After the 1970s there were several big movies that featured bad ass woman action lead roles. 1979’s Alien with Sigourney Weaver which needs no introduction and 1980’s Gloria with Gena Rowlands as a woman trying to save a kid from the mob. There was also a lot of bad action movies. She, Sheena and Red Sonja just to name a couple.
Today’s Sunday Matinee is 1985’s Yes, Madam a Hong Kong action film starring Michelle Yeoh – in what was her first starring role.
Yeoh stars as Inspector Ng, a bad ass tough cop who ends up fighting an evil businessman and his goons. When Yeoh’s police undercover boyfriend is killed she teams up with Senior Inspector Carrie Morris (Cynthia Rothrock) to find a microfilm that lists all the details from the criminal organization. Unfortunately the microfilm had been pickpocketed by petty crooks and now both the cops and the gangsters are looking for the petty thieves and the microfilm.
The film was a huge hit at the time and several sequels were made. The film series became known as the In the Line of Duty series even though the first film was called Yes Madam and the second Royal Warriors. Michelle Yeoh only starred in the first two movies. She then got married and retired from acting for a couple of years. She divorced and returned to acting in 1992 by co-starring with Jackie Chan in Police Story 3: Supercop . Yeoh would go on and star in several Hong Kong action movies throughout the 1990s before she moved over to American films co-starring in stuff like the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies.