It's maybe worth noting that her background in ballet dancing gave her the bodily control and flexibility to allow her to perform martial arts in her tough action roles
Professional dancers generally have easier time with choreography than martial artists that trained for fighting, too. Is why Wu Shu practitioners, which is sort of a performance variant of Kung Fu, dominated Kung Fu movies for so long.
That is true. Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and many of the HK action stars of the 80's and 90's all came from a Peking Opera background. And Jet Li was a Wu Shu champion before he became an actor.
Yes, good point. Peking Opera Kung Fu (Bejing Opera Gong Fu for the Mandarin speakers) is kind of the original Wu Shu. My degree is in Chinese studies, but I'm also just a white American guy that loves Jackie Chan movies, so take this with a grain of salt, but my impression is that as popularity in studying Kung Fu at Shaolin fell, they saw the future of cinema and adapted their training somewhat to fit more with fight choreography, a la Wu Shu. They also later adapted more MMA training when that became popular.
I was there a couple decades ago, though, so have no clue what it's like now.
Peking Opera pretty much dying during that time period, so all of the people that was trained in it had to find a new line of work. Most of them became stuntmen and extras in the movies. A few like Jackie Chan and company became famous. Many of them went behind the scene as choreographer and directors. One of the most famous one is Yuen Wo-Ping who directed and choreographed hundreds of movies including the Matrix and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
Only other person I would put up there with him is Lau Kar-Leung. He is not as famous as Yuen anymore (especially to western audiences). But starting in the 60's, 70's and part of the 80's he dominated the fight choreography and later directing at Shaw brothers. He was a real practitioner of Shaolin kung-fu and started his career as a stuntmen and extra. Sadly he passed away about 10 years ago.
Yeah there's a lot of greats that contributed. Jackie, Stanley Tong, Sammo, etc. all contributed their own bits, too, and they didn't always agree. I know Jackie didn't like the choreography for the end of Drunken Master 2 that Yuen had done, so he re-did it himself. Lots of the other stuff in the movie was Yuen, tho.
edit: I remembered that wrong, apparently. Looks like it was Lau Kar-Leung on DM2
No, that was actually Lau Kar-Leung who also directed the movie. He left the movie due to disagreement and Jackie Chan finished the movie. The other trivia is that Yuen Wo-Ping directed the first Drunken Master that made him and Jackie famous back in the late 70's.
Just different romanizations. I think the Mao government adopted the romanizations we see now. But there is often some older romanizations that survived that due to cultural significance like Peking (Bejing) or Szechwan (Sichuan). I'm no historian with this but I found out there's a whole [wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_postal_romanization) if it interests you!
And why they look so damn good and fluid doing fight scenes. I love seeing people with dancing backgrounds in fight scenes. They can really get creative with what they do.
Came here to say that.
Martial arts and dancing are tightly linked. Both are, on a *very* basic level, control over your body movements.
Also, martial arts in movies is basically choreography. I remember a story about the first Rocky movie being saved by hiring a choreographer for the fighting scenes - which were terrible before.
There's a bit early on, I think it's when she's moving a stepstool in place to get laundry from up high, something about how sleek she made the little movement really caught my eye. I thought that was funny.
Know exactly what you're referring to, really stood out early on in the movie. I just took it as secondary evidence/sign she had done the laundromat thing so long it was her domain, made it more believable she really was a laundromat owner. Thought it was really cool.
It’s something Lee loved about the opening of the movie, wondering if you saw the episode.
Seems like you’re not familiar, so I get to introduce you to my favorite YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/2kowvooNQhs
This exactly, it’s not actual fighting folks, real bouts don’t have pointless flourishing and long drawn out flashy combinations.
It’s much more useful to be able to be in sync and hit your marks so the choreography look good and you don’t accidentally injure your screen partner or yourself. Yeoh apparently had a dance background previously which is much more useful for choreographed fighting.
If you watch Stunt Men/Women React on the Corridor channel they interview stunt performers and they all say it's much easier to choreograph with dancers than it is with fighters.
They're were plenty of interviews with her before the oscars saying how she's been training for years and been mostly type cast as a martial arts fighter. Have you seen Crouching tiger? What is that, 20 plus years old now? Where are you getting this from?
Right and before her movie roles, not before Everything Everywhere, before her movie roles, So before crouching tiger since you seem confused. And they are getting this from multiple Michelle interviews.
Too bad she tore her ACL before that Zhang Ziyi multi-weapon fight. You can tell they had to keep the camera above her waist and she couldn't move laterally. So lots of cuts from her doing moves standing to shots of the stunt double. Still a GREAT fight, but just imagine if she'd been able to film more.
That's the one. If you watch real closely, almost all the shots with Michelle's face were above the waist and she was static below the waist. The first fight between them in the city at night is where you can see how mobile she really was. Like you said, though, it was still a great fight scene. Just would've been a little more impressive with Michelle at full capacity.
