Wing Chun

Asia's top action actress Michelle Yeoh plays martial-arts legend Yip Wing Chun (the lone female Shaolin Temple student, who created her own style of kung fu) in this farcical action comedy. In their village, Wing Chun and her Auntie Abacus (King Dan Yuen) make a formidable team. Abacus is a shrewd and sharp-tongued businesswoman while Wing Chun (who developed her martial-arts skills to be less attractive to men) is known as a topnotch fighter. When a beautiful widow named Charmy (Catherine Yan) rolls into town and is taken in by the duo, their tofu business booms with customers fighting to catch a glimpse of her. But Charmy also grabs the attention of loutish bandits, who decide they'll steal her for a wife. More of a gender comedy than an accurate historical film (Yeoh doesn't actually perform the fighting style made famous by her character), Wing Chun is a combination of sitcom-style mistaken identity antics and kung fu action sequences. It lightly turns the gender politics of the traditional patriarchal China on their ear, as the female leads are always a step ahead of the men. Yeoh gives somewhat of a straight and stoic performance in this comedy film, which might have been due to a back injury sustained on the set. But it doesn't hamper her from performing impressive stunts, including bouncing up and down on an inch-wide pole like a diving board. And her costars provide plenty of humor to even out the film. --Shannon Gee