Chinese stories need to be told, says Michelle Yeoh
The 63-year-old actress voices the part of Lady Yin — the mother of Ne Zha — in the English-language version of the Chinese box-office hit, and Michelle is thrilled to be part of the project, suggesting that it could have a huge long-term impact on the film industry.
Speaking to People, Michelle explained: "I had seen Ne Zha II in Chinese, and even at that time I thought, 'I hope they do an English version, because you want little kids to be able to see it and understand'.
"So when they did come to me and said, 'Would this interest you?' I jumped right in … Somehow, when A24 and I get together, we get a little magic going."
Michelle believes that Ne Zha 2 could lead to more "Chinese stories" being told in Western cinemas.
The actress - who began her career in Hong Kong, before making the move to Hollywood - said: "It is so important as a cultural exchange; an opening for more Chinese stories that need to be told. Especially the mythological side of it.
"We're so rich in lore with the three realms: the heavens, the earth and the seas."
Ne Zha 2 focuses on the Chinese mythological character Ne Zha and his friend Ao Bing. Michelle loves that the movie manages to bridge the gap between traditional Chinese mythology and young film fans.
She explained: "The storytelling is so amazing because they have kept intact the classic myth of how it was before, but added that contemporary way of storytelling.
"So that's the bridge for the generational gap. Like we say, it is timeless, but timely."
Michelle also revealed that Ne Zha is "one of [her] favourite characters", revealing that she was inspired by the "spunky kid riding on fire wheels" during her younger years.
Michelle - whose previous film credits include Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Crazy Rich Asians, and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - reflected: "This is for people who always felt that they're not seen, or they have been ostracised, or they don't look right, or they don't fit in, so that they don't give up.
"And that's why Ne Zha has always been one of my favourite characters because he fought injustice. I think from the minute he was born, he felt very rejected.
"When I was a kid, I used to be so fascinated and inspired by this spunky kid riding on fire wheels. I wanted to be that cool demigod that fought for justice."
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Sydney Morning Herald
14 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Searching for something to read? Here are 10 new books
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Lucie is desperate to evacuate with the rest of the town, but her sister demurs – claiming she's on the run, among other things, and manipulating Lucie into staying in the shadow of ruin. With panic on one side, and preternatural calm on the other, a game of cat and mouse ensues. Salasc writes with enviable crispness, and she laces the central conflict with an exquisite sense of psychological cruelty and menace and mystery. You'll find yourself wondering which twin to believe as this tale of sibling rivalry and ancient dread unfolds. Monica Raszewski follows her previous novel, The Archaeology of a Dream City (shortlisted for the 2022 NSW Premier's Literary Award for New Writing), with Crimson Light, Polished Wood, a compassionate meditation on legacy and loneliness. Falling in love with schoolteacher Margaret, Leonora emigrated from London to Melbourne. 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He might also be an overgrown baby throwing a tantrum and smashing his toys. Except they're not toys. Like the election of Trump himself, his trade wars amount to a mass exercise in self-harm – but it won't be confined to the US. As Coggan points out, clearly, with a mix of the amused and bemused, the tariffs will be paid, not by foreign companies, but American ones, which will pass the cost on in increased prices for domestic goods. Coggan is also deeply aware of the history of such economic folly, likening Trump's tariffs to Churchill's decision in 1925 to move England back on the gold standard – which eventually resulted in the general strike of 1926. Underpinning that move, and MAGA (not to mention Brexit), is an absurd nostalgia for the lost paradise of imperial greatness. On top of this is the sheer uncertainty of world trade now – policies issued one day, being reversed the next. 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This account of their exploits and of others, involving interviews with many of the flyers, goes from the rough and tumble days of WW1 (when the life expectancy of a pilot was five flying hours) to the Korean War. Dramatic times, dramatic tales. When counsellor and educator Lael Stone talks about 'owning' your story, she means facing up to it. For more than 20 years, she has been dealing with individuals and families who are existentially held back because they don't. A painful past leaves psychological 'imprints', which, if not addressed, can result in repeated patterns of behaviour. This, in turn, stops us from moving on and living 'authentic' lives (authenticity being a key term throughout the book). 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The Age
14 hours ago
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Searching for something to read? Here are 10 new books
