17 Apr 2007 - Michelle Legend by Hellen_Keh @ Michelle Baidu

Credits: Hellen_Keh @ Michelle Baidu

Original Link: http://post.baidu.com/f?kz=194180763

Edited by: Rain @ michelle-ye.com

Author's message:

I spent 5 days to finish reading through all the posts here. I started liking Michelle after crying like nobody's business from watching Lofty Waters Verdant Bow. As I am from the English program, I spent one day to finish this article of "Michelle Legend". The content includes Michelle's childhood, her performance in the entertainment industry, from the immature Lianhua in Gods of Honors to her great acting in Central Affairs, as well as my agreement for her optimism, enthusiasm, and diligent charisma in life. Mainly, I just wish to do my bit for Michelle, to allow overseas fans understand more of our golden girl. Here goes, and thanks for support!

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I have become a new fan of Michelle (Ye Xuan).

In memory, the first time I saw Michelle was in Gods of Honor (Feng Shen Bang), a TVB series production. Michelle was playing the female lead, Lotus (Lianhua), but her appearance in this drama was minimal. That was her first drama and her performance was below satisfactory. At the age of 20, she only showed the true herself before audience. I even thought she was slightly fat and couldn't be considered as a beauty.

After that, I watched several other series of her, including Street Fighters (Miao Jie Ma Xiong Di), Golden Faith (Liu Jin Sui Yue), Triumph in the Skies (Chong Shang Yun Xiao), etc. These TV series were also produced by TVB. Because Michelle was a newcomer, she seldom played leading roles. However, she took each role wholeheartedly and performed well in those series.

Although having watched her performances in several series, I still didn't like her very much. (I like those actors and actresses who are mature and with good acting skills. For actresses, I love Flora, Jessica, Yoyo, while for actors, I love Andy, Gallen, Louis, etc.) Haha, see? The actors or actresses I love are all beyond 35 years old. So I don't like 'little girls' or those 'vase' —— those with good looks but poor performing skills. At first, I thought Michelle belonged to those 'little and immature girls'. However, her TV series Lofty Waters Verdant Bow (Yun Hai Yu Gong Yuan) completely changed my mind and made me understand her better and objectively.

Two days ago, I accidentally watched Lofty Waters Verdant Bows led by Michelle and Raymond. In that drama, she played Li Shengnan. From the name Li Shengnan, which means 'to triumph beyond men' in Chinese, we know that she is one ambitious girl. I like this role very much. Her family was killed overnight when she was only 3. After that, she was brought up by a man who was the leader of the killers group. That man was so cruel and ruthless that he trained Shengnan to be a cold killer. Later, when Shengnan undertook a killing task in a snowing evening, she met the most important man in her life —— Jin Shiyi acted by Raymond —— whom she loved so much that she was willing to devote her life to him. However, there was another beauty between Shengnan and Shiyi, Zhihua, a traditional good lady with virtues. Shiyi thought that he should love Zhihua —— that kind of good and gentle lady with good virtues. But he was wrong. He didn't see his heart clearly. Deep in his heart, the girl he really loved was Shengnan, however, he wasn't willing to admit that truth. Besides, there were some misunderstandings between him and Shengnan. After Shiyi discovered the truth that Shengnan was a cold-blooded killer, he misunderstood that she had always been cheating and making use of him. He slapped her and vowed not to see her any more. Shengnan was so disappointed that she decided to do the last thing for her love. She killed the leader of her killer group who wanted to get rid of her Shiyi. During that battle, she was badly hurt and was going to die. At last, she pretended to hurt Zhihua and 'forced' Shiyi marry her. Shiyi wasn't aware of the truth and all the things Shengnan did for him. On the wedding evening, Shengnan wearing a snow-white wedding gown died in Shiyi's embrace. Shiyi was surprised that Shengnan loves him so much that she even sacrificed her life for him. He shedded tears and regretted very much, but it was too late. Shengnan left him forever. At last, he laid Shengnan on a bamboo raft and took her away from all the chaos - away to a family only belonging to them. What a sad story! The final scene was so touching that I watched several times and cried for them.

Personally speaking, I admire Michelle's performing skills in this drama. She displays the coldness and warmness of a blood killer very well and completely. When taking tasks of killing, she's cold and cool. But when with Shiyi, she's so naive and warm. The most important is that she's so brave before love. Such a girl with great courage to love is worth admiring. It is this Lofty Waters Verdant Bow series which makes me wish to know more about Michelle.

After reading Michelle-related stories especially her magazine columns, I know her better and was even more surprised about her fantastic experiences. She's such a legend that I can't helping loving and admiring her. She was born in Hangzhou, the nice city in Zhejiang province. When she was young, her family was broken and her parents divorced. Then, she lived alone for months. At that time, still merely a primary school student, she had to take many burdens which couldn't be imagined by her peers. Later, when she was 13 (MYR: the author made a mistake here, Michelle went to USA at 11, and started living alone at 13), her father took her to USA. Not willing to live with her father, she chose to live alone in USA and depended on herself. You can imagine how much hardships and difficulties she met in her life as a teenager alone in NewYork. However, she overcame all the hardships with strong perseverance and became a top student. She received the full scholarship to Wellesley College, majoring in politics. In high school, she majored in biology and chemistry and won some international prize for some subject (MYR: assuming the originator is talking about ISEF – International Science and Engineering Fair). As a freshman on campus, she represented NewYork to take part in Miss Chinese International (MCI) pageant. She won the pageant with her beauty and figure as well as wisdom, which is the most important element as she said in beauty contest. Then she reserved her place in Wellesley before going to Hong Kong, and thus began her career as an actress in 1999. She was only 20 years old at that time.

Becoming a contracted actress in TVB, she had leading roles in the series I mentioned above. Six years of acting experiences gave her ample time to mature and experience. Her talents were so outstanding that TVB gave her lots of chances. Due to her lingual advantages (She can speak fluent Mandarin, Cantonese, English, and a little French, in which other Hong Kong actors or actresses in TVB can't match.), she was asked by TVB as a reporter to Athens to cover the 2004 Olympic Games. As she said, she learnt much from this and met some lifetime friends, like Xiong Ni, Tian Liang, Guo Jingjing, which was a most valuable experience in her life.

Such a talented girl like her wanted a larger and wider stage to show herself, thus, she chose to leave TVB after her contract expired in 2005. I also think that TVB is too limited for her. Some actors and actresses like Tao Dayu etc. left TVB and found they didn't have a better development and then chose to return TVB disappointedly. Michelle said in her column that she won't. When explaining the reasons she left TVB, she calmly said that no one will work in a company the whole life, with the exception when the father and son are both the leaders in that company. As to this point, I totally agree with her. One should take every chance to experience more in her limited life, especially when he's young. Although I hold such opinions, I lack the confidence to action. So I'm inspired by Michelle and applause her courage and ambition.

Truth has proven that after leaving TVB, Michelle got a better development. So far, she has got some chances to act leading roles in some mainland series. And now, her focus is on movies, which provides her with more free time and chances, as well as big money. Congratulations to Michelle and I wholeheartedly wish that everything goes well for her in her future career and life!

I'm looking forward to more fantastic works from you, dear Michelle. Come on!