The multi-award winning Ziyi Zhang is a three-times BAFTA nominee and a regular presence on lists of the world's most beautiful women. She initially trained as a dancer in her native Beijing. She came to international attention at nineteen for her role in Zhang Yimou's 1999 The Long Road Home and achieved mega-stardom as the young girl in Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Her range is remarkably diverse, from action roles to the lead in the 2005 Memoirs of a Geisha. She first worked with Wong Kar Wai in 2046. Her delicate beauty belies exceptional physical strength, flexibility and stamina which, together with her dancer's training (she studied dance before she studied acting) made her the perfect choice for the character of Gong Er, who is a master of the dance-like, flowing and circular Bagua style of kungfu.
Gong Er: Gong Er grows up in a prominent martial arts family in northeast China, the daughter of Master Gong Baosen, leader of the Northern martial arts world, and a strong proponent of the Bagua form of fighting. She grows up amongst fighters, and watching her beloved father's battles. She has become a highly talented fighter herself. As his only surviving child, she would have been his successor had she been born a boy. Her father wants her to leave the martial world, marry and become a doctor. She is single-mindedly devoted to her family and its martial tradition. She has mastered the sinuous, lethal form of Bagua, including the Gong family's famous '64 Hands' technique. She is as proud, strong and righteous as any classical hero in the martial arts tradition.
The Weinstein Company
