China's most internationally famous actress and a significant creative force in the new era of Chinese film in the 1980s, Gong Li began her film career in Zhang Yimou’s "Red Sorghum" (1987), for which she received considerable international acclaim. A frequent collaborator with Yimou throughout her career, Li came to embody a new generation of Chinese woman – one brought up amid ancient tradition but reaching toward feminist values – with empowered roles in films like “Ju Dou” (1990), “Farewell My Concubine” (1993), and “Memoirs of a Geisha” (2005). Li’s compelling, naturalistic performances
