CBN Friday Special丨Michelle Yeoh and her multi-universe
In a stunning victory, Michelle Yeoh took home the trophy for best actress at the 2023 Oscars on Sunday. The 60-year-old actress made history as the first Asian American to win the category and the first woman of color to receive the award in two decades, following Halle Berry, who was the first Black woman and woman of color to win the Academy Award in 2002 and presented Yeoh with her history-making win.
“To all the little boys and girls who look like me watching tonight, this is a beacon of hope and possibilities,” Yeoh said in her acceptance speech. “This is proof that dream big and dreams do come true. And ladies, don’t let anybody tell you you are ever past your prime.”
Michelle Yeoh, an iconic name in Chinese cinema, defeated formidable contenders, including two-time winner Cate Blanchett and five-time nominee Michelle Williams, to take home the prestigious award for her extraordinary performance in the multi-universal comedy Everything Everywhere All at Once.
The film swept the Oscars with a total of seven awards, including for best picture and best director, making it the biggest winner of the night. The Malaysian-born actress plays a struggling laundromat owner Evelyn who ends up being the savior of the multiverse, from a master chef to a wuxia warrior to a glamorous movie star who bears a striking resemblance to Michelle Yeoh herself.
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It requires her to play broad comedy, melodramatic pathos, and every other emotional state under the sun, as well as tapping into her well-honed martial arts skills.
Both Daniels, the writer-directors Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, had written the role of Evelyn with Yeoh specifically in mind, as the character was very much formed around Yeon’s identity, her life experience.
Imagine somewhere, in one of the gazillion strands of the cat’s cradle of multiverses, there is a world in which Michelle Yeoh does not start ballet lessons at the age of four. The Malaysian actor decides not go to England to study dance, with every intention of becoming a prima ballerina one day, and avoids suffering a back injury that forces her to abandon her dream. The alt-universe Yeoh in question then does not enter a beauty contest and win. A good friend of hers doesn’t bother to pass Michelle’s picture to a producer. No one offers this version of Yeoh a contract. Hence she does not become an action-movie icon during Hong Kong’s wild-and-crazy gonzo-cinema Golden Age. There are no late-’90s Bond movies, no instant-classic turns in films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, no scene-stealing turns in Marvel movies or as future mother-in-laws armed with withering put-downs. And most definitely, no projects that would involve the star engaging in elaborate combat scenes in the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once.
Luckily, we have been blessed to exist in a here and now in which everything, everywhere has gone exactly as it needed to. And the years of ballet training Yeon took enabled her to stand out as an action movie actress, in the golden days of Hong Kong cinemas featuring Kung Fu.
As Yeon recalls, one thing that had caught her eye while she was on set were the action sequences. The more she watched the stunt choreographers stage the knock-down, drag-out fight scenes, the more she began to pick up on the rhythms behind every punch and kick. “It was like watching someone choreograph a dance,” she says.
Yeoh spent the next few years working her way up the Hong Kong cinema ladder, before marrying Dickson Poon and saying she was quitting acting in 1988 to start a family. After she and the producer divorced in 1992, her first film back was Supercop — which gave her equal billing with Jackie Chan and featured the motorcycle stunt that instantly coronated her as action movie royalty. In the Hong Kong action-comedy, Yeon played an Interpol inspector, and her role included truly harrowing stunt work, such as landing a motorcycle on a moving train, and in a few takes, dangerously skidding off of it.
For the next five years, she was on a roll; ironically, it was a film called The Stunt Woman, the story of an immigrant who breaks into the Chinese film industry by becoming an actor who does all her own stunts. Executing a drop off an overpass onto mattresses in a passing truck, Yeoh hit the padding at the wrong angle, and ended up hospitalized with serious injuries. It was a far more serious injury than the one that had stopped her budding career as a dancer, and prompted her to once again consider hanging things up altogether.
Legend has it that a visit from Quentin Tarantino, who proceeded to quote her filmography back to her while she was recovering, that made her think she was not quite done yet.
