Video:
True Legend

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7RZpZvNcwU

True Legend (simplified Chinese: 苏乞儿; traditional Chinese: 蘇乞兒; pinyin: Sū qǐ ér) is an upcoming 2010 Chinese-Hong Kong martial arts film starring Vincent Zhao, Zhou Xun, Jay Chou, Michelle Yeoh, Andy On, and Guo Xiaodong. It was directed by Yuen Woo-Ping. The film also features one of the final performances by actor David Carradine, who died in a bizarre masturbation accident in Bangkok during post-production.

True Legend is the extraordinary journey of a man - a martial arts hero - whose greatest dream is to create a unique school of martial arts for the world to follow.

All his life, Su Can has been pursuing the summit in martial arts. There are two things he holds dearest to his heart - the dream of creating a unique kind of martial arts that will pass on to generations; and his beloved wife. Su has a happy family and his wife is the joy of his life. But owing to a turn of fate and Su's own stubbornness, he loses his wife and his family is destroyed.

After losing his wife, Su cannot live with himself and collapses totally. He is drunk all the time and becomes a crazy beggar in everyone's eyes. Everyday, his young son ties him with a piece of rope and leads him through the streets, greeted by people's curious and disdainful gazes.

But all this time during his spiritual exile, his dream for the highest peak in martial arts is still alive. In his madness, Su continues his practice, to perfect his skills and fists.

You need to see that movie!!!

Soon:

Reign of Assassins

Jianyu Jianghu (Chinese Title)

(a.k.a: Rain of Swords in the Martial Arts World)

(In Production)

Michelle Yeoh

Jung Woo-sung

Barbie Hsu

Kelly Lin

Shawn Yu

Wang Xueqi

 A female assassin falls in love with a man whose father was killed by her gang. Unaware that he also is a trained martial artist, their love blossoms but then tensions arise as the past comes back to haunt them. 

        In 428AD, Bodhi, Prince of Southern India becomes a Buddhist monk and sets off for China earning a hallowed reputation as a mystical martial artist. Following his death, his remains mysteriously disappear. Hundreds of years later, Zhang, a high-ranking court official, is assassinated by Drizzle. His son Jingxiu, whilst mourning his father's death, is attacked by a group of assassins. They leave him for dead, but somehow he survives and escapes their clutches.
        Drizzle, a talented warrior herself, finds herself in possession of Bodhi's remains, and begins her quest to return them to their rightful resting place at the Yunhe Temple. 'The Black Stone,' a team of deadly assassins who employed Drizzle, are also after the remains and the powerful secret behind them. To hide from 'The Black Stone,' Drizzle undergoes drastic facial surgery and changing her name to Zeng Jing (Michelle Yeoh), flees to Beijing, where she meets and falls in love with Jiang, soon to become her husband. After a confrontation in Beijing, Zeng's identity is uncovered and both she and Jiang must flee for their lives. As Zeng kills off members of the gang while they run, she quickly realizes Jiang is actually Jingxiu, and he is seeking revenge for his father's murder. This leads to a lethal triangle and a fight to the death between our hero Zeng, Jiang and 'The Black Stone.' The only question remains who will be the last man standing to uncover the secret of Bodhi's remains...

THE HIGH PRICES

For a while now, Michelle has been the highest paid actress in Asia. But it is also hard to forget what prices she has paid. Though action films strongly depend on choreography, cinematography, and editing to look good, it must never be forgotten that in Hong Kong, the blows actors throw and receive in the course of filmed combat are real (in the sense that they involve full contact).

Michelle is known for doing her own fights and stunts.

Early in her career, in 1986, the young lady who had trained to be a ballerina dislocated her shoulder and got burned during the shooting of Royal Warriors. When filming Magnificent Warriors in Taiwan, the former beauty queen got kicked so hard that an artery in her leg was ruptured.

Michelle, spring 1993

1993 was a successful yet a hard year for Michelle. The extremely tight and sometimes overlapping shooting schedules led to her having no time to stay in the hospital even when that might have been the best thing to have done. At the beginning of the year, the final action sequence of Holy Weapon triggered her old spinal injury. During her final scene in Executioners, the actor who was lifting her in the air accidentally touched the spot on her injured spine. The pressure and pain made her twitch and vomit.

In the shooting of Wing Chun, Michelle dislocated her elbow in a fight scene. Also while filming the movie, her old spinal injury recurred as the result of falling from a horse. One day at the shooting location in Beijing the pain was so bad that she could not move at all.

Upon her return to Hong Kong, Ching Siu-Tung's Wonder Seven had been waiting for her. Not wanting to disturb that film crew's plans, she went to work as scheduled. She ended up re-injuring her spine while shooting a scene of that required her to fall into water. When she finally went to see doctor, the doctor was surprised at how she had managed to stand the pre-existing pain for so long without seeking medical attention. She was ordered to stay in hospital for a week.

In the following year, 1994, Michelle planned to take a small break. But while on holiday, an Alpine skiing accident landed her once more in a hospital bed. This time, she tore her right knee ligaments and had to undergo surgery to repair this injury. Up to today she still has a screw in her knee (she later got a "matching" screw in her left knee from another injury sustained while filming Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). It took a few months for Michelle to recover. In that year, Michelle only made a cameo appearance in Shaolin Popey II: Messy Temple.

Ah Kam crew. from left: Michelle, Ann Hui (director), Jimmy Wong, and Crystal Kwok, 1995

Worse was to come. In 1995, Michelle sustained her worst injury when starring in Ann Hui's film about a stunt woman - Ah Kam. It is a more dramatic flavored role. But things went wrong during the filming of what was considered by Michelle to be a not very difficult stunt. In an 18 foot fall Michelle landed from a wrong angle and the accident nearly cost her life. It is effectively a miracle that she escaped with 'only' deep-tissue bruising and a cracked rib. Michelle spent three weeks in hospital. (for more details see Q & A.) Some post accident scenes are actually shown at the end credit part of the film which was released in 1996.

Michelle in The Soong Sisters

When resting in bed, Michelle had time to think about her future career. It doesn't seem to be entirely coincidental that in her next film, she had a purely dramatic role. Mabel Cheung's historic drama The Soong Sisters (filmed in 1996, released in 1997) was Michelle's first non-action movie. She was nominated as the Best Supporting Actress (Hong Kong Film Award) for her remarkable performance.

INTERNATIONAL STAR

It's the time when the whole world gets to know this phenomenal talent...

Of the handful of female action actresses who came to prominence in Hong Kong films, Michelle is the first - and thus far, the only real one -- to make significant inroads into the West. Her first American release was Supercop. Jackie Chan's 1992 Police Story III was re-dubbed in English and released in the U.S. in 1996 under that title.

Colonel Wai Lin, Tomorrow Never Dies

If by some reason the film didn't make waves as it should have (I missed the film myself at that time!), Michelle's Colonel Wai Lin role in the 18th James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) definitely put her in the global spotlight - for the first time in the history of that popular series, Bond got his female equal! She's intelligent. She's beautiful and sexy. She is powerful and she literally kicks butt! Michelle, in the late 1990s, provided the Bond series - and films in general - with an ideal female representation that we can comfortably take with us into the 21st century.

Michelle in Moonlight Express

In the year 1998, Michelle was busy with the Bond movie tour, traveling all over the world. Although she was approached by different filmmakers, she didn't take any Hollywood offers. Instead, Michelle guest starred - for free, as a favor to a friend - in a Hong Kong action romance, Moonlight Express (released in 1999). She did not do any action or stunt in the film but her fans won't be disappointed (except by the short length - only about ten minutes - of her appearance). It is one of her best dramatic performances.

CTHD crew. from left: Chang Chen, Zhang Ziyi, Ang Lee, Michelle. Nov. 1999 (click to enlarge)

Meanwhile, Ang Lee approached Michelle and asked her to star in his new martial art epic drama, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (the sensational film was later nominated for 10 Oscars and went on winning 4 of them, including the Best Foreign Language Film), which the director described to Michelle as "Sense and Sensibility meeting martial arts". Michelle always had her faith in Ang Lee despite the director never having done any martial arts films. She was the first actor who signed on the project and in fact, the only one who agreed to star in the film among the four actors Ang Lee initially wanted for the four main roles.

Michelle and Ang Lee at CTHD press conference, New York, Oct. 2000

The five month shooting of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was not an easy experience for Michelle in 1999. Not only did she injure her knee at the beginning of the shooting (see Q & A for details), but she also had to deal with the constant nightmare of memorizing lines in a language she did not speak (the film is in Mandarin). However, Michelle did an extraordinary job for the film. She gives one of her most mature performances of her already impressive career, one which allows her to rise both physically and emotionally to a new level. She was nominated as the Best Actress for a number of awards (Hong Kong Film Awards, Golden Horse Awards, British Academy Film Awards, Saturn Awards, etc.) and won the title at the EMMA Awards and AMMY Awards. She was also named International Star of the Year at ShoWest, the world's largest motion picture industry convention. 

