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Background:
Known as China’s most prominent actress in the Western world and the Chinese
equivalent of Julia Roberts, Gong Li has made an impact on audiences since her
screen debut in Red Sorghum (1987), which won the Golden Bear at the 1987 Berlin
Film Festival and marked the beginning of a new era in Chinese film. She
continued to astound many with her dazzling, scene stealing role in The Puma
Action (1989), where she nabbed a Hundred Flowers Award, and her brilliant
starring role in Raise the Red Lantern (1991), for which she also nabbed a
Hundred Flowers Award.
One of China’s leading young stars of the 1980s and 90s, Li was garnered even
more recognition after portraying the title character of Zhang Yimou’s The Story
of Qiu Ju (1992), in which she was awarded several awards like a Golden Rooster
Award and two Venice Film Festival Awards. In the following year, Li acquired
international acknowledgment for her spectacular supporting turn in the
Oscar-nominated film Farewell My Concubine (1993), wherein she won a New York
Film Critics Circle Award. In 2000, Li took home a Montréal World Film Festival
Award and a Golden Rooster Award with the starring role of Sun Liying in Sun
Zhou’s Breaking the Silence (1999). One of the most triumphant actresses in
Chinese history, Li once again drew accolades for playing Hatsumomo, the
villainous geisha in Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), in which she was handed a
second National Board of Review Award. Li fans should not miss her performances
in the upcoming Michael Mann’s Miami Vice (2006), Young Hannibal: Behind the
Mask (2006), Autumn Remembrance (2006) and The Yellow M (2006).
Off screen, China’s most recognized face Gong Li was once named one of People
Magazine’s “50 Most Beautiful People’ and was chosen as a representative of
Shanghai Tang clothing, as well as a beauty ambassador for L’Oreal cosmetics.
She also has headed juries at the Berlin (2000), Venice (2002), and Tokyo (2003)
International Film Festivals, and in 1998, was honored by the French government
with the title “Officier Des Arts et Lettres” for her contribution to cinema. As
for her private life, the porcelain beauty Li was known for her love affair with
well-known Chinese director Zhang Yimou. Their relationship ended in 1995, and a
year later, she decided to tie the knot with Singaporean tobacco tycoon Ooi Hoe
Soeng. Gong Li currently resides in Beijing.
Yimou’s Muse
Childhood and Family:
Born on December 31, 1965, in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China, Gong Li was
raised in the capital of Shandong Province Jinan. As a child, Li knew she wanted
to be an actress and excelled at dancing and singing while in school. Growing up
obsessing over her passion for music, Li applied to China's top music school
following high school graduation, but failed to meet the entrance requirements.
In 1985, she enrolled as an acting student at the Central Academy of Drama and
graduated four years later.
After breaking up with her longtime companion, famed Chinese director Zhang
Yimou, who referred to Li as his Muse, Li happily married Singaporean wealthy
businessman Ooi Hoe Soeng (born in 1950) on February 15, 1996, in Singapore. The
two met in 1993 while watching a car race.
Memoirs of a Geisha
Career:
Described as the muse of leading Chinese “Fifth Generation” filmmaker Zhang
Yimou, Gong Li kicked off her movie career when she was discovered by the
director while in drama school. The two immediately earned significant
international acclaim with their first collaboration, Red Sorghum (1997), where
Li was cast in the starring role of a meek bride who becomes a great woman when
she takes over her husband’s vineyard after his death. The film won a 1987
Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival, and as for Li, her debut
performance charmed audiences around the world.
After A Terracotta Warrior (1989), Li impressed film critics with her bright
supporting turn in the 1989 The Puma Action. As a result, she was awarded a Best
Supporting Actress Award at the Hundred Flowers in 1989. Li followed these up
with The Empress Dowager (1989) and Mr. Sunshine (1989), and in Ju Dou (1990),
she rejoined Zhang Yimou to play the title role of a married woman whose
scorching affair with her husband’s nephew brings about tragic consequences.
