Gong Li Bio

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Gong Li Pictures

Gong Li (simplified Chinese: 巩俐; traditional Chinese: 鞏俐; pinyin: Gǒng L��; born December 31, 1965) is a Chinese-born film actress. Gong first came into international prominence through close collaboration with Chinese director Zhang Yimou and is credited with helping bring Chinese cinema to Europe and the United States. She has twice been awarded the Golden Rooster and the Hundred Flowers Awards twice as well as the Berlinale Camera, Cannes Festival Trophy, National Board of Review, New York Film Critics Circle Award, and Volpi Cup. She married Singaporean businessman Ooi Hoe Soeng in 1996, and became a Singaporean citizen in 2008.

Gong Li: Biography

Gong Li - Early life

Gong Li was born in Shenyang, Liaoning, China, the fifth child in her family. Her father was a professor of economics and her mother, who was 40 when Gong was born, was a teacher. Gong grew up in Jinan, the capital of Shandong Province. She was accepted to the prestigious Central Academy of Drama in Beijing in 1985, and graduated in 1989. While as a student at 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.

Gong Li - Career

Over the next several years after her 1987 debut in Red Sorghum, Gong received both local and 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 June 1998, Gong Li became a recipient of France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Two years later, she was chosen as the president of the international jury of the 50th annual Berlin Film Festival.

In 1993 she received a New York Film Critics Circle award for her role in Farewell My Concubine. Directed by Chen Kaige, the film was her first major role with a director other than Zhang Yimou. In 2006, Premiere Magazine ranked her performance in Farewell My Concubine as the 89th greatest performances of all time.

Immune to political repercussions because of her reputation, Gong Li began criticizing the censorship policy in China. Her films Farewell My Concubine and The Story of Qiu Ju were initially banned in her native land, reportedly for being thinly-veiled critiques of the communist government. In regard to the sexual content in Ju Dou, one government official called the film "a bad influence on the physical and spiritual health of young people." She said (translated) "Under the new wave of directors, films in China are getting more in-depth and have more Chinese characteristics than before. But mainland directors face an entirely different system from their counterparts elsewhere. You can't just make whatever films you like."

Despite her popularity, Gong avoided Hollywood for years, due to a lack of confidence in speaking English. She made her English speaking debut in 2005 when she starred as the beautiful but vindictive Hatsumomo in Memoirs of a Geisha. Her performance was met with generally positive reviews.

Her other English-language roles to date included Chinese Box in 1997, Miami Vice in 2006 and Hannibal Rising in 2007. In all three films, she learned her English lines phonetically.

Gong Li: Personal life

Her collaboration with director Zhang Yimou was highly publicized, but an affair with Zhang created a scandal that ended their professional relationship in 1995. They were reunited in 2006 for Zhang's Curse of the Golden Flower.

In 1996, rumors began circulating that Gong had married Singaporean tobacco tycoon, Ooi Hoe Soeng (黄和祥). She denied these allegations until a Singapore tabloid printed a copy of the marriage certificate. They had married in November 1996 at Hong Kong's China Club.

Gong Li applied for Singapore citizenship in early 2008. When overseas professional obligations prevented her from showing up at her scheduled August citizenship ceremony, some Singaporeans questioned whether she was disrespectful of her new country. On Saturday November 8, 2008, Gong attended a citizenship ceremony held at Teck Ghee Community Club and received her Singapore citizenship certificate from Member of Parliament Lee Bee Wah.