story 3/Supercop (Ging chaat goo si III: Chiu kup ging chaat, Stanley Tong, 1992) in contrast to Maggie Cheung’s helpless May. Yeoh plays Beijing Police Inspector Yang, a role she repeats in the spin-off Supercop 2 (Chiu kup gai wak, 1993), again directed by Stanley Tong, where she plays the doomed victim of a tragic relationship, in a film made after Executioners. In Yuen Woo-Ping’s Tai Chi Master (Tai gik Cheung Sam Fung, 1993), she portrays an abandoned, alcoholic wife, and later maiden-in-distress needing rescue by Kwan Bo (Jet Li) before he returns to the safe homosocial environment of the Shaolin Temple. Such are the early roles Yeoh plays during her first decade in Hong Kong cinema, ones often devoid of female solidarity and emphasizing her more as an accomplished collaborator of the hero in the wuxia-influenced films rather than a heroine in her own right. Other films such as Wing Chun (1994), directed by Yuen Woo-Ping (1945 -), and The Stunt Woman (Ah Kam, 1996), directed by Ann Hui (1947 -), co-starring Sammo Hung (1952 -) with Cheng Pei-Pei (1946-2024) in a brief role as her sifu, reveal poignant aspects of Yeoh’s single woman character yearning for a satisfactory relationship with males who can never live up to her standards. It is only with the Heroic Trio films and The Soong Sisters that these significant aspects of female solidarity and sisterhood come into full fruition.

Celebrated as a cult movie for all the wrong reasons, The Heroic Trio deserves attention more for the story by Sandy Shiu/Sandy Shaw Lai-King, who also worked on the screenplay, than its supposed one-dimensional parallels to Hollywood action movies of the ‘90s.³ As with all Hong Kong cinematic appropriations, the final result is often more creative, stylistically and thematically, than any of the over-indulgent self-serving borrowings by the overrated Quentin Tarantino (1963 -). Although many see this as little more than a superheroine movie, Lai-King’s screenplay significantly provides strong-female centred roles for its stars as well as a disturbing narrative structure that did not appeal to local audiences seeking the equivalent of “mindless entertainment”. Operating collaboratively with the dark vision of Johnnie To (1955 -) and the professional martial arts choreography of Ching Siu-tung (1953 -), Lai-king provides a strong screenplay dealing with fictional dilemmas of three women existing in a dystopic society three years away from 1997, negotiating their present and potential female roles in a society under threat from past authoritarian control, anticipating fears concerning the transfer of power that became a grim reality in the beginning of the 21st century. Not surprisingly, Lai-king also co-scripted Supercop 2/Project S that also features Yeoh as a character torn between different choices and desires.

Already known as “Gai Tai Hua Ping” (“Beautiful Vase Made of Iron and Steel”), Yeoh welcomed her role in the first film as breaking new ground as “the first movie anchored by three actresses with actors in supporting roles.”⁴ Yet what distinguished the film from being merely a showcase for “three Super babes demonstrating their martial arts abilities” – in the crudest publicity jargon imaginable – was its penetrating analysis of female subordination and resilience in Lai-king’s thoughtful screenplay. Yeoh’s character Ching (re-named Chu San by her disapproving sifu) faces her own female dilemma echoing those of the other main characters in the film. Failing a rigorous test by her sifu who cuts her no rope in training as a young girl, she fails to hang on to the grip by a supportive Tung and falls into an underworld dominated by an Evil Eunuch (Yen Shi-kwan) who aims to restore the rule of the Emperor to contemporary China. The sewer environment he inhabits in contemporary Hong Kong is the Chinese equivalent to Hell, its Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) associations contrasting with its Qing Dynasty (1644-1912) where Dowager Empress Cixi (1835-1908) ruled for the latter part of its declining years. Ching’s Evil Master resembles an androgynous monster combining the Ming Dynasty eunuchs with the feared persona of the Dowager Empress in most representations. Appropriated into a male-dominated world where 19 kidnapped Hong Kong babies are destined to be cannibalistic brothers to a future Emperor, contemporary Hong Kong clearly faces a demonic and traditional version of a Mainland that is going to appropriate it within a few years and symbolically consume it as it did after the Umbrella movement. By losing her grip in the past and her friendship with Tung, Ching finds herself dominated by a male order she must obey, her earlier martial arts skills now placed at the disposal of a dangerous enemy. The film charts how she will break away from that order and re-acquire the earlier bond with Tung, making them both allies again, working with new recruit Chat (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) into a new female force bonding together in the manner of those old female swordswomen/martial arts heroines of the old wuxia tradition, as well as evoking the female collaboration seen in many contemporary Hong Kong cop movies.  