The so-called “female Jackie Chan” began to wear the bruises on her limbs like they were badges of pride. After carving a niche for herself in action cinema in Hong Kong, Yeoh made her Hollywood debut in Tomorrow Never Dies. By the time the producers of the 1997 James Bond film came calling, Yeoh was ready to return. Yeoh played one of the most powerful Bond women, an equal to 007 in terms of smarts and strength.
She gained international recognition for her role as a swordswoman in Ang Lee's iconic film, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which won three Oscars in 2001. Working with Ang Lee on his poetic 2000 crossover hit required her to supplement her decades of experience as a fighter onscreen with psychological depth. It changed everything, she now says. You can practically see Yeoh bloom onscreen, especially in her more dramatic scenes with costar Chow Yun-Fat. Now she was finally, in her own eyes, an actor.
For the next few decades, Yeoh seemed, all at once, to be everywhere. You could find her in prestige-lit adaptations (Memoirs of a Geisha), sci-fi (Sunshine), animated kids’ flicks (Kung Fu Panda), studio tentpoles (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor), biopics (The Lady), rom-coms (Last Christmas), TV shows (Marco Polo), and, of course, the occasional movie involving furious fists and flying feet.
Her line reading of “You will never be enough” in the hugely successful Crazy Rich Asians is enough to chill anyone’s blood. She’s logged in not one but two characters in the Marvel Cinema Universe, became a major player in the Trekkie galaxy, thanks to a starring role in Star Trek: Discovery; and will be part of James Cameron’s in-progress Avatar-osphere.
Yeoh is the film industry's darling for not only her jaw-dropping stunts in action blockbusters, but also her multifaceted performance in artistic works.
Then Everything Everywhere All at Once seems to be specifically crafted for Yeoh because the movie reflects her decades-long efforts to raise the cultural significance of Asian-themed films worldwide. And while Yeoh has been an icon and prolific actress and stuntwoman for decades, her performance as Evelyn in the film garnered long-deserved accolades from Hollywood.
Before the Academy Award, Yeoh had claimed many awards including a Golden Globe, an Independent Spirit Award, several local Film Critics Awards, a SAG Award and a BAFTA Award, as well as nominations for a Critics' Choice Award. Yeoh again made history at the 2023 Screen Actors Guild Awards when she became the first Asian woman to win Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor Leading Role.
Yeoh's historic win has caused a stir among her Chinese fans, with the news hashtag garnering over 430 million views on the popular microblogging platform Sina Weibo in just three hours.
Chinese fans said they were inspired by the hardworking actress' battle to rise to the top in the global film industry. Many called her a role model for demonstrating how a woman's ambitions is not limited by age.
“I have been lucky. Extremely lucky,” Yeon said in a recent interview, “but you need to work hard and the harder you work, the luckier you get. Opportunities present themselves if you’re lucky. If you don’t work hard, they go some place else. But sometimes, you work hard and they still go away. For Evelyn, she finally has an opportunity to realize that, there are all of these universes out there, but you live in this one — and you’d better appreciate what you have in it. And I got to help her realize that.”
