This morning, the 95th Academy Awards ceremony came to an end. "Instantaneous Universe" by Asian American filmmakers won seven awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Best Director, and is regarded as the most brilliant performance of an Asian filmmaker in Hollywood history:
Michelle Yeoh who made history
The most dazzling Asian actor at the Oscars is Michelle Yeoh, 60 years old this year.
From the end of last year to the current global awards season, she has won many Oscar "Outpost" awards such as the Golden Globe and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. Before winning the highest award of her acting career, she also expressed on several occasions the difficulties and challenges of integrating into the mainstream in the Hollywood film industry.
Michelle Yeoh on the Oscar podium
Born in Malaysia in 1962, Michelle Yeoh showed outstanding musical talent and acting talent from a young age, and her dream of becoming a ballet dancer was shattered due to injury.
At the age of twenty, she was arranged by her mother to participate in the Miss World Malaysia pageant and eventually won the championship. This was a turning point in her life, not only getting the opportunity to participate in TV commercials with Jackie Chan and others, but also entering her career path as a filmmaker.
For an actress with good looks and physical conditions, Michelle Yeoh took a foothold in the Hong Kong film industry step by step, becoming the most well-known and highest-paid actress in Asia at that time, starring in "Royal Senior Sister" (1985), "Royal Warrior" (1986), "Chinese Warrior" (1987), "Police Story 3" (1992), and in 1985, she starred in the movie "007: Tomorrow's Empire" as the first Chinese "Bond girl".
In the field of action genre films, Michelle Yeoh has established a "beating woman" image full of personal characteristics, and also fits the stereotypical perception of Asian actors as "action stars" in the European and American film circles, even today, the mainstream media in the United States still recognizes her as an action actress, Michelle Yeoh's must-see list, those early action movies still account for the majority.
Behind the stereotype, Michelle Yeoh faces the "ceiling" that many Asian actors must face in Hollywood, and before starring in Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", Hollywood insiders simply cannot distinguish whether she is Chinese, Japanese or Korean, and even question whether she really speaks English. Even though she has appeared in many popular movies, she said she still couldn't find any work for two years.
Hollywood tends to choose actors who are well-known to mainstream audiences, and Michelle Yeoh has revealed that her role in "Instantaneous Universe" was originally written for actors like Jackie Chan. When she changed to a woman, she disclosed her views on the role, and the script simply changed the protagonist's name to "Michelle Wang", seemingly to cater to herself, but in fact implied the blurred face of the Asian community, "She should have her own voice, not a simple Asian immigrant laundry owner, if you don't change her name, I won't act." So, the character's name was eventually changed to Evelyn Wang, and Michelle Yeoh's persistence also allowed her to make history.
She did not blindly squeeze into the mainstream, but rooted in her own culture, exploring the possibility of breakthrough: "My film career began in Hong Kong, and my heart has always been closely related to Asia", looking back at her performances in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", "Sword Rain" and "Crazy Rich Asians", are all based on her own growth environment, restrained, accessible emotional portrayal and temperament, but also make her more calm.
Like the heroine in "Instantaneous Universe", Michelle Yeoh is facing different choices and challenges at every stage of her life, she once said that the heroine in the movie is the role she has rehearsed all her life, and she has also found her true self in the same repeated trial and error.
Asian actors, always waiting
Michelle Yeoh's path as an actress stems from her hard work and luck, but more Asian actors have careers that only wait.
This is the case with actor Kwan Jiwei, who partnered with Michelle Yeoh in the movie "Instantaneous Universe" and won this year's Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
When he first debuted, Guan Jiwei, like most child stars, succeeded very briefly, and the rest of the time was waiting for opportunities, waiting for auditions, waiting for rejection, waiting for failure. "I love acting, but I can't find a job and I don't have a role that suits me. I spend most of my time waiting for a call. In the end, I had no choice but to leave. ”
Born in a Vietnamese Chinese family, his family traveled to the United States, participated in a public casting event at the age of 12, was favored by the film, and got a role in Spielberg's movie "Indiana Jones 2". Later, he also continued to participate in the movie "Seven Treasures", but after making two blockbuster films, job opportunities became fewer and fewer, and he turned to the background to travel to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Los Angeles for his career.
