Joan Chen born April 26, is a Chinese-American actress and film director. In China, she starred in the film Little Flower [ zh ] and came to the attention of American audiences for her performance in the film The Last Emperor , which won nine Academy Awards including Best Picture.
Chen was born in Shanghai, to a family of pharmacologists. At the age of 14, Chen was discovered on the school rifle range by Jiang Qing , the wife of leader Mao Zedong and major Chinese Communist Party figure, for excelling at marksmanship. This led to her being selected for the Actors' Training Program by the Shanghai Film Studio in , where she was discovered by veteran director Xie Jin who chose her to star in his film Youth [ fr ] [2] as a deaf mute whose senses are restored by an army medical team.
Chen graduated from high school a year in advance, and at the age of 17 entered Shanghai International Studies University , where she majored in English. Little Flower was her second film and she soon achieved the status of China's most-loved actress; she was dubbed "the Elizabeth Taylor of China" by Time magazine for having achieved stardom while still a teenager.
Her first Hollywood movie was Tai-Pan , filmed on location in China. In she appeared in the U. She portrayed two different characters in Clara Law 's Temptation of a Monk : a seductive princess of Tang dynasty , and a dangerous temptress.
She shaved her head on-screen for the role. The award-winning film was adapted from a novel by Lilian Lee. In , she served as a jury member at the 46th Berlin International Film Festival. In the middle of the s, Chen made a comeback in acting and began to work intensely, alternating between English and Chinese-language roles. In , she starred in Hou Yong 's family saga Jasmine Women , alongside Zhang Ziyi , in which they played multiple roles as daughters and mothers across three generations in Shanghai.
