A Tribute to Gong Li, Part 2

Gong Li, China's most internationally popular actress, has been a dynamic and creative force in the new era of Chinese film.  It all began in the 1980s when her career started in Zhang Yimou's "Red Sorghum," (1987).  As a result, her budding career began with great fanfare and international acclaim.  Li has come to signify a new generation of Chinese woman.  This Chinese woman grew up surrounded by ancient traditions which tended to restrict the role of women in Chinese society.  However, this woman has reached out toward feminism... and has become empowered!  Some of Li's other films include "Ju Dou" (1990), "Farewell My Concubine," (1993), and "Memoirs of a Geisha," (2005).

Li's compelling and natural performances as women struggling to reach beyond feudalism and Chinese patriarchy has enormously contributed to her success.  In fact, Li herself has been credited with helping to attract American audiences to the Chinese film industry for the first time ever!  Li has gone on to retain the interest of international audiences up to the present time with leading roles addressing  Chinese culture, history, politics, and passion. 

Despite her extreme popularity, Li avoided Hollywood for many years.  She was not confident in speaking English so she chose to defer for a time.  However, it was her English speaking debut in 2005's "Memoirs of a Geisha" that was met with generally positive reviews.  Li played the beautiful but vindictive Hatsumomo in this adaption to film of Arthur Golden's novel.  Her other English language roles to date include "Chinese Box" (1997), "Miami Vice" (2006), and "Hannibal Rising" (2007).  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 occurpied Shanghai four months before the Pearl Harbor attack.  He discovers his friend has been killed.  In this film, Li plays Anna Lan-Ting, the wife of triad boss Anthony Lan-Ting (played by Chow Yun-fat).   

In 2006 Gong Li was voted the most beautiful woman in China.  Her great work will no doubt carry on for some time.  She deserves the acclaim she has received because her work so effectively addresses the changes that Chinese women have experienced within the last generation.  Another personally memorable part for her came in the film "Zhou Yu's Train" (2003) which gave her the role of a ceramic painter torn between her love for a reticent poet (Tong Leung) and a cynical traveling veternarian (Sun Honglei).  Li is a very natural and likeable actress to any audience around the world.  If you have not had a chance to view her work, I suggest strongly that you do so soon!

Harlan Urwiler

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