Early 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 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.

Career

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 realize that she has assisted the dark cynical system.

In June 1998, Gong Li became a recipient of France's Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Two years later, she was invited by the Berlin Film Festival to be the president of its international jury at the festival's 50th anniversary (2001 February).

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

In 2006, Premiere magazine ranked her performance in Farewell My Concubine as the 89th greatest performance of all time.

Immune to political repercussions because of her fame, Gong Li began criticizing the censorship policy in China. Her films Farewell My Concubine and The Story of Qiu Ju were initially banned in China for being thinly-veiled critiques of the Chinese government. Regarding the sexual content in Ju Dou, Chinese censorship deemed the film "a bad influence on the physical and spiritual health of young people."

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 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. In 2010, she stated that she was becoming more selective with the Chinese language projects offered to her during a press junket for her upcoming film Shanghai.

She narrated "Beijing" (2008), an audio walking tour by Louis Vuitton and Soundwalk, which won an Audie Award for best Original Work (2009).

In 2010, she starred in the World War Two-era thriller Shanghai about an American man, Paul Soames (played by John Cusack) who returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months before Pearl Harbor and discovers his friend has been killed. In this film, Gong plays Anna Lan-Ting, the wife of triad boss Anthony Lan-Ting (played by Chow Yun-fat). Ken Watanabe co-stars as Japanese military intelligence officer Captain Tanaka.

In 2014, Li was a jury president of the 17th Shanghai International Film Festival. In the same year, she reunited with Zhang Yimou for the film Coming Home (2014). It is set during the throes of the Cultural Revolution. The film was their first collaboration since 2006. The film also starred Chen Daoming as her husband.

Personal life

Her personal and professional relationship with director Zhang Yimou was highly publicized. The pair collaborated on six films between 1987 and 1995, before ending their relationship. They reunited in 2006 for the film Curse of the Golden Flower and in 2014 on Coming Home.

In 1996, news began circulating that Gong had married Singaporean tobacco tycoon Ooi Hoe Seong. They were married in November 1996 at Hong Kong's China Club. On 28 June 2010, the chief editor of Chinese entertainment magazine Southern Entertainment revealed that Gong's agent confirmed that Gong Li and her husband had divorced.

Gong Li was nominated Goodwill Ambassador of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) on 16 October 2000.

She was voted the most beautiful woman in China in 2006.

Gong Li applied for Singapore citizenship in early 2008. When overseas professional obligations prevented her from showing up at her scheduled August citizenship ceremony, she was harshly criticized for not making it a priority. On Saturday, 8 November 2008, Gong, in an effort to make amends, attended a citizenship ceremony held at Teck Ghee Community Club and received her Singapore citizenship certificate from Member of Parliament Lee Bee Wah.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Awards
1987	Red Sorghum 红高粱	Jiu'er
1989	The Empress Dowager 西太后	Guilian
	Mr. Sunshine 開心巨無霸
	Codename Cougar 代号美洲豹	Ah Li	Hundred Flowers Award for Best Supporting Actress
	A Terracotta Warrior 秦俑	Winter/Lili Chu	Nominated - Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress
1990	Ju Dou 菊豆	Ju Dou	First Chinese film nominated for an Academy Award, entered at Cannes
1991	God of Gamblers III: Back to Shanghai 賭俠2之上海灘賭聖	Yu-Sin/Yu-Mong
	Raise the Red Lantern 大红灯笼高高挂	Songlian	Hundred Flowers Awards for Best Actress
	The Banquet 豪門夜宴	Waitress at banquet
1992	The Story of Qiu Ju 秋菊打官司	Qiu Ju	Golden Rooster Awards for Best Actress Volpi Cup for Best Actress Golden Phoenix Awards for Best Female Actor
	Mary from Beijing 夢醒時分	Mary
1993	Farewell My Concubine 霸王别姬	Juxian	New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actress
	Flirting Scholar 唐伯虎點秋香	Chou Heung
1994	Dragon Chronicles: The Maidens of Heavenly Mountain 新天龍八部之天山童姥	Mo Han-Wen
	A Soul Haunted by Painting 画魂	Pan Yuliang
	To Live 活着	Jiazhen
	The Great Conqueror's Concubine 西楚霸王	Lü Zhi
1995	Shanghai Triad 摇啊摇，摇到外婆桥	Xiao Jingbao
1996	Temptress Moon 风月	Pang Ruyi	Nominated - Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress
1997	Chinese Box 中國匣子	Vivian
1998	The Emperor and the Assassin 荆柯刺秦王	Lady Zhao
2000	Breaking the Silence 漂亮妈妈	Sun Liying	Golden Rooster Awards for Best Actress Montreal World Film Festival for Best Actress Golden Phoenix Awards for Best Actress Hundred Flowers Awards for Best Actress Shanghai Film Critics Awards for Best Actress
2002	Zhou Yu's Train 周渔的火车	Zhou Yu	Students' Choice Award for Favourite Actress
2004	2046	Su Li Zhen	Wong Kar-wai, director
	Eros 爱神	Miss Hua
2005	Memoirs of a Geisha 艺伎回忆录	Hatsumomo	National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress Nominated - Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture
2006	Miami Vice 迈阿密风暴	Isabella
	Curse of the Golden Flower 满城尽带黄金甲	Empress Phoenix	Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress Hong Kong Film Critics Award for Best Actress Nominated - Asian Film Awards for Best Actress
2007	Hannibal Rising 沉默的羔羊前传之揭开罪幕	Lady Murasaki Shikibu Lecter
2010	Shanghai 諜海風雲	Anna Lan-Ting
2011	What Women Want 我知女人心	Li Yilong
2014	Coming Home		Pending — Indiana Film Journalists Association Award for Best Actress
2016	The Monkey King 2 西遊記之孫悟空三打白骨精	White Bone Demon

[ Source: Wikipedia ]