Michelle Ang
Actor
Malaysian-born, Wellington-raised Michelle Ang now works largely in the United States, where she was Emmy-nominated for Fear the Walking Dead offshoot Flight 462. After debuting on talent show McDonalds Young Entertainers, Ang found fame as a teenager on international hit The Tribe, playing the mystical Tai-San. She brought a rare Asian face to Australian soap Neighbours. In 2011 Ang won an Aotearoa Film Award for her first big screen lead role: Kiwi-Asian romance My Wedding and Other Secrets. She went on to co-star in — and co-produce — award-winning American movie For Izzy.
...it was such a unique situation to have the director of the film also be the person that I’m portraying. But it was also a really amazing resource for me, to be able to have her right there. Michelle Ang, on working with director Roseanne Liang on My Wedding and Other Secrets
More information
For Izzy
Best Thing You'll Ever Do
I Want to Marry a Creative Jewish Girl
Triple 9
Fear the Walking Dead: Flight 462
Fear The Walking Dead
Fallen Stars
Top of the Lake
Echoes
Underemployed
The Potential Wives of Norman Mao
Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son
My Wedding and Other Secrets
Emily Chu (award-winner Michelle Ang) is a young ‘banana’ (yellow on the outside, white on the inside) hoping to conceal a cross-cultural romance from her prudish Chinese parents in this romantic dramedy. Director Roseanne Liang’s feature debut draws on her autobiographical ‘video diary’ Banana in a Nutshell, which screened at the 2005 NZ International Film Festival. In the audience was producer John Barnett, who immediately offered to fund an adaptation. On its March 2010 release My Wedding gained several five star reviews, and strong box office.
The Beaver
Drop Dead Diva
Take 3
Ingeniously unfolding three tales in unison, Take 3 follows a trio of young asian-Kiwi actors on one horrifying day of auditions. Director Roseanne Liang (My Wedding and Other Secrets) mines comedy from the competitive, cookie-cutter world of casting, while questioning the way minority actors are asked to perpetuate old-fashioned stereotypes. The stars are My Wedding lead Michelle Ang, Katlyn Wong (comedy A Thousand Apologies), and Li Ming Hu (Shortland Street doctor Li Mei Chen). Take 3 won special mention in the Generation 14plus section at Berlin film fest.
If It's Cool
Actor Michelle Ang (The Tribe) stars in this Nesian Mystik music video which features beautiful people partying. Ang's character meets band member Te Awanui Reeder in the street, where he gets her phone number. Later she meets up with him and the rest of the Nesian Mystik crew at a party. The track, which peaked at number five on the Kiwi music charts, features a sample from The Style Council's 'Shout to the Top'. The Auckland hip hop group produced a record-breaking 11 Top 10 singles, and were key to the commercial breakthrough of Kiwi hip hop in the early 2000s.
No. 2
Nanna Maria (Ruby Dee), the matriarch of a Fijian family in Auckland, feels that the heart has gone out of her clan. She demands that her grown grandchildren put on a traditional feast, at which she will name her successor. The grandchildren reluctantly turn up, but tiffs spin things into chaos and she calls the whole thing off. Based on his second play, this love letter to the suburb of Mt Roskill marked the first film for director Toa Fraser (Dean Spanley). It screened at many festivals internationally, and won the 2006 World Cinema audience award at American festival Sundance.
Grey's Anatomy
South of Nowhere
Outrageous Fortune - First Episode
This first episode of NZ's most popular and critically acclaimed drama series revolves around Wolf West being sentenced to four years in prison — and his wife, Cheryl, deciding it's time for her and her children to get out of the "family business". Wolf and the local police are dubious. But even this early in proceedings, it would be foolish to underestimate Cheryl. Whether she can take her daughters (ditzy wannabe-model Pascalle and the cunning Loretta) and sons (yin and yang twins Van and Jethro) with her is another matter altogether. And so begins a dynasty.
Futile Attraction
Satire Futile Attraction follows a dysfunctional reality television crew as they make a show about dating. The unfortunate 'couple' being manipulated for the cameras are a phone-obsessed nerd, and a woman consumed with being ecologically sound. In real life, director Mark Prebble became the first New Zealander to get funding for his movie via an online crowdfunding campaign (as detailed in the making of video). Alongside lead actors Danielle Mason (Black Sheep) and Peter Rutherford (Event 16), the late Alistair Browning shines as a smarmy television host.
Outrageous Fortune
After her husband is jailed, matriarch Cheryl West (Robyn Malcolm) decides the time has come to set her family on the straight and narrow. But can the Wests change old habits? So begins the six season saga of the Westie dynasty. Hugely popular (beloved by public, critics and awards givers alike), Outrageous Fortune was a flag-bearer for TV3 and New Zealand television drama. The series proved — in all its grow-your-own glory — that television in Aotearoa could mield comedy and drama, and be so much more than overseas stories pasted to a local setting.
The Market
Forbidden Fury
The Tribe
One of the most successful television shows shot on Kiwi soil, The Tribe was the brainchild of British-born Raymond Thompson. In a future where the adults have been wiped out by a virus, the children that remain have formed into competing tribes, some of whom live to terrorise. Running five seasons, The Tribe sold to more than 120 territories, and the cast toured performances from the soundtrack for overseas fans. The cast were almost entirely New Zealanders, as were most of the crew. Sequel The New Tomorrow, following descendants of the original characters, screened in 2005.
William Shatner's A Twist in the Tale
A Twist in the Tale was one of a series of kidult shows launched by The Tribe creator Raymond Thompson, after he relocated to New Zealand. The anthology series spins from a storyteller (Star Trek's William Shatner) introducing a story (often fantastical) to a group of children, some of whom appear in the tales. The show featured early appearances by many young Kiwi thespians, including Antonia Prebble, Chelsie Preston Crayford, Dwayne Cameron and Michelle Ang. Although the writing team were British, some of the directors and most of the crew were New Zealanders.
McDonald's Young Entertainers
Hosted by Jason Gunn, McDonalds Young Entertainers was a popular late 90s talent quest for teenagers. A house troupe of singers and dancers (Super Troopers, a Kiwi take on Disney's Mickey Mouse Club) helped the contestants prepare for the judges, and opened and closed each show. Judges included King Kapisi, Tina Cross and Stacey Morrison. Young performers who featured included Ainslie Allen, Hayley Westenra, Sticky TV/C4 host Drew Neemia, actor Michelle Ang (Neighbours, Fear the Walking Dead: Flight 462) and concert pianist John Chen.
Xena: Warrior Princess