Zhang Ziyi (Chinese: ???; Hanyu Pinyin: Zhang Ziy�) (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 Y� (happiness).

Early life

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.

Career

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 her Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon co-star Michelle Yeoh, as well as Gong Li, and Ken Watanabe, which was produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Rob Marshall. The movie was released in December of 2005. and Ziyi has received a Best Actress - Drama Golden Globe nomination for her role.

Ziyi has also been known to sing, and was featured on the House Of Flying Daggers Soundtrack with her own musical rendition of the ancient Chinese poem 'Jia R�n Qu' (???, The Song of Feminine Beauty). The song was also featured in a scene in the movie.

On June 27, 2005 it was announced that Ziyi had accepted an invitation to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), making the actress amongst the ranks of those able to vote on the Academy Awards. Her formal welcome to AMPAS occurred in Beverly Hills, California on September 21 of that year.

Private life

Ziyi has been taking English lessons. Ziyi stated in a 2003 interview that she had started them after she began receiving more and more fan mail from the United States. (One of the supplementary documentaries on the American Hero DVD features Ziyi speaking in English.)

Filmography

• The Banquet (2006)
• 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)

Awards

Named Esquire's Sexiest Woman of China in 2005