Retrospective: Michelle Yeoh in 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon'

Yu Shu Lien remains one of her finest hours

Warning: spoilers for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon ahead…but really, if you haven’t seen it yet, you should see it.

It’s been pretty big week for Michelle Yeoh. As Everything Everywhere All At Once continues to pick up steam with the critics awards, she just received the prestigious honour of TIME Magazine’s Icon of the Year 2022, has her Variety Actors on Actors interview with fellow acting titan Cate Blanchett coming out today, and is receiving the Kirk Douglas Award from the Santa Barbara International Film Festival tomorrow. That’s a lot to have going on in one fell swoop, and it seems we really are entering the Season of Yeoh. Today also marks the 22nd anniversary of the US release of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a worldwide wuxia sensation which made quite the impact stateside, resulting in massive box office dividends and an incredibly impressive awards season run. While Ang Lee’s direction, and technical achievements such as score, art direction and cinematography received awards across the board, the cast was to an extent left out, though they did receive deserved awards attention in Asia (notably, Cheng Pei-pei’s win for Supporting Actress at the Hong Kong Film Awards).

Nevertheless, when discussing the legacy of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon these days, the performances are always acknowledged. The poised conviction of Chow Yun-fat, the delightfully bratty energy of Zhang Ziyi, the incisive menace of Cheng, the swooning Chang Chen, and of course, my favourite performance in the film, Yeoh’s iconic turn as Yu Shu Lien. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is an artfully told wuxia tale with many layers. With Zhang’s rebellious runaway Jen, we get the broad, bigger strokes of an ambitious young renegade, pursuing her whirlwind romance with Chang’s bandit ‘Dark Cloud’. With Chow’s portrayal of Li Mu Bai, we get the assurance of the renowned swordsman Li Mu Bai, pursuing his vengeance for the murder of his master by Cheng’s villainous Jade Fox with a calm sense of duty. And with Yeoh’s Yu Shu Lien, we have a balance between these two worlds. Yeoh, whose background in ballet segued into a career where she carved a reputation as one of the great martial arts presences in cinema, artfully merges all these elements into her performance here. She is a graceful, elegant force of nature with the physicality she brings to her fight moves, but also a fiery edge underlying its core. Shu Lien as a character is so expressive in her actions while reserved in her emotions within. The way Yeoh artfully approaches both sides encapsulates so much of what makes the film great.

Yeoh, who had to learn to read her lines in Mandarin phonetically , brings such an earthly, grounded presence to her performance here, making for a very different type of action hero. Shu Lien somehow never feels larger than life, even as she engages in the most dazzling high flying artistry. Yeoh has the unique ability to make anything seem possible and realistic. She can imbue characters with such gravitas but also humility. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a great example of how she utilises this as the great, sage and dignified warrior Shu Lien, who also comes across as a warm, and very amenable presence. Yeoh even finds a great deal of humour within her performance in her own unassuming way, particularly in how she plays off Zhang’s childlike energies so beautifully, like a wise but increasingly frustrated teacher dealing with an obstinate student. It’s one of the great examples of ‘disappearing’ into a role because you never think twice, you just accept Yu Shu Lien immediately because Yeoh convinces you so.

And of course, as we have seen over the years, with a physical ability that has continued to thrive, the way Yeoh moves onscreen is just the most beautiful, most cinematic thing. She can dance in and out of frame with the most elegant moves, wield every weapon in the most creative and spellbinding ways, and sell you on every hit and blow she takes. I love how she is so good at showing how even a great warrior like Shu Lien will get worn down by the fights she takes on. Developing so much character through fight scenes is an achievement we never give enough credit to our great action stars, and such is the case here. I give props to her physical work in both Everything Everywhere All At Once and Crouching Tiger here in how she can create arcs for her characters when performing the most outrageous physical feats. Once again, going back to how she grounds every one of her characters with a certain reality.

Of course, the aspect of Yeoh’s performance that is most often brought up is her chemistry with Chow, where they give such a powerful depiction of repressed romance. It’s a different kind of physicality here where the actors have to often say a lot through their characters’ dignified, ‘proper’ manner and words, and the way the film creates this unspoken yet oh so strong bond between them is incredible. A lot of these sequences involve Chow nostalgically recalling their shared history together as Yeoh intently listens on, and vice versa, and each scene bristles with how much swooning passion you can feel between their guarded fronts. It’s such a blessing that one of our great on-screen fighters is also so expressive with her eyes, because Yeoh is always showing her guard being slowly cut through with emotion, building to her final scene with Chow which is of course one of the great farewell scenes. I’ve seen dubs of this scene online, and other scenes featuring them at their most intimate, and really you should always watch with the original audio. The way both characters’ stoic fronts fall apart in this final moment of unrestrained passion is carried so beautifully by the work of both actors. Capped off by Yeoh bringing forth something she once again showcased in Everything Everywhere All At Once in her final scene here, as she offers up advice to Jen. No one can sum up the themes of a film as eloquently, in such an emotionally honest fashion as Yeoh does with Shu Lien’s final instructions in the film, and I get chills each and every time.

It’s here where your award season-brain pilled author must note that Yeoh was unfortunately snubbed of an Oscar nomination for Lead Actress, which would’ve been so richly deserved - but it is also notable that she did pick up some deserved plaudits, notably a BAFTA nomination (which may be surprising, but remember there was an era where BAFTA really did go their own way, which is coming back these days with the jury system). And as she hopefully continues to make noise on the awards circuit for her all-timer turn in Everything Everywhere All At Once, I will also continually bring up her incredible work as Yu Shu Lien which has beguiled me from the first time saw her weave her magic onscreen, and made Yeoh one of my cinematic heroes from a young, formative age.