杨紫琼，一战封后。
北京时间3月13日，凭借电影《瞬息全宇宙》中“Evelyn”——这个亚裔中年妈妈角色，杨紫琼获得2023奥斯卡最佳女主角，成为奥斯卡历史中第一位亚裔、华裔影后，也是首位“动作片影后”，发明历史。
上台领奖时，身穿一袭白裙的她，捧着“小金人”奖杯，说：“那些跟我长得一样的男孩、女孩们，这是期看的灯塔，这是无限的可能；这座奖杯代表着，大胆逐梦，梦想会成真；女士们，不要让任何人对你说’你已经过了巅峰’，永远不要舍弃！”
杨紫琼的获奖势头，早在往年年底开始的北美颁奖季就开始，包揽了金球奖最佳女主（音乐喜剧类）、演员工会奖最佳女主、独立精神奖最佳主角在内的多项殊荣。
如今，斩获“小金人”，为杨紫琼的征战全球电影40年的职业生涯，点亮“高光时刻”。
杨紫琼，这个华语电影圈中耳熟能详的名字，常年与“武打女星”紧紧关联在一起。回忆杨紫琼在全球影坛征战的历程，她不是最被看好的女演员，甚至她所代表的功夫电影，长年不在全球电影的主流领域。
就像《瞬息全宇宙》里繁复交织的人生线，除了演员或者“打星”等醒目的身份，杨紫琼还有段鲜少被提及的童年经历。彼时，从马来西亚华人世家出生的她，按照大家闺秀的范本培植着：4岁便开始学习钢琴、画画、芭蕾等课程。
杨紫琼15岁考进英国皇家舞蹈学院，但一次偶然的脊柱受伤，迫使她中断了舞蹈梦。心底那丛艺术的火苗，并未因此被浇灭。18岁时，杨紫琼在妈妈的安顿下报名当地小姐选美比赛，结果一举夺魁，通向影坛的大门就此敞开。
离开了家人的羽翼，杨紫琼接到的一个角色是动作喜剧片《猫头鹰与小飞象》中的女教师，外表文弱，是当时不少选美出身的女演员的唯一抉择——花瓶。但不甜被禁锢的杨紫琼，开始考虑如何在有限的规则空间下，拓出一条迥异于主流 “花瓶”的道路。
自幼练舞开发的身体机能，便在这时得到了发扬。她企图将赌注押在动作片上，对当时刚进行的新人女演员，这可说是步险棋。即便80年代，正赶上港产动作片席卷全球，但其中有辨识度的女影人却不过寥寥。
为了冲破银幕上男性主宰的局面，杨紫琼主动找到洪金宝，拜进洪家班苦练大半年，日均练习五六个小时。初出茅庐，便靠着在《皇家师姐》中惊艳的亮相，收成了当年金像奖的最佳新人奖提名。
在1992年和成龙搭档《警察故事3：超级警察》时，杨紫琼亲自完成了骑着摩托腾空驶向火车顶、徒手扒卡车等高难度的特技场面，没有替身和绿幕，也没吊威亚，差点连命都豁出往。
同样惊险的桥段，三年后在许鞍华导演的《阿金》中重演。拍摄一场从18米高天桥跳下的戏时，杨紫琼因角度没取好，摔坏颈椎，断了三根肋骨，几乎导致终生瘫痪。片方为此在结尾特地增加了向她致意的字幕。
自此，“打女”成了杨紫琼身上一个难剥除的标签和机遇的敲门砖。包括昆汀在内的好莱坞名导对她格外仰慕，大量国际制造团队向她投出橄榄枝，其中便包括《007之明日帝国》，杨紫琼在片中破格担任史上首个华人邦女郎，杨紫琼饰演的中国女特工林惠身手矫健，和邦德携手共战完全不在话下，成为当时并不多见能与邦德平分秋色的“邦女郎”。
背靠在动作类型片这个领域内的深耕，将特长放大到极致，千禧年前后的杨紫琼，正式晋升为国际一线女打星。
与之相悖的，是她在漫长的职业生涯中，从未接过挑大梁的角色。更多时候，她像是个刻苦敬业的符号，用以承载西方人对中国功夫、女中豪杰等刻板的想象，却无形窄化了戏路，给外界留下只擅舞弄拳脚的印象。
事实上，杨紫琼所遭遇的，恰能代表亚裔演员“出海”后普及的困境。在好莱坞高度工业、体系化的制式里，分配给她们的角色再怎么腾闪，也总跳不出预设的框架，进而导致演员的综合职业素养被低估。
杨紫琼在《卧虎躲龙》中饰演的俞秀莲，和玉娇龙亮剑对决时，她能即刻迸发出厚实的锋利感。李慕白撒手回西时，她捧住对方的头，克制着将要决堤的痛苦，直到眼眶泪涟。正是因这精湛的诠释，看众才能漠视她口音的疵瑕，沉浸在富有感染力的表演中。
