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Time names Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh its 2022 Icon of the Year

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 07, 2022

Michelle Yeoh is capping off an extremely successful year with the prestigious honour of being chosen as Time magazine’s Icon Of The Year.

This year alone, Yeoh is involved in several projects including The School Of Good And Evil, Minions: The Rise Of Gru, Paws Of Fury: The Legend Of Hank, and the upcoming Avatar: The Way Of Water.

However, it is the indie film, Everything Everywhere All At Once – released in March – that is getting Yeoh all the rave reviews.

While the 60-year-old has starred in many American movies over two decades since she made the leap from Hong Kong to Hollywood in 1997, she has never been No.1 on the call sheet until this year with Everything Everywhere All At Once.

She tells Time that it is because Asian actors have always been relegated to stereotypical or inconsequential roles.

“It shouldn’t be about my race, but it has been a battle. At least let me try,” the Ipoh-born actress said.

So when the plump role of an overworked and frustrated wife in Everything Everywhere All At Once landed on her lap, Yeoh gave it her all.

“When you get an opportunity like this, you have to pour your heart and soul into it, because you don’t know when the next chance is. I think that is my biggest fear: Please don’t let this be the one and only,” Yeoh said.

Her stellar performance in the movie is generating Oscar buzz for Yeoh.

Time wrote: “Yeoh is carrying an added weight in this year’s Academy Awards race: the understanding that victory for her would be received by Asians everywhere as a victory for them too. No Asian woman has won Best Actress.”

Yeoh knows what a nomination and a win would mean, not only for her but to her legion of fans as well.

She said: “I’ve thought about it. And not just me – I feel like my full Asian community has thought about it. They come up to me and they say, ‘You’re doing it for us.”

Earlier this year, Time magazine named Yeoh as one of its 100 Most Influential People Of 2022.

Other visionaries on the same list as Yeoh included Apple’s Tim Cook, Oprah Winfrey, Squid Game creator Hwang Dong-hyuk and the Kardashians’ matriarch Kris Jenner.

The Star

Asia News Network

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‘Avatar’ sequel finally premieres 13 years after original

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 07, 2022

Thirteen years after James Cameron released the highest-grossing film of all time, “Avatar”, the filmmaker finally premiered its long-awaited sequel in London on Tuesday.

“Avatar: The Way of Water” takes audiences back to the enchanting world of Pandora, where in the first film the native blue Na’vi people battled human colonists for the moon’s natural resources.

Set more than a decade later, “The Way of Water” sees actors Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana return as Jake Sully and Neytiri, now parents of five children.

Their peaceful life in the paradise-like jungle is interrupted by the return of the “Sky People”, the Na’vi name for humans, who are after Sully. To protect their family and their tribe, Sully, Neytiri and their children flee to a far-flung territory and seek refuge with the oceanic Metkayina clan.

With their bodies and skills suited to forest life, the family must quickly learn the ways of the water to survive while facing their enemy’s nearing threat.

“This was a labour of love spread out over a decade, so it’s great to finally be able to share it,” Worthington told Reuters at the film’s world premiere.

“This is a heart-wrenching story, it’s mighty, it’s very powerful, you hope that it connects (with audiences) but it’s not just the carbon copy of the first one, we’ve really expanded the world, we’ve expanded this family unit.”

Saldana said reprising her role was “emotional”.

“It was exciting, it was also very scary because obviously, Jim had raised the stakes for himself, which meant that everybody was going to have a brand new challenge to have to deal with,” she said.

Sigourney Weaver plays Kiri, Neytiri and Sully’s adopted daughter, who is 14. Her biological mother is Dr Grace Augustine, who Weaver played in the original movie.

The 73-year-old said she met Cameron for lunch to discuss the movie and taking on the role of the teenage girl.

“We didn’t really talk about could I do it. It was more like you’re going to do this. And then he said ‘I know that you are still 14, you’re very immature, you clown around. Nobody else knows that but you. So I knew you could do this. I was like, was that a compliment or…?” she said.

Released in 2009, “Avatar” ranks as the top-grossing film of all time with more than $2.9 billion in global ticket sales.

Actors Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, who was born the year the original movie came out and stars as Tuktirey and Jack Champion, who plays Spider, said shooting the film’s many underwater scenes was the most challenging.

“I guess free diving, like having to hold my breath underwater and with everyone and we’re in the scene and we’re connecting to the emotion of the scene and each other, that was definitely something I didn’t expect,” said Bliss.

“I think learning to hold my breath for like five minutes and 33 seconds is definitely my favourite thing that I learnt. I think, I never thought I could even go past a minute so it really opened my eyes to that,” added Champion.

Four “Avatar” movies are planned through 2028.

“I never had any doubt that this day would come because I’d read all four of the scripts … but I think that the enormity of the task, of the world-building … creating this whole new level of detail … that was difficult,” producer Jon Landau said, adding most of the third movie had been filmed.

“We shot a lot of ‘Three’ because the kids are ageing out, so we had to do that though, just through necessity. But you know, we’re very humble in the thing that we only get to do the rest of them if this does connect. So, you know, we put all our love into this one,” said Worthington.

Reuters