Michelle Yeoh's win is Jackie Chan's loss: 'Everything Everywhere All At Once' has won everything, everywhere, all at once at Oscars 2023

Michelle Yeoh in 'Everything Everywhere All at Once', which has won 11 nominations at the 95th Oscars.

Multiverse epic Everything Everywhere All At Once had a historic showing at the Academy nominations with 11 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director (for the Daniels, as Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert are popularly known), and Best Actress for Michelle Yeoh. It has won 7 of those 11 nominations: Best Picture, Best Actress in a Leading Role (Michelle Yeoh), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Jamie Lee Curtis), Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Ke Huy Quan), Best Director (Daniel Kwan with Daniel Scheinert), Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing.

ALSO READ: Oscars 2023 LIVE Updates: Everything Everywhere All At Once sweeps off 7 wins, takes Best Picture, Best Director & Best Actress crowns

This follows in the wake of increased visibility and recognition for Asian and Asian-led films over the last few years — Parasite (2019) had six nominations and four wins including Best Picture, Minari (2020) had six nominations and one win, and Drive My Car (2021) had four nominations and one win.

Multiverses are usually the domain of comic-book intellectual property, and while Everything Everywhere... is a wholly original story, the movie owes a debt to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was the Avengers: Endgame (2019) directing duo, the Russo brothers who were impressed by the Daniels’ debut feature, Swiss Army Man (2016) featuring Harry Potter himself, Daniel Radcliffe, as a farting corpse (see it to believe it), and came on board as producers through their company, AGBO productions.

Everything Everywhere... was initially conceived as a starring vehicle for Jackie Chan. When he passed on the script, the Daniels rewrote the movie from a woman’s perspective and approached Michelle Yeoh for the role of Evelyn, the immigrant laundromat owner under IRS audit who must travel the multiverse to save it from a powerful force. What follows is a gonzo adventure filled with wildly imaginative scenarios, but the movie is ultimately a heartwarming story of a mother’s connection with her daughter.

Michelle Yeoh’s amazing performance was widely appreciated and she is now the first Asian Best Actress winner. The 60-year-old star is known in Hollywood for her roles in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). The nomination and the win are a long-overdue recognition for an international icon, and while Yeoh has a lot of support in the industry she still has an uphill battle to win the statuette. Remember, the only non-White winner in the history of this category is Halle Berry from over 20 years ago.

The main cast were all recognised with newcomer Stephanie Hsu who had got nominated alongside veteran and winner Jamie Lee Curtis in Best Supporting Actress. Meanwhile, Supporting Actor winner Ke Huy Quan has the greatest comeback story of all time. The former child star who played iconic roles Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and Data in The Goonies (1985), gave up acting in the '90s due to lack of acting opportunities for adult Asians. In 2020, he fortuitously decided to return to acting at the same time that the Daniels were casting the rest of the film and bagged the role of Raymond Wang with the now-iconic fanny pack.

Everything Everywhere... was a huge box-office success as well, grossing over $100 million (the first independent movie to do so during the pandemic) on a budget of only $25 million. That’s a fraction of what Marvel’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) cost — $200 million, which was in cinemas at the same time and looks far inferior to this movie. The Daniels cut their teeth on music videos, always trying to do more with less. Their breakout was the viral video DJ Snake and Lil Jon’s Turn Down for What (2018) which showcases their gonzo aesthetic, go-for-broke ethos, and a penchant for the bawdy. Which brings us to today when a movie featuring an epic action scene with a sex-toy duel has won the Best Picture.

In the last few years, the movies with the most nominations have faced massive disappointment on the big night.

In fact, you have to go all the way back to The Shape of Water (2017) to find a Best Picture winner, and even that movie only won four Oscars out of a whopping 13 nominations. But putting all despair to rest, of all the universes in the multiverse, Everything Everywhere All At Once has changed that narrative and, as expected, won multiple awards. It's a big win for Asian artists and storytelling.