Michelle Yeoh is an anomaly when it comes to martial arts stars – how can someone be so amazing at kung fu without any formal training?

Yeoh, who was born in Malaysia, never studied martial arts, and her first love was ballet. She planned to embark on a career as a dance choreographer after finishing a dance degree in the UK, having dropped any thoughts of acting after she experienced stage fright on a drama course at college.

Yeoh’s film career started by chance. A friend in Hong Kong was dining with businessman Dickson Poon, co-founder of D&B Films with Sammo Hung Kam-bo, and Poon mentioned he was having difficulty finding an actress to appear with Jackie Chan in a commercial he was filming to promote his jewellery business.

The friend suggested Yeoh, who had won the Miss Malaysia beauty contest, and she flew to Hong Kong and got the job. This led to a contract with D&B Films, and a non-action role in the 1984 action-comedy The Owl Versus Bombo.

Watching Hung choreograph the action sequences, Yeoh realised that the bodily control she had learned during her dance training, and her dancer’s flexibility, would allow her to play martial arts roles, and she pressed Poon to let her perform in action films. (Yeoh and Poon were married between 1988 and 1992.)

“I was lucky, as they chose a path for me that was daring and innovative at that time,” she said in an interview with this writer in 1993 . After a brief role as a judo instructor in the comedic Twinkle Twinkle Lucky Stars , a starring role in the 1985 police actioner Yes Madam! made Yeoh – then known as Michelle Khan – an instant star.

“In Hong Kong, I’m delighted to say that people have happily accepted seeing a woman throwing guys around,” she said in the Post in 1987.

“Until I came along, the market was totally monopolised by men. They were the stars, and women were just flowerpots – something pretty to look at. Women have been thrilled by my success, and I’m amazed to say that the guys have taken it in their stride.”

Yeoh had no formal martial arts training for the film, learning on the set from the choreographers and by training in a gym alongside veteran action stars like Dick Wei.

“I don’t have a particular style,” she told me in 1993. “I’m versatile – I have picked up many different styles, and I can do a lot of different moves,” she said.

“But if I had trained in wushu like Jet Li , some of my kicks would be better, and if I had to do a very old Chinese martial arts style, I would have to learn it.”

Yeoh has gone on to achieve success in Hollywood, including a notable role in Marvel superhero blockbuster Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings , but there’s no debating that she gives some of her most impressive – and dangerous – performances in her Hong Kong films of the 1980s, including the following three.

Yes, Madam! (1985)

Yeoh co-stars with Cynthia Rothrock in this tough police actioner, directed by choreographer Corey Yuen Kwai. Neither Yeoh nor Rothrock had any experience in performing martial arts in front of the cameras, and this resulted in heavy bruising until the two figured out how to time their blows, and how to pad themselves to minimise impact.

“It was tough at first, but I am by nature quite strong,” Yeoh told the Hong Kong Film Archive. “When I have to learn something new, I work at it. I succeeded thanks to the coaching of my martial arts masters Lam Ching Ying and Corey Yuen.”

Yeoh says she picked up the martial arts routines quickly, but Yuen constantly said she needed to hit with more power. “I could imitate the moves,” she told the Screen Actors Guild, “but one thing that has to come from you is the power.

“It’s not about how hard you hit, it’s about the speed you go and the point of retraction,” she said, pointing out that filming a fight scene is mostly about trying to appear powerful without actually hurting your opponent.

Royal Warriors (also known as Police Assassins) (1986)

Another martial arts-fuelled police film, this time with Michael Wong and Japanese star Sanada Hiroyuki , who had trained with Sonny Chiba . Highlights include a car chase, a violent shoot-out in a nightclub, and a lengthy denouement on a deserted construction site which revolves around Wong’s coffin and a crane.

“In Police Assassins I was half-paralysed because of an injury to my lower back,” Yeoh said in her interview with the Post . “I also dislocated my shoulder and tore ligaments in my leg. We know that every stunt we do is possible, but we also know that they are dangerous.”

Magnificent Warriors (1987)

There’s no let-up in the action in this warlord-era action-drama. Yeoh plays an adventurer, clad in a leather flying jacket, who teams up with Derek Yee Tung-sing and Richard Ng Yiu Hon to save a town from Japanese invaders.

Yeoh, whose performance flips between martial arts and stunts, knocked her vertebrae out of place during the shoot, and had to wear a neck brace for the whole film, only removing it for the close-ups. “After that, I had to take six months off doing any martial arts after severing an artery in my leg. But I always knew what I was in for,” she said.

Although there are big stunt scenes involving explosions, motor vehicles, and a biplane, the martial arts – choreographed by Stephen Tung Wai and actor Fung Hak On – are not neglected. In his book It’s All About the Style, Blake Matthews notes how Magnificent Warriors highlights Yeoh’s skill at handling a rope dart, even though she has no formal training.

“The best rope dart in a Chinese movie that we’ve seen in terms of application and choreography is performed by Michelle Yeoh … Yeoh performs just about all the techniques of the rope dart you can think of like an old pro … Yeoh’s coordination is simply awesome,” he writes.

In this regular feature series on the best of Hong Kong martial arts cinema, we examine the legacy of classic films, re-evaluate the careers of its greatest stars, and revisit some of the lesser-known aspects of the beloved genre. Read our comprehensive explainer here.

This article was first published in South China Morning Post.