 Here's the real reason why Michelle Yo has risen above everyone else all at once to become the Asian Queen of Hollywood. Yeah, I like that pun. Anyway guys, this is going viral. It's Oscar season. Obviously Michelle Yo, she was a huge star in Asia in the 1980s to 90s to 2000s. But in 2023, Andrew, somehow she has reinvented herself as the Queen of Asian American media. So we got to go through some of the viral articles. We got to talk about why that is. So make sure you like, subscribe, and turn on your notifications, guys. Everything everywhere all at once, Andrew, up for a bunch of Oscars. Andrew, let's just get into the first article, man. This went viral from Next Shark on Yahoo. She wouldn't listen to people who told her to retire. Do not tell me what to do. A lot of people, they were telling me to retire. Give up your career, Michelle. And that was right before I got the script for everything everywhere all at once. Yeah, I mean, that's very impressive and you got to give it up to her, man. And she all these articles that we're going to be talking about, it's going to just show kind of how like tough she is, like literally like physically and mentally. Yeah, I don't think you guys know like Michelle Yo and we grew up growing up called her Michelle Yao was a star in Asia for like decades. Literally her first like win where she got known was 1983. And then of course, Supercop was in 1996. Andrew, some people are saying, man, I just hope the Oscars would recognize her. This March, I love to see her win. She doesn't need to retire. She just needs to get those bunions taken care of. Apparently Michelle Yo has gotten so famous recently, Andrew. Her bunions became famous. Yeah. And honestly, Michelle Yo is really of that like Jackie Chan era. She's almost I would say Jackie Chan status. Yeah. At this stage. Well, she was the female Jackie Chan of Asia or the Chinese markets overseas. However, Andrew, this moves into this whole arc that we're going to talk about because in 2023, she like transferred, she went away for a while and then became quickly the queen of the Asian American sphere. Moving on to article number two, Andrew, she's saying that nowadays in 2022, 2021, finally, she started to feel seen by Hollywood because for the longest time, of course, she had money. She had fame, but she felt like when she came to America, they just knew her as that one James Bond girl and pretty much from nothing else. Yeah, I mean, I would say it's interesting because her recent roles that really blew her up starting at Shang-Chi, crazy rich Asians, and then now everything all at once. She's playing mothers. Yeah. Older mothers. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was her first movie where I was like, OK, she's definitely playing somebody older with children. Right. Right. But but actually playing the actual mom role is something that actually somebody in Hollywood, they kind of talk about this where sometimes you're like too old to play the young, beautiful woman. And then you're too young to play a mom, mom. And then now she can kind of play almost like a young grandmother. I know what you mean. A lot of actresses say that 40 to 60 range is really tough because you don't know what to play because people just don't write those roles in Hollywood. She also said, you know, as you get older, the roles get smaller and it seems like the numbers go up and these things go narrow. And then you start getting relegated to the side and side more and more. So she was really, really happy, obviously, about everything everywhere all at once. David, your Michelle Yao impression is definitely underrated. What's the next article? She said she won Miss Malaysia to shut up her mom. So I think there's so many things that are related about her story. By the way, Michelle Yo's mom is still alive right now. And she's still looking very young and we got to get into our background later. But basically it almost fits into that high expectation Asian's mother or Asian father thing because she was like, yeah, you know, I won Miss Malaysia just to shut my mother up. She kind of has some stories of like, I don't want to say rebellious, but it's still somewhat of a Western life because where she comes from, there is a lot of Western influence in Malaysia. She almost grew up somewhat like an Asian American, even though she's 60. Like you said, because of the colonial rule of British and French Indochina. Moving on, in 1997, she went viral again because, of course, everything Michelle Yo was going viral right now because she was on David Letterman after James Bond came out and she said, Jackie is such a chauvinistic pick. Yo, to call out Jackie Chan out to let me tell you this, I'm sure Jackie Chan in his personal life is a wild dude or was a wild dude. But however, just to call him out like that is very funny. But I feel like she was a joke. Yeah, she was joking. But that she was serious at the same time. But that comment nowadays would be taken a lot more seriously than it was obviously in 1997. I think that that's why it went viral 25 years later, right? Yeah. Also, not only that, she also did say that Jackie Chan saved her life one time on the set of something by catching her from falling off the car. It's too late to cancel