“What the hell does it mean?”: Michelle Yeoh’s confusion over her movie debut
First-time actors are rarely in a position to pose questions, with Michelle Yeoh happy to go along with everything asked of her on her feature debut, despite the actor being left perpetually confused by one of its most important aspects.
Originally training to be a ballet dancer before an injury thwarted her dreams of turning professional, she opted instead to become a pageant queen, winning Miss Malaysia in 1983 and representing her country at Miss World. Of course, that line of work only has a finite shelf life, and it was a fortuitous encounter with Jackie Chan that pushed her into the world of acting.
The two worked together in a TV commercial in the mid-1980s, which caught the eye of a Hong Kong production company. From there, billed as Michelle Kahn, she made her screen debut in 1984’s action comedy The Owl vs. Bombo, which was a transformative experience.
Produced and directed by genre legend Sammo Hung – who also played the lead role – he ended up becoming Yeoh’s first major mentor in the film business, and it wasn’t long before she was upgraded to lead status. She was the fourth-billed name in her first movie and made a cameo as a judo instructor in her second before sharing star billing with John Shum in her third, 1985’s Yes, Madam.
There was no looking back from that point on, with Yeoh’s penchant for doing her own stunts and effortless mastery of intricate fight sequences swiftly making her one of Hong Kong cinema’s most popular and in-demand figures. It all began with The Owl vs Bombo, though, even if the nomenclature left her scratching her head.
“I love Hong Kong film titles,” she said to Rolling Stone of The Owl vs Bombo. “What the hell does it mean? Who cares? It’s hilarious.” Even though Hung plays Bombo and George Lam plays Owl, the whole ‘versus’ element doesn’t make much sense when the two title characters spend the majority of the running time working together, so it’s easy to understand Yeoh’s bemusement.
The former plays a dockworker and yoga instructor who moonlights as a thief, whereas the latter is a criminal who heists a large amount of money from a notorious gangster. Three years after their illicit schemes are rumbled, Owl and Bombo are forced to enter a tenuous alliance after being blackmailed into it by a former police officer forced to resign in disgrace. The Owl and Bombo would have arguably made more sense, but even at that, it offers no indication of what the movie is or what it’s about, so her point stands.
Yeoh doesn’t get given much to do as a teacher struggling to win over a class full of bad apples, with the actor admitting her contributions amounted to little more than “the damsel in distress.” Still, her foot was in the door, and in no time at all, she was kicking ass and taking names of her own accord, springboarding her to success that’s been ongoing for 40 years and saw her make history with an Academy Award win for ‘Best Actress’.
