Gong Li
| Gong Li | |
|---|---|
Gong Li at 2011 Cannes Film Festival
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| Background information | |
| Chinese name | (traditional) |
| Chinese name | (simplified) |
| Pinyin | Gǒng Lì (Mandarin) |
| Born |
31 December 1965 Shenyang, Liaoning, China |
| Nationality | Singapore |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1987–present |
| Spouse(s) | Ooi Hoe Soeng (1996–2010) |
| Parents | Gong Lize (father) Liu Ying (mother) |
| Ancestry | Jinan, Shandong, China |
Gong Li (born 31 December 1965) is a Chinese actress. Gong first came into international prominence through close collaboration with Chinese director Zhang Yimou and is credited with helping to bring Chinese cinema to Europe and the United States. Gong is a naturalized citizen of Singapore.
She has twice been awarded the Golden Rooster and the Hundred Flowers Awards as well as the Berlinale Camera, Cannes Festival Trophy, National Board of Review, New York Film Critics Circle Award, and Volpi Cup for Best Actress.
Gong Li was born in Shenyang, Liaoning, China, the youngest in a family of five children. Her father was a professor of economics and her mother was a teacher. Gong grew up in Jinan, the capital of Shandong.
In 1985, Gong sought to study at China's top music school, but was denied entrance. Later that same year, she was accepted to the prestigious Central Academy of Drama in Beijing and graduated in 1989. While a student at the Central Academy of Drama, she was discovered by Zhang Yimou, who chose her for the lead role in Red Sorghum, his first film as a director.
Over the next several years after her 1987 acting debut in Red Sorghum, Gong received international acclaim for her roles in several more Zhang Yimou films: She appeared in Ju Dou in 1990; Her performance in the Oscar-nominated Raise the Red Lantern put her in the international spotlight; in The Story of Qiu Ju, she was named Best Actress at the 1992 Venice Film Festival. These roles established her reputation, according to Asiaweek, as "one of the world's most glamorous movie stars and an elegant throwback to Hollywood's golden era." In many of her early movies, Gong Li represents a tragic victim and an abused soul (physically or emotionally), trying to release herself from an impossible maze of corruption, violence and suppression. In Raise the Red Lantern and Shanghai Triad an additional tragic element is added to her being as she unintentionally becomes the executioner of new innocent victims, making her realise that she has assisted the dark cynical system.
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