![\"Malaysian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/798b344cc6f5f72acb7e9e8e0f4c3b77ee1b98cd5221bd2a99690a063acd692c.webp\")
<\/p>\nFour years after her Oscar-winning turn in Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), Michelle Yeoh is back to speaking her mother tongue on screen.<\/p>\n
And that was what made the Malaysian actress\u2019 latest film, It\u2019s My Time, so special to her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to return to making Chinese-language films. I\u2019ve mainly been working on English-language productions, so I\u2019m very grateful to producer Wen Muye and director Bai Xue for inviting me to play Zhao Yanhong,\u201d the Ipoh-born star says in an e-mail interview.<\/p>\n
In the Mandarin biopic, Yeoh, 63, portrays a woman in her 70s who has to move into an old folks\u2019 home after falling ill, but refuses to let her circumstances define her.<\/p>\n
At the nursing facility, Zhao discovers she has the knack for solving the Magic Cube (think Rubik\u2019s Cube) after some lessons from a young instructor (Chinese actor Liu Haoran).<\/p>\n
Twisting and turning the cube comes naturally to Zhao, and her newfound ability soon transforms her uneventful life, bringing her unexpected recognition.<\/p>\n
Yeoh says when she initially read the script, the character \u201cimmediately appealed\u201d to her as it presented a new set of challenges.<\/p>\n
\u201cZhao Yanhong is an extraordinary woman, and she\u2019s very different from any role I\u2019ve played before. It\u2019s such an inspiring story about having the courage to pursue your dreams, and I really fell in love with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The protagonist is based on Zhao Wenying, a real-life former mathematics teacher from China who discovered the puzzle cube in 2014 after her granddaughter introduced it to her.<\/p>\n
She went on to teach herself solving techniques through online tutorials. Zhao would later become the fastest person aged over 60 to solve the puzzle while blindfolded.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh at the Chanel Women Haute Couture Fall\/Winter 2026-2027 collection as part of the Paris Fashion Week in Paris on July 7.<\/p>\n
PHOTO: AFP<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest challenge, of course, was speaking Mandarin again,\u201d Yeoh says.<\/p>\n
But like muscle memory, the language soon returned.<\/p>\n
True to her reputation as a consummate professional, Yeoh also paid close attention to the finer details.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spent a lot of time observing and learning the small movements, body language and walking style of an elderly woman to make the character as authentic as possible.<\/p>\n
She was also dedicated to learning how to actually solve the Magic Cube so that her movements would look effortless on camera – and trained for almost two years to master the skill.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe director wanted my movements to look fast and natural, so I carried a Magic Cube with me almost everywhere on set and practised whenever I had the chance,\u201d says Yeoh, who is married to retired French motor racing executive Jean Todt.<\/p>\n
Yeoh adds that she could see the parallels between Zhao\u2019s journey in It\u2019s My Time and her own life.<\/p>\n
Having won the Miss Malaysia beauty pageant at the age of 20 before moving to Hong Kong to pursue a career in showbiz, the actress has also experienced moments when she had to take a leap of faith without any safety nets.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel almost every new chapter in my life started with uncertainty.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I left Malaysia, when I began in Hong Kong, even later in Hollywood, there were no guarantees.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve learned you can\u2019t wait for someone else to tell you it\u2019s your time. You have to believe in yourself and be ready when the opportunity arises,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Yeoh has always marched to the beat of her own drum.<\/p>\n
At a time when Bond girls were often portrayed as either seductive femme fatales or damsels in distress, she made history as the first Asian Bond girl to stand as an equal to Agent 007 (Pierce Brosnan) in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997).<\/p>\n
And when actresses of a certain age \u2013 particularly Asian actresses \u2013 were often overlooked for leading roles, Yeoh continued to defy expectations, taking on one major project after another (Crazy Rich Asians, 2018; A Haunting In Venice, 2023; Wicked, 2024 to 2025).<\/p>\n
Then, at 60, she shattered another glass ceiling by becoming the first Asian woman to win the Oscar for Best Actress.<\/p>\n
She philosophises: \u201cWhen you\u2019re younger, you think life is about reaching the next goal. But today, I treasure the journey much more than the destination.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope audiences who watch this movie leave with a feeling that it\u2019s never too late to discover a new passion or to surprise yourself.\u201d THE STAR\/ASIA NEWS NETWORK<\/p>\n
It\u2019s My Time is showing in Singapore cinemas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Four years after her Oscar-winning turn in Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022), Michelle Yeoh is back to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-578354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}