《卧虎躲龙》拥有多项获奖纪录，捧获了第73届奥斯卡包括最佳外语片在内的四项大奖，也是华语电影历史上第一部荣获奥斯卡金像奖最佳外语片的影片。杨紫琼的收成是，在更多人眼中，38岁的她在“打女”的名头之外，终于有了“演技”的标签。惋惜的是，《卧虎躲龙》横扫奥斯卡10项提名，却没有得到一个表演奖的提名。
驾驭多样复杂的能力，源自一个演员对角色的掌控力。在回忆《艺伎回忆录》拍摄过程时，杨紫琼提到由于角色设定，自己的台词和动作较少，却依然要设法让看众感知到人物的存在。
2011年，杨紫琼出演了法国导演吕克·贝松执导的电影《昂山素季》。这部小众电影的亮相成为她电影生涯中的惊鸿一瞥。李安评判：“我一直以为《卧虎躲龙》是杨紫琼的巅峰，其实《昂山素季》才是她的巅峰之作。我真的深受激动。”
乘着少数族群话语权提升的东风，她近年来的发力重心，从异域奇看式的功夫片拐向了其他岔路，比如《喜福会》之后首部全亚裔阵容的好莱坞大厂电影《摘金奇缘》，让亿万看众记住了杨紫琼“窒息感”满满的富家“恶婆婆”表演。
到了《瞬息全宇宙》，她再次颠覆以往，把自己投射进了一个落魄、辛酸、卑微如尘埃的中年母亲体内。
无论从角色姓名，还是多条时空线与杨紫琼演艺生涯的重合来看，《瞬息全宇宙》炫目的彩蛋下，不难让人品出些向杨紫琼本人“致敬”的意味。导演/编剧的丹尼尔·关和丹尼尔·施纳特在创作时，也正是为杨紫琼“量身定制”Evelyn这一角色的。
电影看似荒诞，但内核无比“正确”：挽救世界的超能力，被移交给中年主妇这样一类在银幕叙事传统里常年被放逐、被误解的边缘形象。Evelyn是一位生活在美国的亚裔女性，55岁，苦心经营着一家社区洗衣店，兼顾怯懦的丈夫、行动不便的父亲和叛逆的女儿的生活，所有的时间都沉没在日常的琐碎中，一张又被打回来的报税单成为压倒生活的最后一根稻草。她穿着简单的衣服，背微微佝偻，脸色蜡黄，眉头总是锁着，心里飘着一团无法驱散的乌云。当然，平日没有人会注重到她，她和美国的每一个中年亚裔女性一样，隐身于“妈妈”“妻子”“女儿”等身份中，在焦躁与慌乱中食力地保护着生活，唯独不会做自己。
第一次读完《瞬息全宇宙》的剧本，杨紫琼很兴奋：“我终于等到了这样一个角色。突然之间，一部电影包括了我想要做的所有尝试，我可以借它完成一直以来我想要做的表演。”
她只提出了一个要求：女主角的名字不要以自己的Michelle命名，“我信赖这个被描写得如此丰盛的角色，值得拥有她自己的声音。她的声音正是那些你在唐人街或超市经过时连看都不看一眼的母亲、阿姨、祖母的声音，你对她视若无睹，觉得理所当然，她从来没有声音。”
Evelyn是杨紫琼“为之彩排了一辈子”的角色。她终于有机会将亚裔底层移民的故事移上银幕，并向人们证实，自己不但会武打，还能演出各种搞笑、真诚或悲伤的情绪。
在Evelyn的多重宇宙里，她可以兴奋地打，尽情地哭，在琐碎里拼接生活，在宇宙里挽救世界，消弭浓烈又纯粹的邪恶，交付复杂但恒定的爱。
在杨紫琼的多重宇宙里，出身世家从小以芭蕾舞为梦想，又因受伤、选美， 误打误撞进进了电影圈。出道40年，影视作品难以计数，已年届花甲的杨紫琼仍能保持纯真，不断勇猛向着未知出发。
对杨紫琼来说，明星这个身份轻易让人迷失，原地踏步，她期看葆有学习的热情。演戏之余，她也积极尝试往制片人发展，并在2000年后监制了《天脉传奇》《飞鹰》《人鱼朵朵》等片。尽管这些作品上映后，大都被市场冷落，但杨紫琼很少用一时的“成败”来定论。她更大的愿景，是从片场走到幕后，锤炼对整个电影工业系统的了解，同时为以中国功夫为代表的亚裔文化象徽，架设起在欧美传播的桥梁。
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