Cast

Chow Yun-Fat (Li Mu Bia)

Long before his American debut in 1997's The Replacement Killers, Chow Yun Fat was a superstar in Asia. At the age of 18, Chow enrolled in an actors' training course at TVB, Hong Kong's biggest television station.

Within a couple of years, he was starring in Hotel, a 128-episode series that made him the top television star in his native Hong Kong. Several hit series later, in 1981, he generated another craze with the series The Bund, in which he played a gangster in 1930s Shanghai. The role made him a household name in every Southeast Asian country, as well as in China.

Chow's film career began in 1977, but it was not until 1982 - when he starred in Ann Hui's The Story of Woo Viet - that he became recognized as a major actor and a movie star of the first magnitude. From then on, his career took off.

In 1985, Leong Po-Chih's Hong Kong 1941 won Chow a Best Actor Award both at the Asia Pacific Film Festival in Tokyo and at the Golden Horse Film Festival in Taiwan. In 1986, Chow made twelve pictures, a significant amount by any count and certainly a record for a leading actor. One of them, John Woo's A Better Tomorrow, made cinema history when released. It broke box-office records in every single Southeast Asian country and Korea, and Chow became a superstar. This film garnered him his first Best Actor Award at the Hong Kong Academy Awards, and more importantly, he created a phenomenon never seen before. Audiences everywhere were cheering and stomping their feet wherever he appeared on screen, and young men were imitating his attire in the film.

A Better Tomorrow also formed a perfect alliance between him and director John Woo, which resulted in subsequent hits: The Killer (1989), Once a Thief (1990), and Hard-Boiled (1992). These films, along with Mabel Cheung's An Autumn's Tale (1987) and Ringo Lam's City on Fire (1987), are pinnacles of a Hong Kong movie renaissance that eventually caught the eyes of Western film critics.

In the early nineties, Chow Yun Yun-Fat retrospectives were mounted all over the world, including such prestigious venues as the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, then onward to other major cities such as New York, London and Paris. When The Killer was shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 1991, it caught the attention of Hollywood studios, which started wooing Chow. It was not until 1996 that the actor made his first American film, Antoine Fuqua's The Replacement Killers, followed by The Corruptor (1999), directed by James Foley. In 1999, he was seen in Andy Tennant's Anna and the King, starring alongside Jodie Foster.

(Based on the biography from the official website)

Upcoming films:

Inspector Charlie Chan (planned)

Bulletproof Monk (planned)

Light of the Pirate / Light of Thieves (planned)

Love in Shanghai (planned)

Untitled (with John Woo)

Ringworld (rumored)

Michelle Yeoh (Yui Hsui Lien / Yu Shu Lien / Yu Xiu Lian)

Michelle Yeoh was born Yeoh Choo Kheng in Lpoh, Malaysia, where she received primary and secondary education. While in high school she was active in sports, and represented Malaysia in national squash, diving and swimming competitions.

Her passion for ballet started at the early age of four. Yeoh enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dance in London, where she attained the Advanced Level degree. However, her ballet career was cut short by an injury. This event changed her course of study, and she subsequently attained a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Creative Arts in England.

Upon graduation and unbeknownst to Yeoh, her mother entered her in a national beauty pageant. In 1983, she was crowned Miss Malaysia. That same year, she also won the title of Miss Moomba in Melbourne, Australia. In 1984, Yeoh was invited to Hong Kong to make a commercial that would also start Jackie Chan. Instantly, she became the most sought after new talent in the movie industry. She signed with D&B Films and debuted in 1985 in the action comedy Owl vs. Dumbo, in a nonaction role. It was her second film, Yes, Madam, that established her as the premiere female action star in Asia. Her next two pictures, Royal Warriors (also known as In the Line of Duty) and Magnificent Warriors, further established her position. Her dance training and athletic prowess contributed to one of the unique characteristics of her acting talent - she performed her own stunts.

In 1992, Yeoh became the most popular and highest paid actress in Asia with the release of Police Story III: Supercop, co-starring Jackie Chan. This film went on to become the top-grossing film in Asia that year. In the next two years, Yeoh made a total of eight pictures, including the cult classics The Heroic Trio and Tai-Chi Master. 

In 1995, expanding her scope, she starred in two dramatic films in a row: the periodic epic The Soong Sisters, for which she was nominated for the Best Supporting Actress trophy by the Hong Kong Film Awards, and Stuntwoman, directed by Ann Hui, the acclaimed director of Summer Snow. In 1997, Yeoh co-starred in the box-office hit Tomorrow Never Dies for MGM, which was to become the top-grossing Bond film to date.