From a celebration of reading, to war heroes and Donald Trump's economic policies in our non-fiction round-up, to a creepy cli-fi thriller and a queer black comedy in fiction releases, this week's reviews have something for almost every reader. Happy reading. FICTION PICK OF THE WEEK A creepy mix of cli-fi disaster fiction and psychological thriller, Emmanuelle Salasc's My Sister arrives in the English-speaking world in a brisk translation from the French by Penny Hueston. It's a tale of twin sisters, Clemence and Lucie, reunited in the remote mountain village of their childhood, about30 years after Clemence left it and her sister behind. What has she been doing all that time? She doesn't have time to reveal all before a siren goes off – a warning that the glacier above the village is in imminent danger of cracking and laying waste to all in its path, as it did 150 years ago. Lucie is desperate to evacuate with the rest of the town, but her sister demurs – claiming she's on the run, among other things, and manipulating Lucie into staying in the shadow of ruin. With panic on one side, and preternatural calm on the other, a game of cat and mouse ensues. Salasc writes with enviable crispness, and she laces the central conflict with an exquisite sense of psychological cruelty and menace and mystery. You'll find yourself wondering which twin to believe as this tale of sibling rivalry and ancient dread unfolds. Monica Raszewski follows her previous novel, The Archaeology of a Dream City (shortlisted for the 2022 NSW Premier's Literary Award for New Writing), with Crimson Light, Polished Wood, a compassionate meditation on legacy and loneliness. Falling in love with schoolteacher Margaret, Leonora emigrated from London to Melbourne. Near the novel's opening, Margaret dies of cancer and Leonora finds herself locked in a potentially acrimonious legal battle with her partner's grieving, but bigoted, mother over the estate. Meanwhile, Leonora has developed a complex bond with Polish neighbour Anna, introducing Anna's daughter Lydia to art and literature in a way that leaves an indelible impression. It is from Lydia's perspective that the novel is largely drawn, and Raszewski captures the intensity and ambiguity of the intergenerational friendship with tension and tenderness. This is a delicately wrought queer novel that stakes out contradictions of inheritance and belonging – their tenuousness, their ferocity – while allowing enough scope for the reader to interpret characters, events and emotions in more than one light. Described as an 'all-round chaos merchant', Nell Jenkins is suddenly compelled to perform acts of filial piety against her nature. She fled her childhood home in Aotearoa New Zealand at the first opportunity as a teen, but now her mother's had a stroke. Her brother nursed their father through cancer, so it's Nell's turn to care for their mother. Her homecoming isn't exactly badly timed – Nell has an ongoing issue with her former boss (who is also, messily, her ex-girlfriend), and a stocktake of her life in Sydney is warranted. Soon, though, Nell's anarchic approach to sexuality re-emerges, and she winds up having sex with people she probably shouldn't – the brother of her dead best friend from childhood, and Katya, beguiling assistant to a washed-up TV psychic, Petronella Bush, into whose orbit Nell is inevitably drawn. Unresolved – and indeed irresolvable – grief does lie behind some of the sexual antics and unfulfilling romantic cul-de-sacs in Dead Ends, deepening the emotional ambit of this queer black comedy from the other side of the ditch. Music, love, literature… and sheer dogged perseverance. They're all you need to sail through a nightmare world, right? I suspect there'll be more than a few readers who baulk at the rose-coloured glasses I Cheerfully Refuse puts on, and I count myself among the chipper refuseniks on that score. Leif Enger has created a jarring picaresque that's hard to get invested in and is ultimately too shallow to succeed as allegory. What starts as a cosy love story set in a lakeside town on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, turns into a bleak and wildering voyage when Rainy, a musician, sets sail upon Lake Superior after his wife Lark is murdered. Lark's passion for reading and literature was intrinsic to their romance and the idealisation of both carries Rainy through, trenchant and largely unchanged by disaster, delivering unlikely blasts of optimism in the face of a grim world. And it is societal collapse-level grim – so grim for many, in fact, that a suicide drug known as 'willow' has become popular. Rainy has the drug aboard, though as he veers from coast to coast on the lake encountering a motley mix of stragglers, strangers and escapees, he stays immune to the disillusionment claiming others. Unfortunately, Rainy never really develops or grows, other characters can feel like mouthpieces, and the episodic plot militates against depth, refusing to coalesce behind anything more defined than vague platitudes of a stoical variety. The Stars Are a Million Glittering Worlds Gina Butson Allen & Unwin, $34.99 Running away from a catastrophe for which she feels responsible, guilt-ridden Thea escapes her life in New Zealand through travel, eventually joining throngs of others in San Pedro, a Guatemalan town that's become a party destination for international backpackers. There, she meets the attractive Chris and his partner Sarah, before another tragedy strikes, building a new layer of guilt and secrecy. The novel wends its way through 15 years. Thea finds a partner with secrets as consuming as hers, and although their relationship becomes gnarled by what they can and can't hide from one another, Thea chooses to abandon a rootless life running from her feelings in favour of a settled one in Tasmania. The truth will have its due, however and, during the pandemic era, amid lockdowns, pressure mounts to reveal dual mysteries from the