Jackie Chan is, perhaps, the most famous actor in martial arts films. I first saw him in a television broadcast of Rumble in the Bronx and have been an admirer of his films ever since. Michelle Yeoh (best known for her role in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) is considerably less well recognized for the vast body of her work. I first saw Yeoh playing a Chinese secret agent in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies. It’s because of her portrayal of a female equal to James Bond that Tomorrow Never Dies is my favorite Bond movie (I used to like Moonraker the best, but that’s neither here nor there).
About a week ago, it occurred to me that Chan and Yeoh might have been in a movie together. They did (no, I don’t mean Kung Fu Panda!). The 1992 movie Supercop (aka Police Story 3) co-stars Chan and Yeoh as a pair of Hong Kong detectives who go undercover to bust a Chinese drug ring. As expected, these two are great together. Both are good actors, both are amazingly athletically coordinated, and both are natural comedians. They actually made a sequel of this as well, but I haven’t seen it yet.
What’s my point? Chan and Yeoh are the Astair and Rogers of martial arts movies and I just thought it was worth mentioning. I’ll write a more analytical post about this later on.