(Biography from the official website)

Upcoming films:

Untitled (2001)

The Touch (2001, planed, with Jean Réno ?)

Mint Condition (planned, with Woody Allen)

James Bond: 20 (rumored)

The Matrix II & III (dead)

Indiana Jones IV (rumored)

Zhang Ziyi (Jen / Yu Jiao Long) 

Zhang Ziyi is currently a third-year student of the performing arts Faculty at China Central Drama College (2000). Her first film was 1999's The Road Home, helmed by the renowned director Zhang Yimou. The film  went on to garner the Jury Grand Prix Silver Bear at the 2000 edition of the Berlin Film Festival. Brought up in a

working class family in Beijing, Zhang passed the entrance examination of the secondary school affiliated with the Beijing Dancing College at the age of eleven. She also won an award in the National Young Dancer competition. Recently, she started in two yet to be released film - as a Chinese princess in Korean film Warrior and as a goddess in Zu Warriors II, directed by the top martial art film maker Tsui Hark.

(Based on the biography from the official website)

Upcoming films:

Warrior (yet to be released)

Zu Warriors II (yet to be released)

Rush Hour II (under production)

Death Duel / Sword of the Third Master (planned)

2046 (planned)

Honoré de Balzac and the Tailor (planned)

Sai Jin Hua (MGM / proposed ?)

Love of a Silver Fox (proposed / with Hsu Li-Kong, producer of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)

Chang Chen (Lo / Luo Xiao Hu) 

A young up-and-coming actor from Taiwan, Chang Chen made his feature-film debut at the age of fourteen with a starring role as the troubled teenager in renowned director Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day. 1995's Mahjong marked Chang's second collaboration with Yang. Happy Together, opposite

Tony Leung and released in 1997, was Chang's third feature. In 1996, Chang was invited to model the clothing of Yohji Yamamoto, and is currently a popular TV commercial figure.

Chang might soon be seen in 2046 from helmet Wong Kar-Wai, a past recipient of the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival. Rumor has suggested that his co-star Zhang Ziyi might also be in the film. 

(Biography from the official website) 

Betelnut Beauty

The First Close Contact (translation)

2046 (planned)

Crew

Peter Pau (Cinematographer)  

Since 1986, Peter Pau has been involved in the productions of more than thirty films, including  The Killer, God of Gamblers, A Terra-Cotta Warrior, The Bride with White Hair, Treasure Hunt and Xiu Xiu. His name often related to many well-know directors, like John Woo, Tsui Hark, Corey Yuen, Ronny Yu and

Joan Chen. Been nominated forfourteen Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Cinematography, he has won three for The Bride with White Hair in 1994, Saviour of the Soul in 1992, and A Fishy Story in 1990. He also directed Misty and The Temptation of Dance. His newest film, Dracula 2000, just been released in December, 2000.

Complete list of Peter Paul Cinematography:

Temptation of Dance (1985) (directing)

Sweet Sixteen (1996)

The Legend of Wisely (1987)

The Greatest Lover (1988)

The Story of Haybo (1988)

A Fishy Story (1989)

The Iceman Cometh (1989)

The Killer (1989)

God of Gamblers (1989)

A Terra-Cotta Warrior (1990)

Swordsman (1990)

Saviour of the Soul (1991)

Au Revoir, Mon Amour (1991)

The Banquet (1991)

God of Gamblers III: Back to Shanghai (1991)

Tricky Brains (1991)

Bury Me High (1991)

Naked Killer (1992) (original material for trailer only)

Justice, My Foot (1992)

Misty (1992) (directing)

The Bride with White Hair (1993)

Dong Cheng Xi Jiu (1993)

Ashes of Time (1994) (uncredited, first two weeks of production only)

Treasure Hunt (1994)

Once Upon a Time in China V (1994)

The Chinese Feast (1995)

Love in the Time of Twilight (1995)

The Phantom Lover (1995)

Xiu Xiu (1995)

Double Team (1997)

Warriors of Virtue (1997)

Bride of Chucky (1998)

Anna Magdalena (1998)

Metade Fumaca (1999)

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Dracula 2000 (2000)

CoCo Lee (End Title Song) 

With the release of her debut album for 550 Music, Just No Other Way, Lee is tapping into a larger international audience. This summer (2000), she can also be heard singing the end-title song, "A Love Before Time" form the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, directed by Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility, The Ice Storm). The music for "A Love Before Time" was written by Tan Dun and Jorge Calandrelli with lyrics by James Schamus and cello solos by Yo-Yo Ma. Hidden Dragon score, which was written by Tan Dun, will be released internationally beginning in summery 2000.

