BUSAN, Oct 7 — Tan Sri Michelle Yeoh said she embraces new challenges and does not fear failure, as she returned to the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) for the first time in 15 years to receive its Asian Filmmaker of the Year award.

The 64-year-old also appeared at the festival as the lead actor and producer of It’s My Time, which was invited to the event’s Gala Presentation section.

“Every day, when I wake up, I look forward to a new challenge in life and I think that is what life is about,” Yeoh said at a press conference, according to Yonhap.

“I am not afraid of failures. It is like a heartbeat, it goes up, it comes down,” she added.

Yeoh credited her willingness to pursue new opportunities with allowing her to take on diverse roles and collaborate with young directors, including Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan on Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022), the film that earned her the Academy Award for Best Actress.

She said she was drawn to It’s My Time because of the challenge of portraying an old woman and conveying the message that new opportunities remain possible at any age.

In the film, Yeoh plays Zhao Yanhong, a nursing-home resident in her 70s who discovers a gift for solving the Rubik’s Cube.

The role draws inspiration from Zhao Wenying, a retired math teacher who became the quickest over-60 competitor to solve the puzzle blindfolded.

Yeoh also produced the picture, which is directed by Bai Xue and marks her return to Chinese-language cinema.

Reflecting on her early Hollywood years, Yeoh said she was initially shocked at being labeled a “minority” and grew frustrated over being offered stereotypical roles for Asian women, such as working at a Korean restaurant or a Chinese laundromat, even after her breakthrough appearance in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Variety reports.

She waited roughly two years before taking on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a film that brought one of the harder moments of her career when she had knee surgery partway through the shoot.

Yeoh now laughs about the scene where Chow Yun-fat dies in her arms.

“If you pull back the camera, because I had knee surgery, I couldn’t cross legs and cradle Chow. I had my leg literally on a box,” she said, according to Variety.

“So it’s kind of funny looking, with one leg up there and then Chow up here.”

Winning Best Actress at the Oscars felt like a “dream,” Yeoh said, as she credited Korean actor Youn Yuh-jung, the first Asian to win Best Supporting Actress at the Academy Awards, with inspiring her.

“She opened the door for me to believe that it is a possibility,” Yeoh said, as she encouraged more Asian filmmakers and actors to continue telling their stories.

“The possibility is definitely there and we have to aspire to not just make it a one-off, because we have so many amazing stories to tell,” she added, citing Korean auteurs such as Lee Chang-dong, Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho.

Yeoh said she looked forward to Lee Chang-dong’s Possible Love and expressed a desire to work with Park Chan-wook and Bong Joon-ho.

“I hope I have the privilege of working more in Korea as well, because I’m a big fan of K-pop, K-drama, Korean food, and especially Korean movies,” she said.

When asked whether directing might be next, Yeoh ruled it out.

“I love being an actor; I actually love being a producer, but I think being an amazing, great director, you have no life,” she said.

“There is so much of your vision of that person, that writer, and I think I am not able to rise to that. So I will stick to what I know a little bit better, and hope to support directors who have that vision.”

Yeoh said she enjoys working with new and young directors, noting that the Daniels were only on their second film with Everything Everywhere All at Once, and that Roshan Sethi, who directed her latest film The Surgeon, which premiered at Toronto, is also a second-time director.

“If you read their script, you’d wonder if they were actually a little bit insane. The fact is they are, that’s why they’re such geniuses,” Yeoh said of the Daniels.

Yeoh has a long history with Busan, having taken part in the festival’s Pusan Promotion Plan as a producer in 2002 and attended in 2011 with The Lady.

Earlier in 2026, she received an honorary Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival.

Yeoh, whose acting career spans more than four decades, said cinema remains an indispensable part of her life.

“I think cinema is so very much part of my life that I don’t know what I would do without it,” she said.

She acknowledged the many distractions and platforms available to audiences today, but still touted the enduring power of cinema.

“I hope cinema will always be there because that is the moment that you have for yourself to be honest,” she said.

She added, “When you take that time to watch that one film, it is a choice of your own and for that two hours, you can shut out the rest of the world and give yourself those two hours to enjoy something that you have picked.”

Yeoh also reflected on her role as a bridge between East and West.

“I think I spent quite a few years trying to build a bridge from the East to the West, and then now from the West to the East,” she said. “And hopefully, the bridge will just stay there and I’m able to cross over whenever I want.”