This
is a Chinese name; the family name is Zhang.
Zhang Ziyi (Chinese: ???; pinyin: Zhang Ziyí)
(born February 9, 1979) is a Chinese actress. The characters
of her name can be literally translated as Zhang (a
surname, not to be confused with the more common Zhang
?), Zi (child), and Yí (happiness).
Born in Beijing in the People's Republic
of China, Zhang joined the Beijing Dance Academy at
the age of 11, and at 15 she entered China's prestigious
Central Academy of Drama. At the age of 19, she was
offered her first role in world renowned director
Zhang Yimou's The Road Home, which won the Silver
Bear award in the 2000 Berlin Film Festival.
Zhang further rose to fame due to
her role in the phenomenally successful Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon, for which she won the Independent
Spirit's Best Supporting Actress Award and the Toronto
Film Critics' Best Supporting Actress Award. She went
on to make Hero which was a huge success in the English-speaking
world and an Oscar and a Golden Globe contender. Her
next movie was the avant-garde drama Purple Butterfly
which competed at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. She
went back to the martial arts genre with House of
Flying Daggers, which earned her a Best Actress nomination
from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
For her next modern-day drama 2046, directed by Wong
Kar-wai, starring many of Asia's best-known actresses,
Zhang won the Hong Kong Film Critics' Best Actress
Award and the Hong Kong Film Academy's Best Actress
Award.
Showing her whimsical musical tap-dancing
side, Zhang starred in Princess Raccoon directed by
82-year-old Japanese legend Seijun Suzuki who was
honored at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.
She plays the leading role of Sayuri
in the adaptation of the international bestseller
Memoirs Of A Geisha, with Michelle Yeoh, Gong Li,
and Ken Watanabe, produced by Steven Spielberg and
directed by Rob Marshall. The movie is planned for
release in December 2005.
Filmography
Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
Princess Raccoon (2005)
Jasmine Women (2004)
House of Flying Daggers (2004)
2046 (2004)
Purple Butterfly (2003)
My Wife Is A Gangster 2 (2003)
Hero (2002)
Musa (2001)
Rush Hour 2 (2001)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
The Road Home (1999)
Touching Starlight (1996)
source from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
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