CoCo Lee signed with 550 Music in the U.S. after making an impact overseas that continues to reverberate. She has recorded and released twelve albums since her 1994 debut, eight of those released through Sonly Music with whom she signed in 1996. Whether in Mandarin or English, all of these discs have enjoyed brisk sales in Chinese-speaking territories throughout Asia. Just No Other Way, the 1999 album that has brought her a new and larger following, demonstrates how Lee has used her powerful, versatile voice to forge a new sound. Often compared to Mariah Carey by her Asian fans, Lee grow up listening to Whitney Houston, Madonna, Debbie Gibson and George Michael, and those influences have helped her shake up pop music for Asian Audience. Just No Other Way showcases the singer in everything from super-'70s pop ballads to up-tempo dance tracks and modern urban wordplay, with featured guests such as rapper A-Butter from Natural Elements and Frankie Knuckles.

In the midst of her steady stream of bestselling albums, Lee performed in concert in Taiwan in August 1998 before more than 30,000 fans - only Michael Jackson has commanded a larger audience there. She also worked opposite international action star Jackie Chan, supplying not only the voice for the lead character in the Mandarin-Language version of Disney's animated adventure Mulan but singing the film's theme song as well.

CoCo Lee is the youngest of three girls, all whom can sing. Their mother, a medical doctor and a musical talent in her own right, encouraged her children to pursue more traditional careers. Competing in local singing contests in the San Francisco area - like her sisters, whom she idolizes - Lee developed a taste for performing the kind of music she grew up listening to.

"I remember going to a karaoke place at Fisherman's Wharf where you can record your own songs," Lee recalls. "My best friend paid for it, and I made a tope. Later, she'd play it in the restaurant where she worked and people would want to buy it. And that's when I said, 'Wow, I can actually sing [as a career].'"

The singer's proof professional break came during a vacation in Hong Kong following her high School graduation. For fun, she entered an annual singing contest that was the Asian equivalent of Star Search and a breeding ground for some of the country's biggest stars. Lee took second place. The only contestant to sing in English, she placed with a performance of Whitney Houston's "Run To You." The next day, a local record company offered her a contract, and her career was underway.

Lee speak not only fluent English and Mandarin, but also French and Cantonese. Her first English-Language album Brave Enough to Love, released in June 1995, sold over 200,000 units and broke Taiwan's record for sales of a English album by a female Chinese artist. Lee's most recent Mandarin album From Today Till Forever reached stores in May 1999, selling more than 500,000 units in Taiwan alone. She was also one of three Asian artists invited to perform in Seoul last year on the Michael Jackson and Friend charity concert.

(Biography form the official website)

Crew

Ang Lee (Director)

Born in Taiwan, director Ang Lee studies stage at the local Academy of Art before moving to the United States, where he studies theater at the University of Illinois and later film production at New York University.   Lee made his feature-film debut with

1992's Pushing Hands, that first effort was followed in 1993 by The Wedding Banquet, which became the first Taiwanese film ever to be nominated for an Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. Eat Drink Man Women, his third film, was also nominated in the same category. In 1995, Lee helmed his first English-language feature, Sense and Sensibility. Based on Jane Austen's classic novel, the film went on to garner several Academy Award's nominations, including Best Picture, and won for Emma Thompson's screenplay.

1997's The Ice Storm, based on the novel of the same name by Rick Moody and starring Kevin Klien and Sigourney Weaver, was a searing exploration of American suburbia during the morally combustible 1970s. Released in 1999, Ride with the Devil is adaptated  from the novel Woe to Live On by Daniel Woodrell, set during the American Civil War.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon marks Lee's return to Chinese Language features.

(Biography from the official website)

Upcoming films:

Same Old Song ? (planed / with Julia Roberts ?, Emma Thompson ?, Kevin Kline ? and Charlize Theron?)

The Hulk / The Incredible Hulk (planned)

Houdini (planned)

Mission: Impossible III (rumored)

The untitled prequel (planed)

The Berlin War Diaries (planned? with Nicole Kidman)

James Schamus (Co-screenwriter / Executive Producer)

James Schamus' collaborations with Ang Lee include producing The Ice Storm, which he also adapted from the novel by Rick Moody, receiving for the latter effort the Best Screenplay Prize at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival along with 1998 Writer's Guild and BAFTA nominations, co-producing Sense and