Jackie Chan. Some people were basically saying, like, man, I loved her kung fu movies made in the Asia market in the 1990s. Wing Chun was one of my favorites. Oh, my gosh, Michelle Yo. And I think that that's something obviously that a lot of the Asian American kids don't know, Andrew, is that she was the star of hella hardcore martial arts movies in the 1990s in Asia. She was doing her own stunts. We can play a clip of her like almost dying like twice. Like things that they would never do nowadays. And honestly, like no actress at her level would ever do right now. Yeah, I think that she actually drove her own motorcycle on top of a truck. And of course, back then they just like, you know, they didn't have the same liabilities and things like that. That, you know, Asia movies, specifically Chinese movies back then, they would just break every rule. Moving on, Andrew, she also went viral again because at the Golden Globe she won. They tried to play the music. It was not the pianist playing, but they tried to play, you know, that the classic soundtrack to go over to be like, hurry up. And she said, hey, shut up. I can beat you up and that's real. I can beat you up. And then everybody loved it because everybody does know that she does kung fu. Now, obviously some of the comments were like, oh, oh, my gosh, Michelle. Yeah, you're so small. Why are you just threatening people? Why do you think you could beat everybody up? And it's like, huh. Yeah, obviously, like, you know, was she being really seriously was she being serious about that? But I just thought that it was just like a lovable moment. Like everybody wanted her to say that. Yeah. And obviously she did incense some of the people on the right that were like, hey, man, why is she up there talking about her ethnicity in her age? Like everything was about that. Like we all conspired to hold her down. Like why evil white people, evil white man trying to conspire to hold her down? I like how she with her tone was. So even turned into like a political issue in the comments section of that article. Why don't you shut up? I am not left or right. I am just a classy woman from colonial Asia. Also, Michelle, you went viral again because she said that her own mother, who was still around, by the way, basically was saying, why do you look so old in your movies? You look so old and everything all at once. I am used to seeing my Michelle be so pretty. I think it just goes to show you that Michelle, you know, she has just such a wealth of experience and now it's all coming out on the interviews. Like she has just so much perspective to and so many stories. And she's so good at talking. She was a beauty pageant winner Miss Malaysia. 1983 back in the day, back in the day. You know, so I'm saying she's been on the stage and she's been known how to carry herself for decades now. So also, I got to say that her relationship with her parents is a little bit like second gen's that are like 20 or 30 relationship with their parents. Like we said, because actually Michelle, you ended up never having kids. So it's almost like maintained this like both their parents are still around right now. And we got to move on. Like we said, everything about Michelle, you know, whether it's her quotables or achievements is going viral again in 2023. It's almost like the whole past 60 years is brought back up now. But, you know, she's the first actress of Asian descent to ever get nominated for Best Actress. That is crazy. I would have thought that there was someone that was at least half. Yeah. Well, actually, there was a woman named Merle Oberlin in 1935 who was like either a quarter or half Indian and Maori, but she hit it. And I think she just said she was Italian because she does have like a slight unique look, but she's white-passing. Bro, do you think there's any other older actresses from Asia right now looking at Michelle, yo, and just being like, could I be next? I mean, they don't have the resume like her because else we'd know. I guess it'd be like. I definitely think she gives hope, but unless you really have been putting in that work for the last 40 years like she has, like working every day, unlikely. And we're also gonna talk about how her ability to speak English in multiple languages is also helping. Yeah. I mean, there's articles coming out about her childhood. This one's called The Slow Burning Rise of Michelle Yu. How the veteran Hollywood actress went from affluent ballerina and former Miss Malaysia to becoming the first time Oscar nominee at age 60. And there's like photos from her childhood. Like we said, obviously she's from a pretty well off family in Malaysia, which was at the time a British colony, which allows her to almost feel like an Asian-American because if you know about growing up in like Singapore and Malaysia, some aspects, Hong Kong, Andrew, it's almost like growing up half in the West, even though you grew up in the East. Yeah. And obviously like winning Miss Malaysia, those are kind of like Westernized systems that she's coming up in. I mean, she was married to some billionaires in her lifetime. Oh, I'm shampooing. She's been around like a very like high-class group of people. Yeah. Like we said, literally my parents' favorite actresses, like she was