Who Was the First Chinese Woman to Win an Oscar?
Michelle Yeoh made history as the first Asian woman to win an Oscar for best actress. The “Everything Everywhere All at Once” star beat out Cate Blanchett, Andrea Riseborough, and Michelle Williams.
Despite its formal name, the award is often known simply as Oscar. The nickname is believed to have been coined by Academy librarian Margaret Herrick, who likened it to her uncle.
Michelle Yeoh
The first Asian woman to win the Academy Award for Best Actress since 1929, Yeoh is one of Hollywood’s most accomplished actresses. Originally from Malaysia, she won the Miss Malaysia beauty pageant at age 4 and later took part in a Hong Kong film production. Yeoh starred in a series of action movies, and her impressive physical performances earned her international fame. She’s also known for her work in Ang Lee films and the James Bond franchise.
Yeoh’s career started in the 1980s, when she starred in a number of martial arts films in which she performed her own stunts. Her performance in the 1984 film Mao touying yu xiao fei xiang was well-received, and she continued to perform her own stunts in her subsequent films. She even dislocated her shoulder during the shoot of Magnificent Warriors, but she didn’t let this setback slow her down.
In 1997, Yeoh began working in Hollywood and gained international recognition for her roles in Tomorrow Never Dies and Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. She has gone on to star in numerous other successful movies, including Memoirs of a Geisha, The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, and Kung Fu Panda 2.
She also starred in the television series Star Trek: Discovery as Captain Philippa Georgiou, a role that received critical acclaim. Her most recent high-profile project was Crazy Rich Asians, a rom-com based on Kevin Kwan’s best-selling book.
Yeoh’s Oscar victory closes a banner awards season for the actress. She won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Actress earlier this month, and she was nominated for a Golden Globe and several other awards, including a Screen Actors Guild Award. Yeoh’s win for Everything Everywhere All at Once cements her status as one of the most versatile actors working today. She’s able to portray everything from frazzled matriarch Evelyn Wang to an inter-dimensional traveler and beyond. The win for Yeoh marks the first time an Asian woman has won the category in over 90 years, and her triumph is particularly significant given the long history of racial inequality at the Oscars.
Ang Lee
After a series of commercial failures, Lee turned to writing and directing. He wrote and directed Tui Shou (1992; Pushing Hands), Hsi Yen (1993; The Wedding Banquet) and Yinshi nan nu (1994; Eat Drink Man Woman), all of which garnered critical acclaim. Having gained international recognition, he made his first Hollywood movie with the adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility in 1995, which starred Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet and Hugh Grant. Lee’s evocation of British period drama and his use of Chinese techniques—such as tai chi exercises—to evoke poignant performances, marked the beginning of his reputation as a director with a unique sensibility.
In 2000, he helmed Wo hu cang long (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), a martial arts film about two spiritually empty upper-middle class families that became one of the highest grossing foreign films in history. The film was the first to combine spectacular scenes of martial arts with a compelling story. It also earned Lee the Academy Award for Best Director.
The following year, he again won the Oscar for his adaptation of Annie Proulx’s short story about gay ranch hands, Brokeback Mountain, which starred Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. He followed up with Se, jie (2007), an erotic film set in Shanghai during World War II and Taking Woodstock (2009), a comedy about the staging of the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. In 2013, Lee made Life of Pi, an adaptation of Yann Martel’s fablelike novel about an Indian boy who survives a shipwreck in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger. Lee won the Oscar for Best Direction and earned accolades for cinematography, score and visual effects.
Michelle Yeoh made history on Sunday night when she won the Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role, becoming the first Asian actress to take home the gold statue. The Malaysian actress played Evelyn Wang, a middle-aged laundromat owner who must connect with her alternate universe versions in order to save the multiverse from cataclysmic destruction. In her acceptance speech, she dedicated the award to all women. “Women are the real heroes,” she said. “Without them, nothing will change.”
Bong Joon-ho
A Korean filmmaker with an international reputation, Bong Joon-Ho has earned praise for his lucid filmmaking and ingenious use of genre. His class satire Parasite won him the Oscar for best director and became the first Asian film to win the category; it also made history as the first foreign-language film to win the top prize at the Directors Guild Awards. His filmmaking has forged new paths for South Korea and enthralled audiences the world over. His international friends, including Quentin Tarantino and Tilda Swinton, have given him a global profile that has made his films more visible.
Like most Korean directors, Bong has always been a film buff. As a student at Yonsei University, where he studied sociology, he joined the school’s film club and immersed himself in the work of international filmmakers such as Edward Yang, Hou Hsiao-hsien, and Shohei Imamura. In the early 1990s, he started his own career with multiple 16mm short films.
He found his niche in the genre movie, a kind of cinema that he has made his own with an emphasis on social themes, blending of genres, black humor, and sudden tone shifts. His films, which he has also written and produced, include the crime thriller Memories of Murder, the monster film The Host, and science fiction films Snowpiercer and Okja.
Even though his films are steeped in Hollywood conventions, they foreground the absurd cultural anomie that Koreans have experienced in tandem with their economic development. In his Darwinian gaze, he has an affinity for enterprising hustlers foraging their way through a world that is decidedly stacked against them.
His obsession with his craft, his dedication to the process of making a film, and his talent for storytelling have made him a favorite among critics and audiences alike. His success has not gone unnoticed; Bong was included in Time’s annual list of the 100 Most Influential People and ranked on Bloomberg 50’s list of the world’s most influential people. Despite the prestigious recognition, Bong has never let it go to his head, remaining humble and stoic throughout his career.
Chloe Zhao
Zhao made history when she became the first Asian woman and second female director to win an Oscar for her 2021 film Nomadland. The Beijing-born filmmaker, who has worked as a horse trainer and bartender in addition to directing, was a favorite for the award throughout awards season, winning prizes from Cannes and other top festivals. She had also earned acclaim for her previous films, including The Rider (2017), which was inspired by the story of rodeo bronco rider Brady Jandreau, who suffered a brain injury after being thrown from his horse and crushed in the head.
Zhao, 39, grew up in Beijing and studied at Mount Holyoke College before moving to the United States for film school. She has since been making independent American films that blend fiction and documentary elements. Her filmography includes the dramas Songs My Mother Taught Me and Daughters of Shanghai and a series of award-winning shorts, such as The Runner and A Letter to Grandma. Her feature directorial debut, The Rider, was a critical and commercial hit that won the top prize at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight section. It was based on the true story of Brady Jandreau, a Native American rodeo bronco rider who was injured in a freak accident that threatened his lifelong career.
In her acceptance speech, Zhao emphasized the importance of representation in cinema and her father’s tradition of teaching her Chinese poetry. She also cited the phrase from a Chinese text, “The Three Character Classic,” that people are born good and are naturally good at heart.
Despite her triumph, Zhao was not immediately celebrated in her home country of China. The country’s state media did not celebrate her Oscar win, and a post on the popular Weibo microblog that was critical of the ruling Communist Party was censored within hours of appearing. State broadcasters Xinhua and CCTV were mute on the subject, as was the government-backed newspaper Global Times.
In her acceptance speech, Zhao was joined by her fellow Nomadland director Emerald Fennell (2020’s Promising Young Woman) and the other nominees, David Fincher (Mank), Lee Isaac Chung (Minari), Thomas Vinterberg (Another Round), and Michelle Yeoh (Everything Everywhere All at Once). Only two women have ever won best director at the Oscars, Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker in 2010, and Greta Gerwig for Lady Bird in 2018. It’s only the third time that a woman has won the award while being nominated for a film that also received the Best Picture Oscar.