past. Despite the clanger of a title, The Stars Are a Million Glittering Worlds is rich and deft literary fiction – it's full of vivid, sharply observed travel writing, all nested within a psychologically intricate examination of the effect of guilt on human personalities and relationships. The Economic Consequences of Mr Trump Philip Coggan Profile Books, $17.99 When describing the wrecking ball of Donald Trump, celebrated British economics writer Philip Coggan likens him to a Marvel character looking at the global trading system and shouting 'Hulk, smash!' He might also be an overgrown baby throwing a tantrum and smashing his toys. Except they're not toys. Like the election of Trump himself, his trade wars amount to a mass exercise in self-harm – but it won't be confined to the US. As Coggan points out, clearly, with a mix of the amused and bemused, the tariffs will be paid, not by foreign companies, but American ones, which will pass the cost on in increased prices for domestic goods. Coggan is also deeply aware of the history of such economic folly, likening Trump's tariffs to Churchill's decision in 1925 to move England back on the gold standard – which eventually resulted in the general strike of 1926. Underpinning that move, and MAGA (not to mention Brexit), is an absurd nostalgia for the lost paradise of imperial greatness. On top of this is the sheer uncertainty of world trade now – policies issued one day, being reversed the next. The only certainty is that those who voted for Trump will be the ones hurt most, and the already obscenely rich will get richer through tax cuts for the wealthy. This is brilliant synoptic analysis. Australia's Aviation Heroes Colin Burgess Simon & Schuster, $36.99 In April 1918, Australian reconnaissance pilot Jack Treacy was a pallbearer when the Red Baron (shot down by Australian anti-craft) was buried. As the body was lowered, however, the ground gave way, and he nearly went to the grave with the German ace. It's one of the more comic tales in this record of Australian airmen in war and peace – often taking pivotal roles. In 1942, no-fuss Queenslander Donald Bennett, for example, founded the Pathfinders squadron, which went ahead and dropped flares over target areas – highly dangerous. A more flamboyant character was fighter ace Clive 'Killer' Caldwell, who downed five Stukas in one operation. This account of their exploits and of others, involving interviews with many of the flyers, goes from the rough and tumble days of WW1 (when the life expectancy of a pilot was five flying hours) to the Korean War. Dramatic times, dramatic tales. When counsellor and educator Lael Stone talks about 'owning' your story, she means facing up to it. For more than 20 years, she has been dealing with individuals and families who are existentially held back because they don't. A painful past leaves psychological 'imprints', which, if not addressed, can result in repeated patterns of behaviour. This, in turn, stops us from moving on and living 'authentic' lives (authenticity being a key term throughout the book). To an extent, it may sound like psychology 101, but when she delves into such notions as 'the dark night of the soul' and the possibility of rebirth that's written into the concept, she does it from a deeply personal point of view (the traumatic birth of her third child), as well as from case studies put together over the years – all of which ground her theory in lived experience. She tends not to quote her sources, but it was difficult not to feel that – with frequent mention of the 'authentic' and 'individuation' – the ghosts of Heidegger and Jung were not far away. A very accessible self-help guide. One of T.S. Eliot's greatest poetic gifts was his sense of the rhythm of language, the child Eliot often making up a line, getting halfway, and finishing with 'dum-ta-dum'. The rhythm told him the sentence was unfinished, and that very rhythm was the key to finding the words. Teacher/librarian Megan Daley, in this updated version of her 2019 publication, emphasises the centrality of reading to a child from birth in developing a sense of the 'rhythm of words' and a 'network of language'. She takes us on the journey of becoming a reader from the cot to adolescence, noting the need for young people to enjoy reading, but also the need to develop their skills. She covers the waterfront, such as the benefits of an embracing diet of genres, also saying children shouldn't be protected from darker texts – a female student once asked her where in the library the 'sad' books were. Incorporating the contributions of authors, this is a first-rate guide for parents, teachers and carers. When Gwyneth Paltrow was filming Shakespeare in Love – which, apparently, she initially rejected without having read the brilliant script that gave her an Oscar – she seems to have made herself quite disagreeable. Despite its claims to being definitive (Amy Odell interviewed over 200 people from family to colleagues and friends, but never interviewed Paltrow, as much as she tried), this biography, often as not, highlights the problem any biographer has to face - the impossibility of getting inside the head of the subject. Odell takes us back into a childhood (father film producer, mother actress, Stephen Spielberg her godfather) that was almost designed to produce a Hollywood star. She also delves into Goop, her company that markets wellness products, much to the horror of the US medical profession. What comes through is the paradoxical nature of her subject; constantly in the spotlight, but elusive and often retiring. Odell attempts to give us a portrait from all sorts of angles, and not just her good side.
