Li Gong

The film won the Golden Bear at the 38th Berlin International Film Festival, becoming the first Chinese film to win this award.

In the same year, she was awarded with the Berlinale Camera at the 43rd Berlin International Film Festival.

Gong's portrayal of rural woman Qiu Ju not only won the Golden Rooster Awards and the Japanese Movie Critics Awards for Best Actress, but also helped her named Best Actress at the 49th Venice Film Festival.

Gong Li (born 31 December 1965) is a Chinese actress.

Regarded as one of the best actresses in China today, she is known for her versatility and naturalistic performance.

She starred in three of the four Chinese-language films that have been nominated for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.

Gong was born in Shenyang, Liaoning, and grew up in Jinan, Shandong.

In 1985, she was accepted to study at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing; she 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.

While a student at the Academy, she was spotted by director Zhang Yimou and debuted in Zhang's Red Sorghum in 1987.

In 1987, Gong was first chosen by director Zhang Yimou to act in the anti-Japanese war romance Red Sorghum, which officially launched her 15-year cooperation with China's fifth-generation directors.

Over the several years following her 1987 acting debut in Red Sorghum, Gong received international acclaim for her roles in several more Zhang Yimou films.

It also won the Golden Rooster Awards and the Hundred Flowers Awards for Best Picture in 1988.

She enrolled at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, from where she graduated in 1989.

In 1989, Gong starred in Zhang Yimou’s second counterterrorism film, Codename Cougar, for which she won the Hundred Flowers Awards for Best Supporting Actress, ushering in a new stage of exploring acting skills and style.

On the same year, she took part in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and according to her, Tiananmen taught her that she should have her own opinion, "not just follow blindly."

Premiere ranked her performance in Farewell My Concubine as the 89th greatest performance of all time.

Gong and Zhang's professional and personal relationship received much media attention in the Chinese-speaking world, as they continued to collaborate on a string of critically acclaimed movies, including the Oscar-nominated features Ju Dou (1990) and Raise the Red Lantern (1991).

In 1990, Gong Continued to cooperate with Zhang Yimou and starred in his family ethics movie Ju Dou, which won the Luis Buñuel Special Award at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 63rd Academy Awards, becoming the first Chinese film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Gong also won the Best Actress award at the Varna International Film Festival.

In 1991, Gong starred in Zhang Yimou's film Raise the Red Lantern, which won the Silver Lion award at the 48th Venice Film Festival, and was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Academy Awards.

Gong, playing a rebellious mistress in the film, won the Hundred Flowers Awards for Best Actress and was nominated for the David di Donatello Awards and the NSFC for Best Actress.

Her performance in the Raise the Red Lantern (1991) put her in the international spotlight again.

For her role in the Zhang-directed The Story of Qiu Ju (1992), Gong won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival.

In 1992, Gong starred in the rural drama The Story of Qiu Ju, which won the Golden Lion award at the 49th Venice International Film Festival.

Gong also starred in the Chen Kaige-directed Oscar-nominated Farewell My Concubine (1993), for which she won Best Supporting Actress at the New York Film Critics Circle Awards.

Other notable appearances include Flirting Scholar (1993), To Live (1994), Chinese Box (1997), The Emperor and the Assassin (1998), Breaking the Silence (2000), Zhou Yu's Train (2003), Eros (2004), Miami Vice (2006), Curse of the Golden Flower (2006) and Saturday Fiction (2019).

In 1993, she received a New York Film Critics Circle award for her role in Farewell My Concubine (1993).

Directed by Chen Kaige, the film was her first major role with a director other than Zhang Yimou.

Gong was head of jury at the 2000 Berlin Film Festival and the 2002 Venice Film Festival, the first Asian person to hold such position at both events.

Over the course of her career, Gong has won three Hundred Flowers Awards, two Golden Rooster Awards, a Hong Kong Film Award, and honorary awards at the Berlin and Cannes film festivals.

In English-language films, she won the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress for Memoirs of a Geisha (2005), directed by Rob Marshall.

She was appointed as a Commander (Commandeur) of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the government of France in 2010.

Gong Li was born in Shenyang, Liaoning, China, she is the youngest of five children.

Her father was a professor of economics and her mother was a teacher.

She grew up in Jinan, the capital of Shandong.

She has been fond of singing and dancing since childhood, and dreamt of becoming a singer.

She studied in Jinan Sanhe Street Primary School.

When she was in grade two, she was recommended by the school to sing children's songs at Jinan People's Broadcasting Station.

In Jinan No.2 Middle School, Gong spent six years in high school, when she was a member of the school's literature and art team.