Michelle Yeoh has been named Asian Filmmaker of the Year at the 31st Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), an annual honour recognising an Asian film professional or organisation for outstanding contributions to Asian cinema, per deadline.com.
The award will be presented at the festival’s opening ceremony at the Busan Cinema Center on October 6.
The Malaysia-born actress began her career in Hong Kong cinema with Yes, Madam! (1985), followed by Police Story 3: Supercop*(1992) and Wing Chun (1994), roles that reshaped conventions in the action genre. She later gained international recognition through the Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), which achieved both global box-office success and critical acclaim.
Her career expanded further with Crazy Rich Asians (2018), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021) and Wicked (2024). Everything Everywhere All At Once (2022) earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress, along with top honours at the SAG Awards and Golden Globes, making her the first Asian woman to win the Oscar in that category. She was also recently the first Asian woman to receive the Honorary Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.
In a statement, Busan organisers praised her versatility, saying Yeoh “revolutionised the representation of women in action cinema, establishing herself as one of Hong Kong cinema’s defining stars.” The festival added that her performances range across genre films, arthouse cinema and musical comedies, and continue to influence new generations of actors and filmmakers.
Yeoh’s ties to BIFF date back to 2002, when she attended the festival’s Pusan Promotion Plan, now known as the Asian Project Market. Several of her films have since screened there, including Far North (2007), Reign of Assassins (2010), The Lady (2011) and Master Z: The Ip Man Legacy (2018), which closed the festival’s 23rd edition. She last walked the red carpet at Busan in 2011 for The Lady, in which she played Aung San Suu Kyi.
This year’s festival, running October 6–15, will feature a Special Programme in Focus showcasing three films selected by Yeoh: Reign of Assassins, Everything Everywhere All At Once and Sandiwara (2026). Her latest film, It’s My Time (2026), will also screen.
Previous recipients of the Asian Filmmaker of the Year award include Jafar Panahi (2025), Kiyoshi Kurosawa (2024), Chow Yun-fat (2023) and Tony Leung Chiu-wai (2022).
•Featured image: Michelle Yeoh/Busan International Film Festival