Aung San Suu Kyi Actress Michelle Yeoh Deported From Burma
by Sampsonia Way / June 29, 2011 / No comments
Left: Aung San Suu Kyi. Right: Michelle Yeoh. Photo: filmofilia.com
Michelle Yeoh Choo-Kheng, who stars as Aung San Suu Kyi in Luc Besson’s film The Lady was deported by the authorities in Yangoon, Burma last Wednesday.
The movie takes its title from Aung San Suu Kyi’s nickname and focuses on the love story between the Nobel prize-winning democracy campaigner and her husband, British academic Michael Aris.
The couple’s unwavering devotion to one another as well as to their cause has caused fascination. They married in 1972 in the UK and had two sons. An academic and a lecturer in Asian history, Dr. Aris helped establish a Tibetan and Himalayan Studies center at Oxford and campaigned tirelessly alongside his wife for democracy. He died of cancer on his 53rd birthday in 1999 and hadn’t seen his wife since 1995 because the Burmese government refused to grant him a visa.
According to The Guardian, Yeoh visited Burma for the first time last December and met Suu Kyi in person. She told reporters in Hong Kong, “It’s important for me that people know her story because unfortunately I think a lot of people have forgotten or don’t really understand what was going on because it’s been 20 years.”
The former Miss Malaysia is an international action star. She rose to fame after starring as a Chinese spy in the James Bond movie “Tomorrow Never Dies,” as well as Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”
Here is the official synopsis of The Lady from EuropaCorp, translated from French:
The Lady is an extraordinary love story of a man, Michael Aris, and above all an exceptional woman, Aung San Suu Kyi, who will sacrifice her own happiness for that of her people.
Yet the infinite love that binds them will not vacillate despite the separation, the absences, the isolation and the brutality of the ruling military junta in Burma. The Lady is also the story of a woman who became one of the modern icons of the fight for democracy.
The Lady is an original screenplay by Rebecca Frayn, written after three years of research and interviews with Aung San Suu Kyi’s entourage, which allowed her to reconstitute for the first time ever the real story of Burma’s national heroine.
Learn more about Michelle Yeoh’s deportation from Burma.