All three exist in a much different world from those of their predecessors. Ching adopts the guise of invisibility to kidnap newborn babies to aid her Master’s scheme. She is also a plant in the home of an inventor (James Pax) perfecting an invisibility device, whom she loves but is ordered to kill once he achieves total success. Yeoh’s Ching is the most tragic of these heroines. While Tung (Anita Mui Yim-fong, 1963-2003) conceals her identity as “Wonder Woman” from her husband Inspector Lau (Damian Lau), playing the dutiful wife according to Confucian values, she struggles with her desires to regain the independence she once had as an independent female martial arts heroine before her marriage. Although her husband is less authoritarian than in the sequel, Tung exists in an unequal relationship dominated by traditional Chinese family values where the husband’s word is law. Ching is under the total control of her Master. By contrast, Maggie Cheung’s mercenary is a woman for hire, having no values except monetary gain and personal entertainment, until one of her escapades results in the accidental death of a baby she has taken away for a playful night out. Her character resembles those naïve young men from earlier movies, like Alexander Fu Sheng (1954-1983), who need the guidance of a strong master to make them realize the importance of moral and personal responsibility in a dangerous world. Yeoh’s character is the most pivotal in this film, bringing all three together at the end in a strong bond of sisterhood and solidarity.

Initially antagonistic to both women, she eventually engages in a re-affirmation of that lost bonding with Tung, illustrated in that later scene when their arms join in unity together, their tattoos merging, while Chat tries to prevent both women from falling. Discovering the dying body of her lover and remembering the possibility of regeneration symbolized by the orchid suggesting a new life, she sets out to destroy the Master’s lair only to face a total take-over when he returns in skeletal form, his life force keeping the remnants of his body alive. He uses the entrapped Ching to battle her friends, whom she warns may finally take her over. But in the final conflict she remembers images of the past, the growing orchids being the most dominant, and uses her past positive memories to destroy him and re-unite with her companions in triumphant female solidarity. This is really Michelle Yeoh’s film, one in which she emerges as the central character, bonding with her companions in a fashionable and victorious heroic trio. “We don’t want to look too shabby when the reporters arrive.” The sequel is different. 

