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Quite possibly the finest Chinese-born actress of the last twenty years, Gong Li has proven time and again that she’s the best of the best. Born in 1965 in the Liaoning Province of China, Li always dreamed of becoming a singer, but when she was rejected from the country’s top music school, she enrolled at the Central Drama Academy in Beijing instead. Upon graduating, Li was introduced to famed Chinese director Zhang Yimou and cast in his latest film (1987’s “Red Sorghum”). Before long, the professional relationship became a romantic one, and Li became the director’s self-proclaimed muse, starring in just about every film he made during the course of the next ten years.
These tabloid-worthy news stories may have affected her reputation, but they haven’t dampened her ability as an actress, and while Li remains an unfamiliar face among a majority of American moviegoers, we’re confident that this won’t be true for much longer.