Lady in waiting | Bangkok Post: Arts & Culture

To tell the story of Aung San Suu Kyi, you need a French director, a Malaysian actress, a set in Thailand, a fine English performance, and an Asian premiere in South Korea. On the night of Oct 12, the Busan International Film Festival hosted the gala screening of The Lady, Luc Besson's biopic of the Burmese freedom fighter, the great lady of regal poise whose personal tragedy runs a course parallel to her country's political endeavour. Michelle Yeoh, the former Bond girl and star of many sword-fighting movies, plays Suu Kyi with calm intensity, flaunting an astonishing resemblance to the real Burmese dame that could shock the top brass in Rangoon. British actor David Thewlis plays her husband, Michael Aris, in a heartfelt performance that nearly steals the whole show.

Michelle Yeoh as Aung San Suu Kyi in The Lady.

"It feels special to show the film in Asia," Besson said before the screening at Busan Cinema Centre. And indeed it is: The Lady had a world premiere two weeks ago in Toronto, where it hardly made headlines. But Asia is the ground that The Lady should make an impact, if not strictly because of its depth then because of the subject's indisputable gravity and relevance, and because Yeoh as Suu Kyi is a casting decision that successfully hooks onto the popular imagination about this woman _ this small Oxford housewife with flowers in her hair _ who by the brutal trick of history has come to represent such strength and serenity in the midst of violence.