Michelle Yeoh Is Set To Receive A Huge Honor
Michelle Yeoh is an unquestioned icon of martial arts film, and she is deservedly receiving a huge honor very soon.
Michelle Yeoh is having an enormous revival, with the acclaimed film Everything Everywhere All at Once earning her some of the highest accolades of her entire career revival. While we will have to wait and see whether predictions that she will finally be receiving some recognition from the Academy Awards this year, Michelle Yeoh is receiving a huge honor from the American Film Institute. Per The Hollywood Reporter, the Malaysian actress will be receiving a Doctorate of Fine Arts at the upcoming class commencement of the AFI Conservatory, for her “contributions of distinction to the art of the moving image.” In other words, because Michelle Yeoh is awesome.
Everything Everywhere All at Once stars Michelle Yeoh as Evelyn Quan Wang, the owner of a struggling laundromat being audited by the IRS (represented by a steely, grouchy Jamie Lee Curtis). She has a difficult relationship with her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu), her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan) is working up the courage for a divorce, and a complicated history with her stern father (legendary character actor James Hong). Then Michelle Yeoh begins experiencing incursions of other-dimensional versions of the people around her, and she learns the entire multiverse is under threat by a malevolent, omnipotent entity known as Jobu Tupaki. Martial arts battles happen, a universe exists in which everyone has hot dog fingers, and the movie is eventually revealed to be as much about emotional connection as it is about extended fights with sex toys.
The role has become one of Michelle Yeoh’s most acclaimed, and for good reason. While she is mostly known as a martial arts movie actress, Everything Everywhere All at Once is a showcase for her dramatic talents (plus still a bunch of cool fights) as she struggles to balance her life and the revelation that she might be the most pathetic version of herself in the entire multiverse. The movie was a surprise box office hit, eventually grossing over $100 million and being re-released in theaters with additional footage. Along with Michelle Yeoh’s performance, the movie itself received universal acclaim and is expected to be a contender for multiple Academy Awards.
Along with Everything Everywhere All at Once, Michelle Yeoh has recently starred in a number of high-profile projects. She co-starred in the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, portraying the title character’s aunt in the pocket world of Ta Lo. Michelle Yeoh also starred as Philippa Georgiou in Star Trek: Discovery and has been announced to be the lead of a so-far untitled spinoff series. She will be starring in the Disney+ series American Born Chinese as Guanyin, a traditional East Asian Buddhist figure of great compassion and mercy. The series will also reunite her with Stephanie Hsu and Ke Huy Quan. Additionally, Michelle Yeoh will be starring in the Netflix fantasy film The School for Good and Evil, and in a whole slew of Avatar sequel movies coming soon from director James Cameron.
