In a scene halfway through “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” Michelle Yeoh frantically runs away from a woman who swings her leashed dog through the air like a bola. She grabs a two-liter bottle of orange soda, gulps it down, and taps an earpiece to gain the powers of an alternate version of her character…a version with the powers of a teppanyaki chef. .
Surprisingly, it’s not even in the top 10 weirdest things that happen in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” the frantic, bizarre, and deeply heartfelt sci-fi flick directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert that is became the first art-house hit of the post-pandemic era – and proved that at 60, Michelle Yeoh is still one of the most formidable performers in the world.
As beleaguered laundromat owner Evelyn Wang, Yeoh is at the center of a cosmic tale that rails against existential fate, stating that in the infinity of the multiverse, what really matters are the relationships that seem so small in comparison but offering stability amid the chaos. The film is a showcase for Yeoh’s unparalleled talents: she goes from a scruffy woman trying to keep the peace with her daughter (Stephanie Hsu), to saving her marriage (Ke Huy Quan plays her husband) and saving her business to a world jumping in the universe. superhero in sane sneakers who literally saves the world.
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“She’s the woman you meet when you go to Chinatown or the supermarket. It could be any immigrant woman,” Yeoh said in an interview with NPR last spring. “I felt it was so important for someone like that to have a voice and then show that she’s actually a superhero.
“When [people] think ‘superhero’, she added, ‘that’s always the guy [who’s] first in line for this. That’s why, when I received the script, I felt immense relief. It was like, yeah, ultimately.”
The performance earned Yeoh some of the best reviews of her 40-year career and landed her in the running for the Best Actress Oscars. If she wins her first-ever Oscar nomination, it will come 26 years after she first burst into Hollywood as a Chinese spy with deadly martial arts skills in ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’.
Since then, the Malaysian-born actress – who rubbed shoulders with Jackie Chan in Hong Kong action films in the 80s – has forged a filmography like no other, going back and forth not only between productions Asian and American, but also among big-screen blockbusters, television series and independent films. A small sample of his most famous projects: “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”, “Crazy Rich Asians”, “Star Trek: Discovery”, “The Lady”, “Memoirs of a Geisha”, “Kung Fu Panda 2” and of course, Ang Lee’s masterpiece “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon”.
A dazzling starring role in one of the most talked about films of the year would be achievement enough for most actors, but “Everything Everywhere All at Once” is just one of many projects Yeoh is releasing in 2022. She also lent her voice to “Minions: Rise of Gru”, “Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank” and the upcoming “ARK: The Animated Series” from HBO Max. In addition, she stars in the series “The Witcher : Blood Origin” from Netflix, co-stars in Paul Feig’s “The School of Good and Evil” (due this month) and will end the year in no less than James Cameron’s long-promised film “Avatar: the way of the water”.
And given that Yeoh is still driven by the same prodigious work ethic that propelled her to stardom four decades ago, you can bet the future will be just as prolific. As she recently told Rolling Stone, “There’s always the idea of, ‘I’m going to leave it to fate.’ Taurus—You have to work hard, and the harder you work, the luckier you are.
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