Yes, Madam

Derived from a story by Lai-king with a screenplay by Susan Chan Suk-yin (who worked in the industry from 1991 in various roles such as actor, writer, and producer of the 2022 film Hong Kong Family), Executioners (shot back-to-back with The Heroic Trio) is a much grimmer film. While the original represents a dark, neo-noir allegory involving the implications of the 1997 Handover and how this may affect women, the sequel depicts an apocalyptic, dystopian world where chaos is rampant and the threat of dictatorship imminent. Ching now works for the Red Cross delivering essential food supplies to desperate citizens existing in a world where a nuclear explosion has contaminated the water supply. Tung has reluctantly hung up her mask at the request of her husband who uses their daughter’s baptism to insist she desist from her Savoir role, fulfilling the original desires of the Evil Eunuch to remove women from the scene. Chat continues her work as a freewheeling mercenary, her actions again resulting in disaster by being used by devious rich mad scientist Master Kim, portrayed by Anthony Wong Chau-sang as a crossover between the Frankenstein monster, his creator (features ruined by an atomic explosion), and a deranged Phantom of the Opera (clad in 18th century attire that has nothing to do with the Age of Enlightenment but with a future realm of military dictatorship and corporate power controlling essential supplies and clean water to control the population). Kim’s Clean Water Corporation is polluting water with radiation rather than purifying it for the public good. As in The Heroic Trio, Yeoh’s role appears overshadowed by her two co-stars, especially Anita Mui and Maggie Cheung in this version, but as before, her role is essential. In the opening scene, Ching laments not seeing her two friends since the nuclear explosion – but she has adopted her former enemy Gau, who now acts as her bodyguard after his incineration in the first film.⁵ Speechless as before and played by Anthony Wong, Gau is a positive version of a Frankenstein monster aiding Ching in her efforts (similar to Godzilla often becoming the saviour of Japan in later films rather than its destroyer), while Kim is the negative version. Though probably the result of budget considerations, this duality also reflects that between Ching and Tung in this film. In The Heroic Trio, Tung reaffirmed her lost friendship with Ching to remove her from the control of the Evil Eunuch. In this film, Ching defends Chat from Tung over Chat’s unwitting involvement in a murder plot that took the life of her husband. Ironically, for most of the film Tung is under the male control of her micromanaging husband Inspector Lau. It is not until his death that Tung can adopt her former superheroine role and act collectively with her two female allies to save Hong Kong.

In Executioners, the bond between the three women is more tension-ridden than before. Tung blames Chat for the death of her husband, but Ching entrusts Tung’s daughter into her care before she and her freewheeling mercenary companion Tak (Lau Ching-wan) embark on a life-threatening mission to find uncontaminated water. This mission costs Tak’s life. Tung and Chat both lose someone close to them. So has Chin, who regards the deformed and reformed Gau as much more than an obedient servant, as her distress over his demise reveals. This time the confrontation between Ching and Kim is more deadly. She has already received a mortal wound from the unexploded rocket in her body as well as serious deadly injuries, so she sacrifices herself for her friends by removing the rocket from her body, disintegrating herself and, supposedly, Kim. All that remains of her is the fiery remnant of the cloak symbolizing the Trio’s friendship falling to the ground. Ching and Kim both lose arms in their final encounter. Kim notes that he and Tung also wear masks, and he aims to make her head another trophy. These significant dualities again reveal the tension between male control and collective female independence that motivate both films. 

At the beginning of Executioners, Ching is free from male control, unlike Tung. Chat finally moves away from her freewheeling attitudes, experiences a moment of affection with Tak, but also acts in the responsible role of Cindy’s (Sze Ning) protector that changes her mercenary and selfish attitude permanently. Ching recognizes this at the Trio’s final meeting and prevents Tung from taking revenge on Chat for the death of her husband. While Tung took the main role in uniting the Trio at the end of the first film, Ching does this posthumously at the climax of Executioners. Tung cannot forget what Chat has done, but she is willing to forgive, accept Chat as a member of a new Trio, complemented by Cindy whom Chat earlier recognized as being “as stubborn as her mother.” They will now be free from any threat of male domination in their lives. Ching’s self-sacrifice is instrumental here in establishing a more strongly bonded surviving sisterhood that will be free from male control.⁶