Courier-Mail
18 hours ago
- Courier-Mail
Scott Wolf breaks silence on divorce from estranged wife Kelley Wolf
Don't miss out on the headlines from Hook Ups & Break Ups. Followed categories will be added to My News. Scott Wolf is accusing his estranged wife, Kelley Wolf, of conspiring to make 'disturbing, false' claims about him amid their messy divorce battle. The Party of Five star broke his silence on his split from the former Real World star, saying his ex conspired a plan to accuse him of 'psychological abuse, child abuse, child endangerment, stealing with passports.' While he previously chose to keep this 'difficult' time in his family's lives 'private,' he told People in a statement published on Saturday that he's now speaking up to protect 'the well being of (his) children.' Scott Wolf broke his silence on his contentious divorce from Kelley Wolf, accusing her of conspiring to make false allegations against him. Picture:'I am now choosing to come forward and share that she has described to me her plans to 'make claims' about me, although she also admitted, 'I do not believe they're true,' in order to gain an advantage in what she sees as a 'battle' in court, and in the court of public opinion,' Wolf said. 'In order to protect my kids, I am providing the text messages she sent to me where she describes this plan, so there are no questions about her intentions, or the malicious intent behind her false allegations made and/or planned for the future.' The outlet went on to report that Kelley, 48, alleged in the messages that she 'was advised to make claims that are possible, even though I do not believe they're true nor would I ever say them to anyone'. In a statement, the actor alleged Kelley told him her plans to 'gain an advantage in what she sees as a 'battle' in court'. 'When you accused me of all the things you put in the restraining order, you made me into a villain. The only way I can fight back is to produce claims that are either the same as yours or greater,' she continued. She also detailed that her aim was to 'create more urgency to get the kids back. Or at least get back joint custody'. Kelley ultimately shared her allegations against Wolf on a phone call with police on June 26, according to the outlet. 'Although her claims are completely baseless and incredibly dangerous, the worst part is that they are traumatic for our children,' the 57-year-old continued in his message. In text messages, Kelley alleged she 'was advised to make claims that are possible, even though I do not believe they're true'. 'I hope that anyone who might speak publicly or report on such things, will consider this before spreading any further information from a clearly unreliable and completely compromised source.' He closed, asking for 'privacy and respect for our family' and thanked 'all those who have shown their love and support'. A representative for Kelley did not immediately respond to Page Six's request for comment. As some may recall, Kelley was shockingly detained and hospitalised after police were called to the Wolf family's Park City, Utah, home in June after a reported 'family fight'. An audio recording of the 911 call showed an unidentified woman claiming she was 'terrified' and 'needed help' after getting into an altercation with her brother-in-law and 16-year-old son. Wolf with his Party of Five cast mates Neve Campbell, Matthew Fox and Lacey Chabert. At the time, someone at the scene also mentioned an alleged 'past-occurred assault' choking incident that purportedly took place at their home in March. The scene transpired shortly after Scott filed for divorce on June 10. After his filing, Kelley later made another bombshell claim on social media that she was 'held against her will' by her former friends while she was 'trying to file for divorce.' Later that month, Scott was granted sole custody of their three children — Jackson, 16, Miller, 12, and Lucy, 11 — and a temporary restraining order against his estranged wife which he later dropped after they reached a new temporary agreement detailing custody, finances and communication. This article originally appeared in Page Six and was reproduced with permission Originally published as Scott Wolf breaks silence on divorce, slams estranged wife 'disturbing, false' abuse claims
