Michelle Yeoh

Lisa Funnell is an award-winning author, media educator, and consultant specializing in equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) and media representation. She has published 11 books on such topics as gender and geopolitics in James Bond, Chinese warrior women, transnational cinema, and the sexual violence on screen. Her first monograph Warrior Women: Gender, Race, and the Transnational Chinese Action Star (2014) won the Emily Toth Award for Best Single Work in Women’s Studies. Her second monograph Geographies Genders, and Geopolitics of James Bond (2017) co-written with Klaus DoddsUS won a 2025 International Impact Book Award. Finally, her anthology Screening #MeToo: Rape Culture in Hollywood (2022), co-edited with Ralph Beliveau, was awarded the 2023 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title. Wayne Wong is a lecturer in East Asian Studies at the University of Sheffield. His research focuses on the politics, aesthetics and philosophy of global martial arts and action cinema. He has published in peer-reviewed journals, such as Asian Cinema, Global Media and China, Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Archiv Orientální, and Martial Arts Studies. He has also contributed chapters in edited volumes such as Fighting Stars: Stardom and Reception in Hong Kong Martial Arts Cinema, The Cinema of Stephen Chow, Afro-Futurism in Black Panther, and The Worlds of John Wick. His monograph titled Martial Arts Ecology: Aesthetics, Philosophy and Cinematic Mediation published in 2026. He is currently an editor of the Martial Arts Studies journal. Dorothy Wai Sim Lau is an Associate Professor at the Academy of Film, Hong Kong Baptist University. Her research interests include stardom, celebrities, fandom, Asian cinema, Hong Kong cinema, digital culture and screen culture. She is the author of Chinese Stardom in Participatory Cyberculture (2019), Reorienting Chinese Stars in Global Polyphonic Networks: Voice, Ethnicity, Power (2021), Celebrity Activism and Philanthropy in Asia: Toward a Cosmopolitical Imaginary (2024), and East Asian Auteurs, Cinephilia and the Media Platform Era (2025). Lau was the visiting scholar at the School of East Asian Studies, The University of Sheffield in 2022.

• List of FiguresForewordGina MarchettiAcknowledgementsAbout the ContributorsIntroduction: Michelle Yeoh is Everything, EverywhereLisa Funnell, Wayne Wong, Dorothy Wai Sim LauPart I. Rise to Transnational Superstardom1. Inspector Madam’ and Supercop: The Early Action Films of ‘Michelle Khan’Leon Hunt2. Co-Starring Michelle Yeoh: Character, Genre, and the Non-Love StoryKyle Barrowman3. Female Face of Hong Kong Cinema: The Early Hollywood/American Crossover Films of Michelle YeohLisa FunnellPart II. Impact on Martial Arts Cinema 4. Michelle Yeoh and the Kung Fu Comedy: Gendering the Carnival BodyLuke White5. Michelle Yeoh at the Ends of Action: The Crisis of Action-Image in Star Trek Discover (2017-20) and Star Trek: Section 31David John Boyd6. Beyond the Spectacle: Rethinking Cinematic Action through Michelle YeohWayne Wong 7. The ‘Affect’ of Michelle Yeoh’s Iconic Presence: Movement, Gesture and Martial ArtsKim-mui E. Elaine ChanPart 3. Global Stardom and Reception 8. Playing Asian and Asian American Roles: Ageing, Motherhood, and Female TransgressionJessica Ka Yee Chan9. Michelle Yeoh as Intersectional Rhetor: Stardom, Resistance, and the Politics of Representation in HollywoodHeshen Xie10. Performing and Mediating Celebrity Diplomacy: Michelle Yeoh as a Goodwill AmbassadorDorothy Wai Sim LauIndex