Following a role in Back to Shanghai (1991), her next partnership with Zhang was
Raise the Red Lantern (1991), where Li was seen as the newest addition to a
man’s bevy of wives. Li again took home a Hundred Flowers award, this time for
Best Actress, in 1993.
Li was garnered even more attention in the following year when she starred in
the title role of a poor woman determined to take revenge in the Zhang Yimou-directed
The Story of Qiu Ju (1992). Li was so wonderful that she was handed such awards
as a 1993 Golden Rooster and a 1992 Venice Film Festival for Best Actress, and a
1993 Venice Film Festival for Honorable Mention.
The actress had another triumph on her hands when she began the high-profile
collaboration with Chen Kaige, another Chinese leading Fifth Generation
director, in the highly acclaimed Farewell My Concubine (1993). The movie was
Oscar-nominated and won a Palme d’Or at Cannes, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for
Best Foreign Film. As for Li, her role garnered the actress worldwide
appreciation and a 1993 New York Film Critics Circle for Best Supporting
Actress.
In 1994, Zhang once again helmed Li in the well-received historical epic To
Live, but the actress’s performance as a loyal wife and mother was overshadowed
by the strong performance of actor Ge You, who played her onscreen husband. Li
also appeared in Dragon Chronicles: The Maidens (1994) and The Great Conqueror’s
Concubine (1994), and she followed these up with Shanghai Triad (1995), a last
film collaboration with Zhang, Soul of a Painter (1995) and Chen Kaige’s
Temptress Moon (1996). The following year saw Li make her American debut in
Wayne Wang’s Chinese Box, staring opposite Jeremy Irons.
Two years later, in 1999, Li delivered her next breakthrough when she was hired
to star as Sun Liying in Sun Zhou’s Breaking the Silence. For her role, she was
handed a Montréal World Film Festival and a Golden Rooster for Best Actress in
2000. She then participated in the most expensive movie in Chinese film history,
The Emperor and the Assassin (1999), helmed by Chen Kaige.
Returning to filmmaking after a few years hiatus, Li received an offer to play
the lead in Zhou Yu’s Train (2002) before starring in two Hong Kong movies by
director Wong Kar-Wai, 2046 (2004) and Eros (2004). In 2005, the actress once
again became the center of attention when she was cast in the pivotal role of
Hatsumomo, the ruthless geisha who attempts to break the spirit of Sayuri (Zhang
Ziyi) in the lavish, epic romance Memoirs of a Geisha, where she picked up a
National Board of Review for Best Supporting Actress.
“It would have been easy to play her as a one-dimensional villain. But Gong Li
gives her three-dimensionality with a sadness and fragility that make Hatsumomo
incredibly compelling.” Director Rob Marshall on Gong Li
41 year-old Li will next be seen as Isabella in the 2006 film adaptation of
Miami Vice, opposite Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx, and Lady Murasaki in the
Peter Webber-helmed Young Hannibal: Behind the Mask (2006). She is also set to
team up with Zhang Yimou one more time in the forthcoming Autumn Remembrance
(2006) and with James Huth in The Yellow M (2006).
Awards:
- National Board of Review: Best Supporting Actress, Memoirs of a Geisha,
2005
- Golden Rooster: Best Actress, Breaking the Silence, 2000
- Montréal World Film Festival: Best Actress, Breaking the Silence, 2000
- Montréal World Film Festival: Grand Prix Special des Amériques, 2000
- French government’s Officer des Arts et Lettres for contributions to the
cinema: 1998
- Berlin International Film Festival: Berlinale Camera, 1993
- New York Film Critics Circle: Best Supporting Actress, Farewell My
Concubine, 1993
- Hundred Flowers: Best Actress, Raise the Red Lantern, 1993
- Golden Rooster: Best Actress, The Story of Qiu Ju, 1993
- Venice Film Festival: OCIC Award - Honorable Mention, The Story of Qiu
Ju, 1992
- Venice Film Festival: Volpi Cup - Best Actress, The Story of Qiu Ju,
1992
- Hundred Flowers: Best Supporting Actress, The Puma Action, 1989
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