After the release of "Crazy Rich Asians" in 2018, his life also changed, because of this movie, the situation of Asian-Americans has regained attention, the whole Hollywood has come to a 180-degree turn, and actors like Guan Jiwei seem to have new opportunities.
Even if he re-embarked on the road of actor, Guan Jiwei was very apprehensive in his heart. After all, he was 48 years old at this time, and he was even more afraid that after auditions again and again, he would be rejected again and again. But he thought that if he hadn't realized his dreams at the age of sixty or seventy, it might be even more terrifying.
In the spring of 2020, after filming "Instantaneous Universe", he originally expected his acting career to improve, but because of the epidemic, he had to wait again, and in 2021, because he did not find a job, he lost his health insurance, and he had to re-experience the despair he encountered when he was young.
Fortunately, the film was finally released and shined in the recent awards season.
After 38 years, he met Harrison Ford, the "big star" he met in "Indiana Jones 2", again at the Oscars, and he decided to enjoy it all because his dream finally came true.
More Asian filmmakers,
Still waiting for an opportunity to work hard
Zhou Hong (below), who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress for the movie "Whale", was born in a refugee camp in Thailand. At first, the family lived in a government-provided relief house, but after some efforts in the United States, the family finally gained a foothold. However, because of their strong Vietnamese accent, they did not escape discrimination from whites. In order to pursue a career in the show business, Zhou Hong knew that she needed to get rid of her unconfident and introverted personality traits, and after changing herself through speech courses, she decided to go to Los Angeles to pursue her dream.
Another Best Supporting Actress nominee, Hui Weilun, is a representative of Hollywood's new generation of Asian filmmakers. As a post-90s, she earned a degree in theater from New York University before experimenting with comedy and experimental theater on Broadway. Her self-confidence stems from her admiration for successful Asian filmmakers such as Michelle Yeoh.
After experiencing the "madness" of box office and word of mouth, Xu Weilun said that she has "calmed down" and will appear next in a work adapted from comics "Meisheng Chinese". "Because I am a Chinese born in the United States, it makes me want to share those ancient Chinese stories that have been passed down from generation to generation with the next generation so that I don't let myself get lost."
Although Asian filmmakers have shined in these two years, it cannot hide the embarrassing situation that Asian Americans are still on the margins of the American entertainment industry.
Michelle Yeoh and Kwan Jiwei are lucky, but behind them are the marginal lives of tens of millions of Asian actors. Asian actors in the United States are not small in number, but they lack the favor of their agents and agencies. An Asian actor once said anonymously that when he auditioned, the casting director thought that his appearance was "not very Asian" and "to make the eyes look smaller, and it must be a single eyelid".
More Asian-American actors are discouraged by industry seniors and relatives early in their careers, actor Ken Zheng said in an interview with The New York Times that a UCLA acting teacher once told him: "You are a good actor, but I will tell you, far from Los Angeles, there is no future here, go to Asia." ”
In Hollywood, which values fame and money, the looks and origins of minorities have become an additional burden, and even if they speak authentic English, have strong economic power, and integrate into mainstream American culture, it takes more effort than others.
As Michelle Yeoh's controversial tweet shows, the Asian actor community needs the Oscars, and she hopes that in the future, more Asian-Americans will be rewarded for their efforts, rather than decades or even a lifetime of waiting.
Reference source:
Variety Magazine: Interview with Michelle Yeoh
New York Post: Why Michelle Yeoh's historic Oscar moment is late
VICE: Even without Scarlett Johansson taking over your role, being an Asian actor is hard
Edited by Sebastian