Lucy Liu vs. Michelle Yeoh
Battle of the Stunning Asian Chop-Socky Queens

While many questions about the forthcoming Charlie's Angels remain, as yet, unanswered (Will it suck? How much will it suck? Will it really suck? Will it suck more than The Avengers? And why does the trailer suck so much?), one thing seems certain: it's lights out for Michelle Yeoh. You may remember Yeoh from 1997, the year she briefly held America's attention, stepping into the niche reserved for a Stunning Asian Woman (a niche previously occupied by Joan Chen, who was evicted without much fuss). That was the year Yeoh starred in Tomorrow Never Dies, and was consequently featured, sweaty and long-legged and sitting on a radiator, in Esquire and, later, in People's "50 Most Beautiful People" issue.

As noted in Fametracker previously (see Watanabe, Gedde), decades of progressive thinking have seemingly opened up two, even three, slots in the American consciousness for Stunning Black Women (this still requires a little shuffling now and again -- Tyra Banks in, Naomi Campbell out; Jada Pinkett Smith in, Angela Bassett out; Vanessa L. Williams in, Vanessa "Melrose Place" Williams out), but America seems capable of processing only one Stunning Asian Woman at a time. And the release of Charlie's Angels cements Lucy Liu's hold on that position. To further complicate matters, Liu apparently spends much of Angels spinning, whirling, and kicking people in the chops, activities previously closely associated with Ms. Yeoh. (America expects a certain amount of spinning, whirling, and kicking from its Asian stars. Joan Chen, to our knowledge, never spun, whirled, or kicked, but, as compensation, was extra-especially stunning.)

The bad news is that in our rush to embrace the certainly-very-stunning Lucy Liu, we've squeezed out a genuinely exceptional star; how many people can, like Michelle Yeoh, claim to be a former Miss Malaysia who also does her own stunts? And we're not talking about tuck-and-roll-onto-the-air-mattress stunts -- we're talking stunts-in-a-Jackie-Chan-movie-style stunts. Think about that as you watch Lucy Liu in Charlie's Angels as she's hoisted improbably through the air via wires and harnesses like Cathy Rigby in an off-Broadway production of Peter Pan.

Yeoh may yet get a chance to wrestle back her briefly-held place of prominence; she stars in Ang Lee's upcoming Wu hu zang long (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), a martial arts epic that was a big hit at the Toronto Film Festival. At the same time, it's likely too much to expect a moviegoing public that was befuddled by the title of The Abyss to embrace a movie called Wu hu zang long over a movie called Charlie's Angels. For the time being, at least, Yeoh will have to console herself with the knowledge that (a) she could not only kick Lucy Liu's ass, but yours and mine as well at the same time, and (b) at least she's still on speaking terms with Bill Murray.

Advantage: Liu, alas