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snh0uy2qBfs

WHERE'S MICHELLE NOW

Seeking new challenges in the new millennium

In 1999, Michelle was engaged to Dr. Alan Heldman, an American cardiologist who lives in Baltimore. They met each other in London when Michelle was doing her Bond movie tour. After that Dr. Heldman accompanied Michelle to many public activities and Michelle was frequently traveling between Hong Kong and Baltimore. But the couple announced their disengagement in June 2000. Michelle, at the end of the day, can not give up filmmaking.

"I love the thrill and I love the challenge", the action heroine cum star actress said at one point. Michelle set herself a new and additional challenge in the new millennium - that which comes with being a film producer. Michelle started her own film production company "Mythical Films" (Hong Kong) in the spring 2000. The company's first film, entitled The Touch, is a romantic action adventure in which Michelle stars as an acrobatic circus performer. This is the first film Michelle ever produced. The film was released in August 2002 in Asia (and later in other territories) and it was Hong Kong's official entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2002. The film was awarded as the Best Co-Production Film at China's Huabiao Awards. Also, Michelle and co-producer Thomas Chung were named the Producers of the Year at CineAsia Awards 2002. In January 2004, Mythical's second film, Silver Hawk, which stars Michelle as a comic-book style heroine, was released in Asia. The film was also awarded as the Best Co-Production Film at the Huabiao Awards.

After several years of preparation of Hua Mulan, a story of the historic Chinese heroine, Michelle has abandoned plans to star as Mulan herself. She may still appear in the film and will likely be an executive producer.


(L to R) The Touch, Silver Hawk, Memoirs of a Geisha, and Sunshine
While best known for her action work, Michelle has always been interested in more variety in the range of roles she takes on. In 2005, she starred in Memoirs of a Geisha, a Hollywood produced ensemble drama based on a story of Japanese geisha. Michelle's character is not the central focus, but "it is Yeoh who quietly holds the screen with her warmth, grace, and wit," as said in a film review. In the fall of 2005, Michelle filmed a space mission science fiction thriller with director Danny Boyle in London. Sunshine was released in 2007 and Michelle starred as a botanist / astronaut / scientist.

In August 2007, Michelle's "North Pole" film, Far North, a psychological, dark romance set in the Arctic, was premiered at the Venice Film Festival. The independent, small-budgeted film was filmed in fall 2006 in Norway and London with British director Asif Kapadia. It is highly praised by critics and is being released in various territories.

In 2008, The Children of Huang Shi, a WWII drama directed by Roger Spottiswoode in which Michelle has a guest star role, was released in the spring. Fans of Michelle's action films were treated with two big summer releases. In The Mummy: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, the third installment of the Hollywood Mummy series which was filmed in summer and fall of 2007 in Canada and China, Michelle played a sorceress and her performance was said as one of the brightest spots. "Best of all is Michelle Yeoh, who radiates integrity in every role she takes on and who holds our attention as a powerful sorceress," wrote "Los Angeles Times". Another film, Babylon A.D., is a U.S.-French action thriller which was based on Maurice Dantec's genetic manipulation novel "Babylon Babies" and was filmed mainly in the Czech Republic for five months at the beginning of 2007. Michelle played a kickboxing nun.

At the beginning of 2008, Michelle became a global ambassador for the Make Roads Safe campaign, and she has traveled to different regions in Asia, Africa and Latin America for promoting global road safety. Turning Point - A Journey on the World's Killer Roads, the documentary Michelle made for the campaign, premiered in Rome on May 5th, 2009, during the launch of the 'Make Roads Safe: A decade of Action for Road Safety.'

Michelle's next project is a Chinese language period costume martial arts film, Jian Yu Jiang Hu. It has been announced that the film will be co-directed by John Woo and Taiwanese director and scriptwriter Su Chao-Pin. The production will start in September. In addition to guest starring in Yuen Wo-Ping's new martial art film True Legend (to be released at the end of the year), she also has several other films in the queue and we hope to hear about them soon.

Joining with producer Terence Chang and Taiwanese journalist David Tang, Michelle launched a talent management company, "Stellar Entertainment Ltd.," in June 2008.

Michelle is engaged to Jean Todt, previous general manager and CEO of Ferrari.

(to be continued. As time goes by we will get more stories of our Michelle... )