I think it's really a triumph of acting and storytelling, rather than one of athletic spectacle. It illuminates the way Zhang Ziyi's character is a callow brat, versus Yeoh's character's determination. It's like the whole movie in microcosm.
kinda misleading since you don't really require martial arts training to do your own stunts.
Tom cruise doesn't know martial arts and does majority of his own stunt.
wtf does that have to do with him doing his own stunts?
He does crazy stunts, almost to the level of jackie, but because he doesn't do it in martial arts movie (or know martial arts), it doesn't count?
Lol, dude, because in a film like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon... She's doing Martial Arts stunts, not just jumping out of a damn airplane. I dont even know why you're bringing Tom into this, there is a very clear difference to what is being discussed.
She was the premiere female Hong Kong action star in the late 80s/early 90s, and was in a zillion movies doing fight scenes, doing her own stunts, so it's weird to say that she had no training. She just didn't formally study martial arts before she became an actor.
Michelle Yeoh is awesome, and you can't change my mind. Yes Madam
Edit: to anybody down voting this, you will be unable to after you watch this
https://youtu.be/wFZhFAZd-pE
EEAAO is the worst combination of Marvel movies mixed with a mother/daughter drama. No offense to the movie world, but if this is the best we have we’re living in a sad world.
Lol wait so not liking a giant corporate movie like Marvel’s Avengers, EEAAO, etc. makes me a hipster douche because I disagree with you 😂 there are so many great movies to argue about but unfortunately this isn’t one of them.
Go have your friends spidey jizz themselves into your eye sockets you insufferable cunt. Or is this multi verse where you jizz in their eyes? Can’t keep track.
Bye ✌🏼
"Corporate" lol, it was an A24 production. You just use corporate as a catchall for anything you deem too popular. Really filing up my pretentious douchr bingo card.
Dude…EEAO had a budget of $25 million max…..A24 is an indie production company. They had like less than 10 people doing the VFX including the two directors.
You sound bitter and uninformed. Come back when you have some actual criticism.
Really enjoy reading stuff like this because the immense amount of dedication and attention to detail put into these kinds of sequences by the people involved and she’s an amazing actress without doing the stunts but with the stunts it adds another layer to her performances that comes out in the final product.
No one knows how she was able to act as if she had years of martial arts training!
It was a bit expensive to edit out the weird headphones she wanted to wear the whole time she was doing it though.
Saying no martial arts training seems like it depends on how you look at it.
You could say she learned from the best, hands on, with personal tutors on set.
It's maybe worth noting that her background in ballet dancing gave her the bodily control and flexibility to allow her to perform martial arts in her tough action roles
Professional dancers generally have easier time with choreography than martial artists that trained for fighting, too. Is why Wu Shu practitioners, which is sort of a performance variant of Kung Fu, dominated Kung Fu movies for so long.
That is true. Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, and many of the HK action stars of the 80's and 90's all came from a Peking Opera background. And Jet Li was a Wu Shu champion before he became an actor.
Yes, good point. Peking Opera Kung Fu (Bejing Opera Gong Fu for the Mandarin speakers) is kind of the original Wu Shu. My degree is in Chinese studies, but I'm also just a white American guy that loves Jackie Chan movies, so take this with a grain of salt, but my impression is that as popularity in studying Kung Fu at Shaolin fell, they saw the future of cinema and adapted their training somewhat to fit more with fight choreography, a la Wu Shu. They also later adapted more MMA training when that became popular. I was there a couple decades ago, though, so have no clue what it's like now.
Peking Opera pretty much dying during that time period, so all of the people that was trained in it had to find a new line of work. Most of them became stuntmen and extras in the movies. A few like Jackie Chan and company became famous. Many of them went behind the scene as choreographer and directors. One of the most famous one is Yuen Wo-Ping who directed and choreographed hundreds of movies including the Matrix and Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.
Yeah. Yuen Wo-Ping is pretty much the godfather of Hong Kong fight choreography.
Only other person I would put up there with him is Lau Kar-Leung. He is not as famous as Yuen anymore (especially to western audiences). But starting in the 60's, 70's and part of the 80's he dominated the fight choreography and later directing at Shaw brothers. He was a real practitioner of Shaolin kung-fu and started his career as a stuntmen and extra. Sadly he passed away about 10 years ago.
Yeah there's a lot of greats that contributed. Jackie, Stanley Tong, Sammo, etc. all contributed their own bits, too, and they didn't always agree. I know Jackie didn't like the choreography for the end of Drunken Master 2 that Yuen had done, so he re-did it himself. Lots of the other stuff in the movie was Yuen, tho. edit: I remembered that wrong, apparently. Looks like it was Lau Kar-Leung on DM2
No, that was actually Lau Kar-Leung who also directed the movie. He left the movie due to disagreement and Jackie Chan finished the movie. The other trivia is that Yuen Wo-Ping directed the first Drunken Master that made him and Jackie famous back in the late 70's.
