As usual, men would often find ways to belittle women. This type of discrimination could form from family upbringings and cultural values that have largely moulded a person’s attitude towards women. Well, who would have thought that a woman like Michelle Yeoh would have faced discrimination as such too?
Before her rise to stardom in martial arts, the Malaysian beauty queen was first a ballet dancer before choosing acting as her career path due to a back injury. In an interview with The Guardian UK to promote ” Shang-Chi And The Legend Of The Ten Rings”, Michelle recounted her experience with Jackie Chan on “Supercop”.
According to the 59-year-old actress, Jackie Chan has not always treated women with respect. But, this martial arts queen definitely taught him a lesson after a particular encounter they had together. Apparently, when asked whether Jackie believes women belong in the kitchen rather than in action films, Yeoh replied: “He used to. Until I kicked his butt.”
He even pleaded Michelle to stop doing crazy stunts and when she pointed out that he does crazy stunts all the time, Jackie replied, “That’s because when you do one, I have to go one better.”
Albeit this revelation, it probably wouldn’t be a good reason to blame it entirely on cultural upbringing since, according to Jackie’s memoir “Never Grow Up“, he frequently mistreated women (and people in general) during the early years of his career.
Despite the fact that we’re still unsure whether Michelle literally beat Jackie or “kicking his butt” was a metaphor, her martial arts expertise strongly suggests that it’s entirely possible that she would be capable of beating Jackie in a fight if the two were to battle it off, in a martial arts context! In the interview, she has also acknowledged that Jackie’s attitude towards women have since changed however, his attitude could have stemmed from Asian culture.
She also shared her experience post-marriage to Dickson Poon in 1988 which led her to retire from acting for 4 years just because her ex-husband forced her to do so! She explained, “I saw marriage as a full existence … Maybe it comes from Asian culture, but my thinking was that I couldn’t be running around all over the world jumping off buildings if I was going to give my marriage 100%.”
Nevertheless, this kung fu goddess has indeed proven to the world that a women is indeed capable of doing both stunts and walking down the red carpet like a true beauty-queen. In “Shang-Chi”, Michelle plays Ying Nan – a gatekeeper who resides in an enchanted bamboo forest, who is also – according to costar Awkwafina – “an awesome magical kung fu goddess”.
Source: Screen Rant
