Photos: Michelle Yeoh Transforms Into Aung San Suu Kyi, 'The Lady'

December 9th, 2011

Michelle Yeoh as Burmese democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi in "The Lady" (2011), a new film directed by Luc Besson. (Cohen Media Group)

In the new film The Lady, Malaysian-born, Hong Kong-based actress Michelle Yeoh stars as Burma's iconic democracy advocate, Nobel Peace Prize-winner Aung San Suu Kyi. The film is directed by French filmmaker Luc Besson, best known until now as the auteur behind such films as The Fifth Element and La Femme Nikita.

Yeoh and Besson will appear at Asia Society in New York this Sunday, December 11, for a screening of the film, followed by a Q & A. The film will be introduced by director Ang Lee, who collaborated with Yeoh on one of her best-known roles in 2000's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Yeoh studied 200 hours of video of Suu Kyi and learned Burmese for the role. Following are images from the film, some of which give a sense of how fully Yeoh inhabits the role of Aung San Suu Kyi:

Yeoh (L) on set with director Luc Besson (R). (Cohen Media Group)