Making her screen debut in Zhang Yimou’s 1987 Red Sorghum, the first of a series of justly lauded collaborations with the foremost filmmaker of Mainland China’s Fifth Generation, while she was still enrolled at the Central Academy of Drama in Beijing, Shenyang-born Gong Li has scaled rarefied heights reached by no other Sinophone screen actress—in fact few actresses, period—before or since. (Only Juliette Binoche, Isabelle Huppert, and Julianne Moore can also boast top awards from Berlin, Cannes, and Venice.) Equally viable as a meek peasant, a haughty royal personage, or the right-hand woman of a Columbian cartel kingpin, legendary for the focus and fearlessness that she brings to her each role, Li has been crowned an “Empress” by her adoring public, but is adored precisely for the humble, earthbound humanity she brings to her work, as amply evident in this series.