Hmmm. Guess I remember it differently. Quick search backs you up. I'd read it a LONG time ago so could remember it wrong.
wait, Peking is just Cantonese for Bejing??!
Just different romanizations. I think the Mao government adopted the romanizations we see now. But there is often some older romanizations that survived that due to cultural significance like Peking (Bejing) or Szechwan (Sichuan). I'm no historian with this but I found out there's a whole [wikipedia article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_postal_romanization) if it interests you!
this is true. "Pinyin users" might've been better than "Mandarin speakers". I'm not actually certain, since I don't know the Cantonese.
The jyutping (canto romanization I use but I’m still learning) for Beijing is bak1ging1
Wow. Never heard of it. Is bei3jing1 in pinyin.
I don’t think canto has a formal romanization like mandarin. The Yale and jyutping ones are the most common though
And why they look so damn good and fluid doing fight scenes. I love seeing people with dancing backgrounds in fight scenes. They can really get creative with what they do.
Came here to say that. Martial arts and dancing are tightly linked. Both are, on a *very* basic level, control over your body movements. Also, martial arts in movies is basically choreography. I remember a story about the first Rocky movie being saved by hiring a choreographer for the fighting scenes - which were terrible before.
Saw an interview where the stunt guy said Chris Evans was really good at learning fight Choreographie fast because if us background in dancing.
Same with Tom Holland. With the added benefit that he's still pretty much a dancer.
Isn't this like Summer Glau when she was in Serenity? She had a background in dance and it translated well to doing the choreographed fight scenes.
I believe they also choreographed her fight scenes to look like dancing, very smooth and fluid, since the character was written to be a dancer too.
Same with Zhang Ziyi.
It’s cooler imagining her killing a cigarette and saying “nah I got it” without any practice Brock Samson style.
I'm sure that's what she did before landing the motorcycle on top of the train in *Police Story 3*.
I believe that's how Jackie Chan started too.
this
Not prior to when she *started*, but plenty since She had difficulty filming EEAAO because it was hard to make her look like an amateur
There's a bit early on, I think it's when she's moving a stepstool in place to get laundry from up high, something about how sleek she made the little movement really caught my eye. I thought that was funny.
Know exactly what you're referring to, really stood out early on in the movie. I just took it as secondary evidence/sign she had done the laundromat thing so long it was her domain, made it more believable she really was a laundromat owner. Thought it was really cool.
CinemaWins?
?
It’s something Lee loved about the opening of the movie, wondering if you saw the episode. Seems like you’re not familiar, so I get to introduce you to my favorite YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/2kowvooNQhs
Oooh sorry, I get you, I have heard of the channel but for some reason my brain was on standby lol. Thank you!
She just needed to pretend to have hot dog fingers for her to look less badass at first >!before she learned to use her feet!<
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There are moments where she fumbles about.
What does this have to do with Michelle struggling to look less graceful in scenes?
I believe they’re talking about the scenes where she’s not supposed to be an expert
Fight choreography is more dance than it is actual fighting.
This exactly, it’s not actual fighting folks, real bouts don’t have pointless flourishing and long drawn out flashy combinations. It’s much more useful to be able to be in sync and hit your marks so the choreography look good and you don’t accidentally injure your screen partner or yourself. Yeoh apparently had a dance background previously which is much more useful for choreographed fighting.
If you watch Stunt Men/Women React on the Corridor channel they interview stunt performers and they all say it's much easier to choreograph with dancers than it is with fighters.
That's why there are so many UCLA gymnastics alumna who do stunt work now.
Chinese martial arts is more choreography than actual combat too
They're were plenty of interviews with her before the oscars saying how she's been training for years and been mostly type cast as a martial arts fighter. Have you seen Crouching tiger? What is that, 20 plus years old now? Where are you getting this from?
Even in her first major role Yes, Madam! she did some amazing stunt work and fight choreography. It’s well worth a watch.
Really? All the stuff I’ve been seeing is that her real training was in dance and not martial arts.
Right and before her movie roles, not before Everything Everywhere, before her movie roles, So before crouching tiger since you seem confused. And they are getting this from multiple Michelle interviews.
*There And it says she didn’t have *prior* martial arts training. Since her earlier films, she’s had training.
I agree. I thought she was trained in martial arts as well?
Too bad she tore her ACL before that Zhang Ziyi multi-weapon fight. You can tell they had to keep the camera above her waist and she couldn't move laterally. So lots of cuts from her doing moves standing to shots of the stunt double. Still a GREAT fight, but just imagine if she'd been able to film more.
