Gong Li

Gong Li (born 31 December 1965) is a Singaporean-Chinese actress. She first came to international prominence through her close collaborations with Chinese director Zhang Yimou and won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at Venice for her performance in his 1992 film The Story of Qiu Ju. She is credited with helping to bring Chinese cinema to Europe and the United States. In 2008, she became a naturalized citizen of Singapore. Gong won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress for Farewell My Concubine (1993) and the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress for Memoirs of a Geisha (2005). She has also twice been awarded the Golden Rooster and the Hundred Flowers Awards, as well as the Berlinale Camera, and the Cannes Festival Trophy. Her other film appearances include Ju Dou (1990), Raise the Red Lantern (1991), 2046 (2004), and Miami Vice (2006). 2Early life 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 Shandon