like top three of my parents' favorite actresses back in the 80s. But a lot of people didn't know about who she was in America until literally this year. And last but not least, Andrew, she is going viral because she sort of represents this Asian-American Hollywood that we've never had. You know how like a lot of people are always locked in and they try to shove people like Constance Wu too early into that queen role? And it just doesn't work out because now nobody likes Constance. It's found out she's really bratty or really snotty. But here she is in this photo and her next to Angela Bassett and next to somebody else. I'm not gonna lie, I don't know who that is, but I'm sure she's pretty big and she's British. And it's like she's like the Asian queen that looks like it fits in this like United colors of Benetton Hollywood superstars. She carries herself with lots of class. And then like, look at the comments. Man, what a fantastic actress and epitome of grace and style. Wow, she's such a badass, classy, elegant, age-appropriate, but still fashionable. All right guys, so we went over the viral articles and I think that, you know, I think you could pretty much say right now it's well deserved. Everything she has, she's well deserved. She put her life on the line doing stunts back in Asia. She carries herself with class. No real scandals have come out. I mean, she stayed very good looking. She is a great actress. She's been killing it in her last roles. So I guess we wanna get into a little bit more of the details about her background and kind of where she fits culturally in all this because I would say, David, it is interesting that she has leapfrogged or risen above all other Asian descent actresses to become this Asian queen of Hollywood. We have never seen something like this before. She is like the, what, Princess Diana? She's kind of the Beyonce of all this. Now, whether or not you think that she represents you because she's mostly of Chinese descent, regardless, she is the Asian queen of Hollywood right now. Like everybody almost has to like bow to her, it feels like. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if like that's the feeling within the Asian American community, but it certainly feels like the first person for the media type driven crowd. You know, obviously not everybody is a pop culture maven. You know, a lot of people that are second gen immigrants in America, they're just concerned with like them, their family, their life around them, maybe in their locale or their city that they're in. But yeah, if you're super tapped into like variety magazine, Andrew, Michelle Yeoh is the new Asian queen. And I think that a lot of people from like colonies in Asia really are the new thing. You know, even Bruce Lee was from a very Britishized Hong Kong. You know, Ronnie is from Malaysia. Andrew, even Uncle Roger leapfrogged all the Asian internet comedians and he's from Malaysia too. These are all like British, Indochina or French Indochina. I think we got to talk about this and we got to talk about how she being from Malaysia specifically or being kind of this westernized but Britishized, not necessarily Americanized Asian woman just becoming like the top of everything and why that is so appealing and so interesting to people because she has, she doesn't seem like she's actually an Asian American product. She is not from America. And I don't think she could have been raised in America. You know why? But you know what it is? I think a lot of people automatically associate being Western with being American but if you go internationally, a lot of people actually associate being Western with more being British. Yeah, I think, and this is one of the big aspects amongst everything else that we talked about which I want to go through real quick. It's like obviously her age, the fact that she's still performing at a high level. She's essentially Jackie Chan status now. She's multi-generational. Your parents know her, you know her now. You all appreciate her for different roles. You know that she's a very tough lady. She's put a body on the line. She's very classy. She's married a lot of rich guys but she's also been able to humble herself at the same time in many ways. You know what it kind of reminds me of? And if you guys follow MBA, you guys will get this. It reminds me of when Arvina Sabonis came into the MBA at 30 years old. Arvina Sabonis had been killing everybody internationally for 10 years but due to a dispute because Lithuania was part of the USSR, Russia was not allowing him to come to the MBA. So he basically had 10 years where he was a beast overseas averaging like 30 and 20 and dominating the Olympics but nobody in America knew what he could do. And when he came over, he was so well-rounded and I'll tell you this, if Arvina Sabonis who was the dad of Demata Sabonis by the way didn't have messed up knees, he would have became a Hall of Fame MBA player just based off MBA stats. It also reminds me of Luca. You know how Luca was like playing pro in Europe since he was like 12 or 13 years old? And then basically he came to America at like 1920 and people were like, whoa, this guy can do all of this? Where was I? And it's like, yeah, you just didn't know because the American eyes weren't