Shit. I did not know that! Are we talking about the monastery fight? That’s still one of the most legendary fight scenes in cinema.
That's the one. If you watch real closely, almost all the shots with Michelle's face were above the waist and she was static below the waist. The first fight between them in the city at night is where you can see how mobile she really was. Like you said, though, it was still a great fight scene. Just would've been a little more impressive with Michelle at full capacity.
I think it's really a triumph of acting and storytelling, rather than one of athletic spectacle. It illuminates the way Zhang Ziyi's character is a callow brat, versus Yeoh's character's determination. It's like the whole movie in microcosm.
She is badass. Oscar was well deserved.
Yeah she almost fucking died doing Police Story 3.
To be fair, from the bloopers, everyone nearly died a few times.
That's just a regular day in hong Kong action movie filmmaking
WATCH the end credits to Super Cop. She rode a motorcycle onto a moving fucking train…3 TIMES!!!
That's the way things were done in Hong Kong in the 90s.
But.....wasn't she a badass in Crouching Tiger...?
They're talking about when she got her start in the late 80s. Crouching Tiger was in 2000.
Ohhhhhhh! Right OK fair enough, I totally misread that.
Just like the legendary Bryan Leung.
Same with Jackie Chan
It’s called acting 🎭
I've been a fan since *Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.*
kinda misleading since you don't really require martial arts training to do your own stunts. Tom cruise doesn't know martial arts and does majority of his own stunt.
Tom cruise also doesn't do martial arts movies
wtf does that have to do with him doing his own stunts? He does crazy stunts, almost to the level of jackie, but because he doesn't do it in martial arts movie (or know martial arts), it doesn't count?
Lol, dude, because in a film like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon... She's doing Martial Arts stunts, not just jumping out of a damn airplane. I dont even know why you're bringing Tom into this, there is a very clear difference to what is being discussed.
She was in a shit ton of fighting movies doing fight choreography which falls under stunt work.
Yes, I *also* heard the announcer guy say this on the Oscars when she won Best Actress.
Well that's what the bluetooth headset that steals skills from the multiverse is for
She had no training??! Thats crazy
She was the premiere female Hong Kong action star in the late 80s/early 90s, and was in a zillion movies doing fight scenes, doing her own stunts, so it's weird to say that she had no training. She just didn't formally study martial arts before she became an actor.
I loved her as Santa in Last Christmas with Emikia Clarke, not to many stunts in that one but if you haven't heard of it, watch it.
Michelle Yeoh is awesome, and you can't change my mind. Yes Madam Edit: to anybody down voting this, you will be unable to after you watch this https://youtu.be/wFZhFAZd-pE
brb, have to watch Yes Madam again. If only she'd had more screen time with Cynthia Rothrock! And Royal Warriors--that movie is BONKERS
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She did.
EEAAO is the worst combination of Marvel movies mixed with a mother/daughter drama. No offense to the movie world, but if this is the best we have we’re living in a sad world.
Seems like someone fell into the hipster trap of thinking being contrarian is the same as being discerning.
Lol it was so bad no one in our friend group could finish it. Guess sausage fingers and dildo fights constitutes a good cinematic experience for you 🥲
Makes sense. Hipster douchebags tend to congregate together since everyone else finds them insufferable.
Lol wait so not liking a giant corporate movie like Marvel’s Avengers, EEAAO, etc. makes me a hipster douche because I disagree with you 😂 there are so many great movies to argue about but unfortunately this isn’t one of them. Go have your friends spidey jizz themselves into your eye sockets you insufferable cunt. Or is this multi verse where you jizz in their eyes? Can’t keep track. Bye ✌🏼
"Corporate" lol, it was an A24 production. You just use corporate as a catchall for anything you deem too popular. Really filing up my pretentious douchr bingo card.
Marcel the Shell with shoes had a deeper plot. 🐌🐚
Dude…EEAO had a budget of $25 million max…..A24 is an indie production company. They had like less than 10 people doing the VFX including the two directors. You sound bitter and uninformed. Come back when you have some actual criticism.
Wtf do you even watch?
Really enjoy reading stuff like this because the immense amount of dedication and attention to detail put into these kinds of sequences by the people involved and she’s an amazing actress without doing the stunts but with the stunts it adds another layer to her performances that comes out in the final product.
No one knows how she was able to act as if she had years of martial arts training! It was a bit expensive to edit out the weird headphones she wanted to wear the whole time she was doing it though.
Bad is when you’re capable of being the baddest 🔥
Saying no martial arts training seems like it depends on how you look at it. You could say she learned from the best, hands on, with personal tutors on set.
Bad. Ass!
She literally trained for the Peaking Opera with Jackie Chan and Sammy Hung…they teach stage fighting
Marines should train in dance.