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Years from now, the NYU undergrad film majors who were wanting to write a neat blanket statement about the about all the freudian overtones, male domination fetishes, and paternalistic tendencies embeded in the characters of the <b>James Bond</b> movies are going to have to wrestle with the curve that was thrown at them in the form of <b>Michelle Yeoh</b>. Yes, by presenting a strong and dynamic female character who is actually on our side without being a complete diesel dyke, this former Miss Malaysia has single handedly screwed any hope of these wannabe directors from writing their pat little papers the night before they are due, and kudos to her for that.</p>
<p>Of the handful of female action heros that came to prominance in Hong Kong during the mid eighties, such as <b>Moon Lee</b>, <b>Anita Mui</b>, and <b>Yukari Oshima</b>, Michelle is the first to make significant introads into the West. Her big breakthrough in America was, of course, <i>Supercop</i> (filmed in 1992, released in the US in 1996), which was supposed to be a <b><a href="../jackie-chan/index.html" target="_top">Jackie Chan</a></b> vehicle but in which Michelle stole every scene she was in, easily matched him in his acrobatics, and added a surprisingly dark edge to her character. American audiences ate her up, and in her publicity appearances she was able to spar verbally with the likes of <b>Rosie</b>, <b>Conan</b>, and <b>Letterman</b> at their own level. No broken English here, folks. Her first American film, the aforementioned Bond flick, in which she again upstaged her male lead (granted upstaging <b>Pirece Brosnan</b>, who is currently being installed as a support beam in the TapeHead loft, isn't all that hard), has only endeared her to us Yanks even more. Since <i>Tomorrow Never Dies</i> she has been in talks to either co-star in the next Bond film or star in her own spinoff series of secret agent films. Still, most of her best work is relatively unknown in the states and her filmography is actually a diverse body of work covering comedy, drama, and historical epic in addition to her actioneers.</p>
<a href="content.html">Michelle Yeoh</a>
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