trained on it. Right, right, right. But I do think that Michelle Yeo is unique in the sense that she's from a British colony, Malaysia and I think her Western attitude is not taken after an American actually. She's taking after like British people. Yeah because and I feel like British people because she grew up there for a number of years, I believe 15 to 22, like people identify with her. Yeah and I also want to say like, you know, when you see like the Uncle Rogers or everybody else that's from Malaysia or even Indonesia when you're talking about Rich Bryan, you know, these, yeah, these international kids who kind of are able that are super clever, they know multiple languages, they're kind of becoming the new Asian stars minus the K-pop stuff. Aside from the K-pop stuff, these are the other Asian stars that are blown up. Yeah, it's almost like the Chinese stars are all coming from French or British Indochina and then the other side of the stars are all just coming from Korea. Yeah, because I think that there maybe is like growing up in America and I'll put it pretty bluntly, sometimes you're raised up and you're viewed as like a second rate version of a white or black American. Right, you say depending on how you organically or made a concerted effort to shape your identity after one of the two heritage groups. Yeah, exactly, you essentially become some version of them or that's how you're viewed at least. While these people coming from Asia but a westernized, Britishized country in Asia, it's almost like something totally different and it's something that's classy, it's interesting, they have an outside perspective, they're secure in their identity, they know that they're Asian, they know where they're from. Also, they're not from, for example, like mainland China, which is very controversial right now and probably will be somewhat controversial for the next couple of decades. It's like they are from this like part of Asia that is like not... I think it's had multi-generational contact with the West and they've already sort of decided how much they wanna let in and how much traditional culture they wanna maintain. They're sort of like settled into their mix. I'll be honest guys, she's more like probably as a person in both good and bad ways, more like the mother that she played in crazy rich Asians than she is the mother that she played in everything, everywhere, all at once. Right, which was more of a, I guess an Asian-American struggle, right? Right, but I mean, all aside guys, I think we can all agree Michelle Yeo deserves it. Yeah, she deserves her flowers. Bro, if you see the work that she put in in the past decades, it's incredible. So I mean- I think it's crazy to see somebody that I remember hearing about like since I was almost like a baby and then it kind of leaves out of your mind for like 20, 30 years or maybe like realistically 20 years and then it comes all the way back in at a 10 out of 10 level. And you know what's another point that reason why that she couldn't be from the Western world fully, like she couldn't be from America, because she wouldn't have got that many reps in America. She made so many movies and got to build her status over there because in Asia, the stars are Asian. Versus over here, she might've, even if she won a couple pageants at a young age, she might've got shelved or shoved into these certain roles that were not like A level roles, not even B level roles, right? She could have got shelved into some C level roles. She definitely would not have been able to maintain like the prestige lane. She would have had to play in some national lampoon or like, you know, like fratty, sort of like low end things because obviously if you guys understand about demographics in America, the low end in America actually drives a lot of consumption and has a lot more money than the low end in like another country because America is just rich all around. But yeah, I mean, A man, shout out to Michelle. Yo, there's so many takeaways to get into this. If you guys really understand like demographics and like market pools and stuff like that. But, you know, we'll save those things for another day. Anyway, I hope Michelle, yo, I hope Ki-Hook, Huey Kwan wins a bunch of Oscars. They deserve it. They've been putting in work, sharpening their skills outside of the limelight. And like we said, it's just like that Arvina Sabonis thing. They've been working. All right. Just outside of the eyeballs. Yo, shout out to Michelle, yo, the Arvina Sabonis. I mean, honestly, she's beyond Arvina Sabonis. With more fresh air. She's like what Luca is gonna end up being probably. All right, so, all right everybody. Thank you so much for watching. Let us know in the comments down below what you think, what do you think about? Could she have been an Asian American or obviously are there certain things in growing up as an American that like kind of might like hinder your growth or hinder the type of repetitions that you get out here? So I don't know. Let us know what you guys think about this video if you found it interesting. Anyways, this was our breakdown about the Asian queen, Michelle, yo. All right, you guys, let us know in the comment section below. Until next time with the Hop Hop Boys, we out. Peace.