vintagegeekculture
“Yes Madam!” (1985) was the film debut of both Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock. Cynthia Rothrock’s role, that of the foreigner cop, was originally written for a man, but the casting director was so astounded by her performance at a tournament that he offered her a role. The rest is history: they created the “girl cop” action genre, and this movie got eight (!) sequels.
Though Michelle Yeoh is, to Western audiences, the Chinese actress, she grew up as Overseas Chinese in Malaysia, and speaks Chinese with a thick Malay accent. She’s considered an “exotic foreign beauty” (whatever that means) and is packaged as such to domestic Chinese audiences.
Incidentally, I was recently very disappointed to learn that, contrary to what you might learn from these movies, Interpol doesn’t actually solve crimes or have detectives, but is primarily an information sharing and clearing house between law enforcement agencies.
