Kung Fu Movie Guide Podcast

As a powerlifting champion, three-time ‘Miss Fitness’ winner in Japan and an action film star, Michiko Nishiwaki has been on quite a journey. When she left school to start working in human resources for the Mitsubishi bank in the 1970s, her life goals were similar to many other Japanese women in her position; to find a husband and have children. But for Michiko - obsessed with gymnastics, karate, fitness, singing and the arts from an early age - she decided to take a different path. Following her brother into the fitness industry, she became a gym owner in Japan and a pioneer in women’s bodybuilding. At the height of her fame in the 1980s, she used her celebrity to break taboos, confronting the traditional image of women as the ‘weaker’ sex in Japanese society, and using film and television to promote the health benefits of weight-training. Her fame caught the attention of Golden Harvest in Hong Kong, who invited her to make her big-screen debut in the 1985 action comedy, My Lucky Stars, alongside Jackie Chan