Michelle Yeoh recalls one of her most death-defying stunts
An impressive sequence on Supercop almost cost the actress her life
Aux News Michelle Yeoh
Michelle Yeoh has been performing her own stunts for most of her career, but a sequence on 1992’s Police Story 3: Supercop—released here in the States simply as Supercop in 1996—almost left the actress for dead.
“In Asia at that time, we don’t really do rehearsals, we don’t have weeks of preparation. We learn the stunt and we do it,” Yeoh tells Entertainment Weekly as part of her promo run for Everything Everywhere All At Once.
The sequence in question features Yeoh jumping from a moving truck into a droptop roadster driven by co-star Jackie Chan while both vehicles speed down a Malaysian highway. As Yeoh explains, the six-foot drop from the vehicles when they were moving was far more intimidating than when they were stationary and the actors were just setting up the shot.
Yeoh goes into detail about the first time they attempted the stunt which found Yeoh hitting the hood of Chan’s car and then hitting the ground. “The windscreen was supposed to shatter, and that would have helped me have a break,” she says. “But the windscreen didn’t shatter, I had nowhere to hold onto, and I kept sliding off the car.”
Yeoh hit the ground and thankfully came out unscathed. Chan was ready to call it quits for the day, but Yeoh convinced the film’s director, Stanley Tong, to let her have one more go at it.
Tong—who began his career as a stunt man before turning to directing—and Yeoh went way back, and according to Yeoh he “understands the level of who I am and what I can and am willing to do.”
“When you fall off a horse, you jump back, right on, right away,” explains Yeoh. And she got it right on the next take.
It is a truly spectacular stunt that needs to be seen to be believed. Quentin Tarantino praised Supercop as having “the greatest stunts ever filmed in any movie ever,” and per tradition in Jackie Chan films, the outtakes over the end credits of Supercop will find audiences impressed that everyone survived them.
Everything Everywhere All At Once featuring Yeoh will have a limited release March 25 followed by a wide release on April 8.
20 Comments
This is also the movie where she drives a motorcycle onto a moving train. And Jackie spends several minutes hanging off a helicopter ladder, with absolutely no way to save him if he lost his grip.
Supercop is amazing.
I used to have it on VHS. I probably still do, but being a VHS tape it’s undoubtedly buried someplace I can’t get to without a lot of effort.
I love Michelle Yeoh.I’m so pissed at Aung San Suu Kyi.
I am still quite disappointed she wasn’t kept on as Captain Georgiou. At least for a season or two.
I highly recommend another movie starring Michelle Yeoh (with Maggie Cheung and Anita Mui) called The Heroic Trio. It’s melodramatic and a little cheesy, but lots of fun.
I’m fairly certain there was a sequel as well.
Yes but you wouldn’t even know by title. Executioners. A major character in the sequel gets viciously murdered in it too. Limbs ripped off and shit.
Yes Madam with both Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock is also very good.
Been a huge fan of hers since seeing Supercop in my teens. She’s just… extraordinary. Really looking forward to Everything Everywhere All At Once.
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If landing a motorcycle on a moving train is not your most death-defying stunt,then you have truly done some death defying shit in your life.
The very stunt mishap that this article is about is visible at 1:02 in that montage.
Yeah, it looks like that guy might’ve died trying to help her.They should give the off camera guys helmets at least.
JACKIE CHAN UPSET HIS ATTEMPTS AT KILLING MICHELLE YEOH WITH DANGEROUS STUNTS WERE UNSUCCESSFUL HE PLACES A CALL TO THE AMERICAN POLICE TO DO A WELFARE CHECK INSTEAD
Hong Kong film making back then was insane.“Wow, those are some amazing special effects! How did you do that?”“Uh…we just had the stars do the stuff you saw? I don’t understand the question?”
This article has me believing that they used live bullets because they didn’t want to rig up bullet holes exploding in the truck roof, and that they most likely didn’t get prior aerial clearance to fly a helicopter low over a highway. And Jackie Chan actually stole a bystander’s car for the scene and they improvised the whole thing.
All I know is you should never threaten her tofu:
Thank you for this. You just made my day.
I love knowing new generations of film enthusiasts will have that glorious and wince-inducing sense of awe and disbelief at watching HK films’ stunt work from that period. Just incredible stuff.