Gong Li is also known as 巩俐; Traditional Chinese: 鞏俐; pinyin: Gǒng Lì) (born December 31, 1965) is a Chinese film actress. Gong Li first came into international prominence through close collaboration with Chinese director Zhang Yimou.
Born in 1965 in northeastern Shenyang, Gong was the youngest daughter of an economics professor. Gong Li knew from a young age that she wanted to be an actress, and at school Gong Li excelled at singing and dancing almost to the exclusion of other subjects. In spite of failing her college exam twice, she was eventually accepted to the Beijing Central College of Drama in 1985. At that time, Chinese cinema was experiencing a renaissance after the tumult of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth (1984) had just taken the Hong Kong International Film Festival by storm, heralding the rise of the Fifth Generation of filmmakers. One of these young directors was Zhang, the cinematographer for Yellow Earth, who cast Gong in his debut project, Red Sorghum (1987). Immediately a critical and commercial success both abroad and at home, the film garnered the Golden Bear award at the 1987 Berlin Film Festival and thrust both director and star into the international limelight.
One of China's leading young stars of the 1980s and 90s, Gong has appeared in films by other directors ("The Empress Dowager" 1988, directed by Li Hanxiang; "The Terra Cotta Warrior", in which Gong Li acted opposite Zhang) but it is in Zhang's films that Gong Li is best known internationally. Slender and demure-looking but possessing a naturalistic verve and strength onscreen, Gong Li embodies a new generation of Chinese women, brought up amid ancient tradition but reaching toward feminist values. In the title role of "Ju Dou" (1990), Gong Li played a married woman whose torrid affair with her husband's nephew brings about tragic consequences, while in "Raise the Red Lantern" (1991) her character also causes trouble as the newest addition to a man's bevy of wives. Gong Li ventured into comedy with another eponymous heroine in "The Story of Qiu Ju" (1992) as a woman farmer determined to avenge an injustice done to her husband. In 1993, Gong Li starred in a film by another Fifth Generation stalwart, Chen Kaige, "Farewell to My Concubine" which shared the Palme d'Or at Cannes for best picture.
Zhang once again directed Gong Li in the well-received historical epic "To Live" (1994), which followed a married couple over 30 years of modern Chinese history. Uncharacteristically, Gong Li's role as a devoted wife and mother was overshadowed by that of a strong male lead, actor Ge You, who played her husband. The pair's next collaboration "Shanghai Triad" (1995) offered Gong Li a tour-de-force role as a nightclub chanteuse and gangster's moll. Gong Li reunited with Chen Kaige for "Temptress Moon" (1996), in which she essays the role of an isolated, spoiled heiress. A year later, Gong made her English-language debut in Wayne Wang's "Chinese Box,” staring opposite Jeremy Irons. Gong Li returned her native land for her next feature, “Piao liang ma ma” (“Breaking the Silence,” 1999), China’s official entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2000 about a hard-working single mom who struggles to earn enough money to buy a new hearing aid for her son. Gong Li won Best Actress at the 2000 Montreal World Film Festival for her performance.
Gong Li has since become one of the most successful actresses in Chinese cinema, with fame that has extended abroad to many areas. Her work has been recognized with awards from the Venice International Film Festival and New York Film Critics Circle, and she retains a strong popularity.
In addition to acting, Gong Li is also an exceptional singer, as demonstrated during her performance in Shanghai Triad. Gong Li was also presented the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in June 1998.
Gong Li starred in Zhang Yimou's films well into the mid-1990s. During their long collaboration, the two created a scandal for being long-term lovers, despite Zhang's marital status. The duo eventually broke up in 1995, and Gong Li married Singaporean tobacco tycoon Ooi Hoe Soeng the next year.
Gong Li's limited Hollywood appearances include 1997's Chinese Box, and expanded with 2005's Memoirs of a Geisha, in which Gong Li spoke English fluently, and she, in the words of Time Magazine film critic Richard Corliss, was "gloriously channeling Bette Davis" [2]. Gong Li also appears in the 2006 released film adaptation of Miami Vice.
Gong Li is also expected to team up with Zhang Yimou one more time in the upcoming Autumn Remembrance as well as starring in Hannibal Rising, the prequel to the other three Hannibal Lecter films.
In 2006, Premiere ranked her performance in Farewell My Concubine as the 89th greatest performance of all time.
Gong Li went on to star in what was reported as the most expensive Asian film to date, “The Emperor and the Assassin” (1999), a sweeping historical epic set in feudal China during the 3rd century B.C about the first emperor of a unified China (Li Xuejian), the man sworn to kill him (Zhang Fengyi) and the woman loved by both (Gong Li). In “Zhou Yu’s Train” (2003), Gong Li played a painter at a ceramic factory who has fallen in love with a reticent poet (Tony Leung) with whom she travels by train every weekend to engage in a passionate love affair. But on one trip to meet her lover, she meets a cynical traveling veterinarian (Sun Honglei) who also manages to win her affections. Gong Li next appeared in “Eros” (2004), an anthology with short features about eroticism and desire helmed by Wong Kar Wai, Steven Soderbergh and Michelangelo Antonioni. In Wong Kar Wai’s piece “The Hand,” Gong Li starred as a refined Hong Kong prostitute who seduces a young virginal tailor (Chang Chen) when he arrives at her home for a fitting.
Gong Li reunited with Wong Kar Wai on his magnificently flawed epic, “2046” (2005), a loosely related continuation of the director’s lyrical love story, “In the Mood for Love” (2001). Gong Li then had a supporting role in the high profile “Memoirs of a Geisha” (2005), the story of a Japanese girl torn from her penniless family and raised in a geisha house where Gong Li blossoms into the legendary geisha, Sayuri (Zhang ZiYi). Gong Li played an aging geisha jealous of Sayuri’s ability to captivate the most powerful men in the world. Gong Li was then set to star in two big budget features: “Miami Vice” (2006), a remake of the popular 1980s television show starring Jamie Foxx and Colin Ferrell, and “Behind the Mask” (2006), a thriller that follows serial killer Hannibal Lecter’s childhood in Lithuania to his arrival in the United States. Both features promised to turn Gong Li into a household name in the states despite her long career in film.
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