Michelle Yeoh receives the “Asian Filmmaker of the Year” award at the opening of the Busan Film Festival

Michelle Yeoh will receive tonight the “Asian Filmmaker of the Year” award at the opening ceremony of the 31st edition of the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), which starts today, 6 October, at the Busan Cinema Center and will run until 15 October. As British Cinematographer announces, the award will be presented to her at the opening ceremony, which will be hosted by the Korean actress Kim Min-ha, star of the series “Pachinko”.

The honour, given every year since 2003, rewards Asian film professionals for outstanding contributions to the development of Asian cinema — among the previous winners are names such as Chow Yun-fat and Tony Leung Chiu-wai, as Korea JoongAng Daily recalls. For Yeoh, the ceremony marks a return to Korea after 15 years: the last time was in 2011, when she promoted the film “The Lady”, while she had first come to Busan in 2002, for the Asian project market.

For the occasion, the festival has prepared a special programme with three films chosen by the actress herself: “Reign of Assassins” (2010), “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (2022) and “Sandiwara” (2026). Her newest film will also be screened, “It’s My Time” (2026), the sports drama directed by Bai Xue, in which Yeoh plays a woman in her seventies who discovers a talent for speedcubing — her first Chinese-language film since winning the Oscar.

Michelle Yeoh, born in Malaysia in 1962, began her career with Hong Kong action films such as “Yes, Madam!” (1985), “Police Story 3: Supercop” (1992) and “Wing Chun” (1994), to later become an international star with “Tomorrow Never Dies” (1997), “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000), “Crazy Rich Asians” (2018) and “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” (2021). In 2023 she became the first Asian artist to win the Oscar for best leading actress with “Everything Everywhere All at Once”, while in February of this year she became the first Asian woman to receive the honorary Golden Bear at the Berlin Festival.

At the same opening ceremony, the Hong Kong filmmaker Ann Hui will receive the Camellia Award for her contribution to raising women in cinema, while the festival opens with the film “The Table: Day and Night” by Kim Jong-kwan. The competition jury is chaired by the Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou, with 315 films in the programme from 59 countries, including 95 world premieres.