| Maggie Cheung Man Yuk | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Maggie Cheung at Cannes 2007 |
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| Chinese name | 張曼玉 (Traditional) | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese name | 张曼玉 (Simplified) | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Pinyin | zhang1 man4 yu4 (Mandarin) | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Jyutping | Zoeng1 Maan6juk6 (Cantonese) | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Ancestry | Shanghai, China | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | September 20, 1964 Hong Kong |
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| Occupation | Actress | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Years active | 1983–present | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Spouse(s) | Olivier Assayas (1998–2001) (divorced) | |||||||||||||||||||||
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Maggie Cheung (traditional Chinese: 張曼玉; simplified Chinese: 张曼玉; pinyin: Zhāng Mànyù; Cantonese Yale: Jèung Maahn Yuhk; born on September 20, 1964) is a Cannes Best Actress, Berlin Best Actress, five-time Hong Kong Film Award and five-time Taiwan Golden Horse winning Chinese actress from Hong Kong. Raised in England, she has over 70 films to her credit since starting her career in 1983. She is the first Asian actress to win a prize at the Cannes Film Festival.
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Biography
Born in Hong Kong, Maggie Cheung traces her ancestry to Shanghai, China. In 1971, she studied Primary One in St Paul's Convent School. Her merchant-class family emigrated from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom when she was eight. Cheung spent part of her childhood and adolescence in the UK. She returned to Hong Kong in 1982 for vacation, but ended up staying for modeling assignments. Soon she got a salesgirl job at Lane Crawford department store as well. In 1983, she entered the Miss Hong Kong beauty pageant contest. She won first runner-up and the Miss Photogenic award. She was a semi-finalist in the Miss World pageant the same year.[1]
Prior to 1988, Maggie’s screen appearance was often limited to eye candy roles. One of Cheung's notable movie roles then is that of "May", the girlfriend of police detective "Kevin" Chan Ka Kui in Jackie Chan's Police Story series (however, she did not reprise the role in Police Story 4: First Strike or New Police Story). Maggie frequently cited her performance in the movie As Tears Go By (1988), her first of many collaborations with film director Wong Kar-Wai 王家衛, as the piece that truly began her serious acting career. Maggie Cheung is famous for being a talented multi-lingual actress. In Centre Stage, she performed in Cantonese , Mandarin and Shanghainese fluently, switching languages with ease. In Clean, she performed in fluent English, French and Cantonese. Unlike most traditional actors in Hong Kong who are Cantonese monolingual, she is a polyglot as a result of her cosmopolitan upbringing.
Audiences outside Asia have become increasingly familiar with her work, including her roles in Irma Vep, Centre Stage (aka Actress), Chinese Box, In the Mood for Love, Hero, 2046, and most recently, Clean.
Maggie Cheung was the jury member at 1997 Berlin Film Festival, 1999 Venice Film Festival and 2007 Cannes Film Festival. When, for the first time in its history, the Cannes Film Festival used a photographic image of a real actress on its poster (59th, 2006), that actress was Maggie Cheung.
On 7 February 2007, The New York Times rated Maggie Cheung as one of the 22 Great Performers in 2006 for her Cannes winning role Emily in Clean. After 25 years of making movies, Cheung is deciding to retire from acting and pursue a career as a film composer. She allows that there might be room for an occasional comedic role, but she would like to compose music and paint, after fulfilling her acting potential.[2]
Personal
She married French director Olivier Assayas in 1998 and they divorced in 2001. Their relationship remained amicable, however, as in 2004 Cheung made her award-winning movie Clean with him. As part of her portrayal of the drug-addicted aspiring singer Emily Wang in Clean, Maggie Cheung performed songs written by David Roback of Mazzy Star.
Awards
- Berlin International Film Festival
- Best Actress Award for Centre Stage (aka Actress) 阮玲玉 (1992)
- Cannes Film Festival
- Best Actress Award for Clean (2004)
- Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards
- Best Actress of Golden Horse Award for Full Moon in New York 人在紐約 (1989)
- Best Supporting Actress of Golden Horse Award for Red Dust 滾滾紅塵 (1990)
- Best Actress of Golden Horse Award for Centre Stage (aka Actress) 阮玲玉 (1991)
- Best Actress of Golden Horse Award for Comrades: Almost a Love Story 甜蜜蜜 (1996)
- Best Actress of Golden Horse Award for In the Mood for Love 花樣年華 (2000)
- Hong Kong Film Awards
- Best Actress of Hong Kong Film Award for A Fishy Story 不脫襪的人 (1990)
- Best Actress of Hong Kong Film Award for Centre Stage (aka Actress) 阮玲玉 (1992)
- Best Actress of Hong Kong Film Award for Comrades, Almost a Love Story 甜蜜蜜 (1996)
- Best Actress of Hong Kong Film Award for The Soong Sisters 宋家皇朝 (1998)
- Best Actress of Hong Kong Film Award for In the Mood for Love 花樣年華 (2001)
- Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards
- Best Actress of HKFCS Award for Comrades, Almost a Love Story 甜蜜蜜 (1996)
- Asia-Pacific Film Festival
- Best Actress Award for Comrades, Almost a Love Story 甜蜜蜜 (1997)
- Hawaii International Film Festival
- Award for Achievement in Acting (2004)
- 29th Montreal World Film Festival
- Special Award for Exceptional Contribution to Cinematographic Art (2005)
- 10th Shanghai International Film Festival
- Award for Outstanding Contribution to Chinese Cinema (2007)
Filmography
TV Drama
| Year | Title | English |
|---|---|---|
| 1984 | 畫出彩虹 | |
| 1984 | 新紮師兄 | Police Cadet '84 |
| 1985 | 武林世家 | The Fallen Family |
| 1985 | 拆擋拍擋 | |
| 1985 | 楊家將 |
MTV
- 日落巴黎 Sunset in Paris (1989) Starring : Leslie Cheung, Maggie Cheung, Cherie Chung
See also
References
- ^ - Miss World Previous Title Holders - 1983
- ^ Maggie Cheung : Why the Asian Star is turning her back on film - Independent Online Edition
External links
- One on One with Maggie Cheung
- Maggie Cheung at the Internet Movie Database
- Maggie's Bio in The New York Times
- Maggie Cheung - Taking Chinese Modernity to the West
- The Zen of Maggie, The San Francisco Chronicle
- Maggie Cheung & Tony Leung - Glimmer Twins, Village Voice
- Maggie Cheung - Resisting Hollywood's Claws, The Times
- Maggie Cheung - Coming Clean, PAPER magazine
- Maggie Cheung masterclass at the UK Festival of Chinese Cinema: Cinema China 07
- Maggie Cheung - China's Garbo, The Sunday Herald
- Historical List of Taiwan Golden Horse Award Winners
- [1]
- [2]
