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Hong Kong martial arts cinema: Michelle Yeoh on Tai-Chi Master and her action film start – ‘I dared them to cast me’
- The star of Hong Kong action films talks about Jet Li, tai chi and how dancing training helped her fight scenes
- In a 1993 interview she discusses her role in the film Tai-Chi Master and how she started as an action star
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Tai chi is usually used as a form of exercise today, but it was originally developed as a martial art – there is even a weapons component to it. Rooted in Taoist beliefs about the balance of opposing natural forces, it was important influence on Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do way of fighting.
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A ‘soft’ martial arts style which is fluid and elegant to watch, tai chi has rarely been used in films, which is why Yuen Woo-ping’s 1993 Tai-Chi Master looks so unusual. The period piece, which stars Jet Li Lianjie and Michelle Yeoh, is a fictionalised look at the invention of tai chi.
Li uses tai chi to defeat his enemies after failing to beat them by using ‘hard’ martial arts styles, while Yeoh excels throughout, especially during a scene in which she fights on an improvised pair of stilts.
In an interview at the film’s premiere in 1993, Yeoh talked to this writer about the making of Tai-Chi Master.
It’s unusual to see tai chi used in a martial arts film. How do you rate it as a fighting style?
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It looks very gentle, but there is a power to it. Every time Jet did it on set, we stood behind him, copying him. The movements were so beautiful, we’d stand at the back imitating him.
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