The Executioners

Released in 1997, three years after its filming due to censorship issues, The Soong Sisters makes Michelle Yeoh part of an historical trio, rather than one placed in an uncertain dystopic future. Although perhaps more marginalized in her role than fellow stars Maggie Cheung and Vivian Wu, all three form part of a tentative heroic trio who had power at various times within challenging moments to shape China’s destiny as 20th century New Women, sent to America by their patriotic and progressive American-educated entrepreneur Methodist minister father Charlie Soong (Jiang Wen) for the Western education they would never receive in their homeland at that time. As the opening logo, attributed to Chairman Mao goes, “One Had Money, One Loved Power, and One Loved Her Country.” As the Soong sister who marries prosperous businessman Kung Hsiang-hsi (1880-1967), Yeoh’s Ai-ling (1889-1973) appears the least interesting of the three. However, Chairman Mao’s definitions appear one-dimensional in the light of the complexity director Cheung Yuen-ting/Mabel Cheung attempts to bring to the project from the screenplay written by Law Kai-yui/Alex Law (1952-2022). Although the initial relationship and later marriage between Soong Mei-ling (Vivian Wu) and Chiang Kai-shek (1887-1975), played by Wu Hsing-kuo (1953 -), appears opportunistic, evidence exists in the censored version of feelings of genuine affection between them. The film is less governed by stereotypes than by exploring sisterhood and cultural bonding in the early years of the 20th century. As such, it involves important clues towards understanding the relevance of Yeoh’s character even though she receives less screen time than her fellow stars.

Like her casting in The Heroic Trio, her role is significant. When she marries K’ung, the 1913 wedding celebration sequence shows her dancing with her two sisters, similar to the bonding they had when seen as little girls in earlier scenes. There, she was the “Big Sister” looking after her younger siblings, mature beyond her years, appearing as someone who has hooked a big financial fish – but somebody she genuinely loves and with whom she had four children (two seen in the film). By contrast, the other sisters were childless, Ching-ling suffering a miscarriage and Mei-ling acting as stepmother to Chiang’s son and adopting another child. Despite the political differences between them, with Ai-ling and Mei-ling supporting the Nationalists while Ching breaks from them after the death of her husband Sun Yat-sen (1866-1925), all sisters are devoted to the cause of uniting China. Although it appears that Ai-ling married for money, she has worked as the secretary of Sun Yat-sen, played by Winston Chao (1960 -), providing a vacancy Mei-ling fills. Although never made explicit, the assumption occurs that she has learned much from this man’s sincere devotion to his country. Though they follow different paths, all sisters are devoted to China and Ai-ling’s role is no less significant despite her domestic marginalization. The three sisters all reunite during national and personal crises, especially during the deaths of their father and mother. When Charlies dies, they play for him, two accompanying each other on the piano, while Ai-ling plays the violin. A flashback reprising the similar practices they followed when younger follows. In those brief poignant scenes preceding Charlie’s death, the two sisters who express opposite political beliefs concerning the future temporarily play together in musical unity while Ai-ling leads the trio by her solo playing of the violin, an act symbolizing her role as the unifier of the two sisters. Ai-ling expresses reservations about Communist-inspired strikes damaging the economy, though she does try to keep the peace when Chiang visits the family home during Ching’s presence. She works in solidarity with her sisters to free Chiang from communist imprisonment at Xi’an, as well as recognizing with her sisters that those who seek to free him are his greatest enemies. She also suggests using media pressure on the Communists to seek Chiang’s release. She intuitively recognizes that freedom will make Chiang less stubborn and ready to do a deal with his hated enemy during a national emergency that threatens Chinese unity. The strategy succeeds. Chiang and the unseen Mao briefly unite to fight a common enemy that has invaded their homeland. Yet, that unity will be temporary. Yeoh’s facial acting subtly registers recognition of the reality of each situation involving the sisters during each challenging historical era. 

Although Ai-ling appears conservative and confined to the home like Tung in Executioners, she does exercise some astonishing powers of resilience and wry observation during this trying time, acting like a concerned sister-in-law eager to restore her brother-in-law back to the family circle. Ai-ling is shrewdly aware of the power of money. “If money could solve everything, we’d have a common language.” She also sees the danger affecting the family dream of a united China and wishes for stubborn Chiang to begin negotiations with the communists to fight their common enemy: the Japanese. When the plane carrying the released Chiang and Mei-ling is in danger of crashing in the darkness due to lack of fuel, she uses her monetary connections to make phone calls so that cars can use their lights to guide the plane down. As somebody remarks, “Most of the car owners in Nanking are her friends” – and only the rich own automobiles in those days. Despite divisions over political issues and the best route to accomplish a United China that their late father hoped these New Women would do, all sisters reunite at key times, such as the deaths of father and mother and national emergencies. In such situations, the economically privileged and powerful Ai-ling appears part of a closely bonded group, not isolated on her own or given privileged star close-ups. This is something difficult for any star to do, especially playing such a marginalized role, and it is to Michelle Yeoh’s credit that she recognised the necessity of doing so and becoming part of a team of Chinese sisterhood devoted to the good of her country – and film.

