How Michelle Reis turned beauty pageant win into a movie career as ‘the nice girl who can play nasty’

‘The most important thing here is to get yourself known,’ Michelle Reis said of parlaying her 1988 Miss Hong Kong beauty pageant win into a movie career

Reis often played girl-next-door roles, but shone as a criminal in Wong Kar-wai’s Fallen Angels and was world-class in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s Flowers of Shanghai

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Michelle Reis in a Post interview in September 1995. A model and Miss Hong Kong beauty pageant winner who became an actress despite having no training, she excelled playing opposite Jet Li, Leon Lai and Stephen Chow in hit 1990s films. Photo: SCMP

Published: 4:15am, 1 Jan 2023

Michelle Reis was a constant presence on Hong Kong screens in the 1990s, appearing in supporting roles opposite Jet Li Lianjie, Leon Lai Ming and Stephen Chow Sing-chi, among others.

Reis brought a down-to-earth appeal to her roles, usually essaying girl-next-door types, in spite of possessing model-like looks that led Hong Kong people to nickname her “great beauty”.

“If Ronnie Yip is the Hong Kong Madonna, then Michelle Reis is the local Julia Roberts,” gushed the Post in 1993. “She’s the nice girl who can play nasty and still convince you that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

“Her screen appearances show her as sassy and self-assured, while in real life she has the elegant poise of a catwalk model. The fact that most of Reis’ fans are female is indicative of her wholesome appeal.”

Michelle Reis and Jet Li at a press conference for Fong Sai-yuk, the 1993 film directed by Corey Yuen. Photo: SCMP

Although most articles of the time focused on Reis’ beauty, she was an excellent actress. She had no performance training at all, having learned her craft on the job working with directors like Tsui Hark, but she appeared very natural and unforced in front of the cameras.

Her role as Jet Li’s long-suffering companion in 1992’s Swordsman II, in which she suffered romantic angst while Li’s character dallied with Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia’s flamboyant Asia the Invincible, is still memorable.