Michelle Yeoh will soon be seen as part of an all-female ensemble in Netflix's Gunpowder Milkshake, but where else have audiences seen her? The trailer for Gunpowder Milkshake sets the movie up as a colorful action-packed assassin movie, with a sequel already in development, and a look over Yeoh's very long career shows she's a natural fit for it. Of course, Yeoh is hardly an unknown name ahead of Gunpowder Milkshake, but each viewer's individual familiarity with her might come down to what generational demographic they're in.
Fans of Hong Kong action movies know Yeoh very well, her career stretching back to the '80s and first taking off with 1985's Yes, Madam, which teamed her up with her fellow martial arts movie great, Cynthia Rothrock. Yeoh would go onto appear in other Asian action movies like Magnificent Warriors, Royal Warriors, The Heroic Trio, Tai Chi Master, and Wing Chun. She also starred alongside Jackie Chan in Police Story 3: Supercop, with her character Jessica Yang making such an impact that she got her own spin-off, Project S (aka Supercop 2).
Yeoh made her Hollywood debut with the 1997 James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies, portraying the Bond girl Wai Lin, which brought her to international recognition. Three years later, Yeoh starred in possibly her most widely known role as Yu Shu Lien in Ang Lee's wuxia martial arts film Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. The movie was a worldwide phenomenon, winning an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2001 Academy Awards, and alongside The Matrix, kickstarted the popularity of wire-fu in American action films in the early 2000s.
Yeoh would later be seen in other action films in the 21st century, such as The Touch, Silver Hawk, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, and True Legend. At the same time, Yeoh also began appearing in dramatic films like 2005's Memoirs of a Geisha, later joining the MCU as Aleta Ogord in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Yeoh would also venture into comedy with the 2018 hit Crazy Rich Asians, along with the 2019 holiday-themed romantic comedy Last Christmas.
In 2016, Yeoh also joined Star Trek: Discovery as Captain Philippa Georgiou, and also played her alternate-universe mirror throughout the following seasons. Yeoh's work over the last five years, has arguably made her more well-known among younger audiences for her Star Trek, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Crazy Rich Asians roles than for the action movies that launched her career, but she's hasn't left side of her career behind, either. Yeoh would return as Yu Shu Lien in the 2016 sequel Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, and also jumped into the Ip Man movies with the 2018 spin-off, Master Z: Ip Man Legacy.
Yeoh will also be seen in another MCU role later this year as Jiang Nan in the upcoming Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and will also portray Dr. Karina Mogue in Avatar 2 and 3. Additionally, fans of Netflix's The Witcher will see Yeoh as Scian in the show's prequel mini-series, The Witcher: Blood Origin. As both her past and future work demonstrates, Michelle Yeoh has made a big impression in martial arts films over her nearly 40-year career, while also showing her talents in comedic and dramatic roles, too, and her versatility makes Gunpowder Milkshake's arrival on Netflix one her fans will certainly want to watch out for.