The sisters part but reunite together for the last time some time years later, performing essential war work against the Japanese invaders. According to a voice-over, they appear on stage together after ten years, one singing a song to battle-weary troops with a downed Japanese Zero plane in the background. Even K’ung is present, distributing helmets to the troops. The real Ai-ling actively participated in work for wounded soldiers and orphans during this time remarkably similar to Yeoh driving a Red Cross van in the opening scenes of Executioners. “It’s time for me to go. I promised HH to go to Hong Kong. Those people don’t care about politics but finance. I am tired of politics.” Actually, Hong Kong was under Japanese occupation then and the sisters relocated to Chongqing to continue their charity work.⁷ But this is Yeoh’s star exit, since she does not appear later ageing or dying like her other sisters in the epilogue. In their parting words, they again speak about the future of China in which they have made distinctive contributions and joke about a future film being made of them where no actresses could really play their roles. This is scripted cinematic self-reflexivity, linking historical reconstruction biopic to the competent performances each star delivers – a tribute to three actresses playing characters who helped define the character of modern China, for good or bad, who made an indelible impression on their times according to a film reinforcing strong bonds of female solidarity and sisterhood despite times of great stress. Maybe, Ai-ling is correct in expressing her boredom with politics, since the film shows other important values exist. 

The sisters speak of the “new women of China who will do great things.” They tentatively hope that the post-war world will see a China their father wanted. The final shot of Ai-ling shows her looking back in farewell at her sisters before she disappears from the film. A closing caption mentions that Soong Ching remained. She and other family members never saw each other again. Following a poignant scene of the ageing surviving sister Mei-ling, the image dissolves to the distant past when the little sisters were strongly united. Unity becomes reaffirmed in this final image. While the two other sisters live to see the eventual changed nature of the China they have played key roles in, Ai-ling remains outside this political narrative to return finally to the original role of “Big Sister”, where all play youthfully together.

In later life, Ai-ling settled on Long Island, but in her last years continued to look after her family, even persuading Chiang Kai-shek to allow young Taiwanese to study abroad in America rather than continue the island’s isolationist practices. She became mother-in-law to Debra Paget who married her youngest son Louis, continuing in her own way the cosmopolitan tendences of her father in welcoming Western values.⁸

 In Executioners, Ching sacrificed herself to save her “sisters” and Hong Kong. The Soong Sisters sees her playing the real-life role of “Big Sister”, constantly protecting her family but unable to save Mainland China in real life. These roles are far different from those in Project S and The Stunt Woman, where she sees her affections betrayed by men unworthy of her. Yet, she still maintains resilience at the end, moving into an unpredictable future much like her real-life persona.

The Heroic Trio, Executioners, and The Soong Sisters demonstrate a moment in Michelle Yeoh’s career where sisterhood and the future of a China under threat, fictionally and historically, dominate a particular moment of stardom. This brevity is regrettable since it represents something capable of further development, but it is important no matter how short it lasted. It reveals an important past aspect of Yeoh’s stardom that should always be recognized and revered despite the deceptive nature of Film Industry Awards that often overshadow better work in the past. However, she has received far more distinguished awards, the most recent being the Presidential Medal of Freedom on 3 May 2024 and the World Economic Forum Award at the beginning of the year for her role as cultural leader and exceptional artist.

Endnotes