Sensibility (Golden Bear at the 1996 Berlin Film Festival, Golden Globe Award for Best Picture, Academy Award for Best Screenplay Adaptation), co-writing and associate-producing Eat Drink Man Woman (opening night film, Director's Fortnight, Cannes 1994, Academy Award nominee for Best Foreign Film, 1994), producing and co-writing The Wedding Banquet (Golden Bear at the 1993 Berlin Film Festival and Academy Award nominee, Best Foreign Film, 1993), and producing Lee's first feature, Pushing Hands. Most recently in the context of this collaborations, Schamus produced, with Ted Hope and Robert F. Colesberry, Lee's Ride With the Devil, for which he also wrote the screenplay. In 1991, Schamus founded the successful independent production company Good Machine with Ted Hope. Over the past several years, he has served as executive producer on a variety of high-profile independent films, inducing Todd Solofcener's Walking and Talking, Cindy Sherman's Office Killer, Bart Freundlich's The Myth of Fingerprints, Hannah Weyer's Arresting Gena, Frank Grow's Love God and John O'Hagan's Wonderland.

Schamus has also been involved in four of the last nine Grand Jury Prize Winners at the Sundance Film Festival: The Brothers McMullen by Edward Burns (1995, executive producer with Ted Hope), Tom Noonan's What Happened Was ... (1994, executive producer with Hope), Alexandre Rockwell's In the Soup (1992, associate producer), and Poison, by Todd Haynes (1991, executive producer).

Schamus is associate professor of film theory, history and criticism at Columbia University, where he was recently a university lecturer. He was also the 1997 Nuveen Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Chicago. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Foundation for Independent Video and Film, and on the Board of Creative Capital. 

(Biography from the official website)

Upcoming films:

Same Old Song ? (planed / with Julia Roberts ?, Emma Thompson ?, Kevin Kline ? and Charlize Theron?)

The Hulk / The Incredible Hulk (planned)

Houdini (planned)

Mission: Impossible III (rumored)

The untitled prequel (planed)

The Berlin War Diaries (planned? with Nicole Kidman)

Yuen Wo-Ping (Fights Choreographer)

Yuen was born the eldest son in a family of 12 in Guangzhou, China. In the 1960's, he found work as a stuntman and kung fu fighter. By the age of 26, in the early '70s, he had earned his first film choreography credits with the early kung fu hits of Ng See Yuen. In 1978, Yuen directed his first film, the well regarded The Eagles' Shadow, starring the now legendary international star Jackie Chan. He went on to direct another Jackie Chan feature, Drunken Master.

By 1979, Yuen had formed his own production and choreography company. The timing proved fortuitous, as kung fu was fast securing a following outside of China. Through the years, Yuen has worked with or directed many of China's top film talent. Last Hero in China, Tai Chi Master and Fist of Legend featured the incomparable Jet Li, recently seen as the memorable villain in the Lethal Weapon 4 and as Hang Sing in Romeo Must Die. Summo Hung, of CBS-TV's Martial Law, worked with Yuen in both The Magnificent Butcher and Eastern Condors. One of Yuen's most highly regarded films in 1991 was Iron Monkey, starring the popular Donnie Yen.

(Based on the biography from the official website)

Tan Dun (Music) 

audiences throughout the world in performances by leading orchestras and ensembles. Tan Dun, an exclusive Sony Classical recording artist, has created world-premiere recordings of his opera Marco Polo Symphony 1997 (Heaven Earth Mankind), a large choral-orchestral work written to commemorate the occasion of the return of Hong Kong to China.

Worldwide audiences became familiar with Tan Dun’s during the BBC's live, 27-hour coverage of the arrival of the millennium around the world, for which he created original music that appears on A World Symphony for the Millennium, released by Sony Classical in November of 1999. Tan Dun composed a signature theme for the coverage and an elaborate suite that was heard throughout the live telecast around the world as viewers welcomed in the Millennium.

An earlier 1999 Sony Classical release by Tan Dun, Bitter Love, is a collection of arias adapted for soprano Ying Huang from his opera Peony Pavilion. Tan Dun created this new work from the melodic material of the opera, which is influenced both by Chinese opera and twentieth-century rock and pop music. The love songs performed by Huang feature a combination of traditional Chinese instruments and modern percussion and synthesizers.

Tan Dun himself conducted the Sony Classical recording of Symphony 1997 (Heaven Earth Mankind), made in the spring of 1997, featuring cellist Yo-Yo Ma and -- for the first time on any recording -- the ancient Bianzhong Bells. The symphony was then performed live at the reunification ceremony in Hong Kong on July 1, 1997. In the fall of 1997, Marco Polo had its American debut at New York City Opera. This highly original operatic treatment of the spiritual journey of the adventurer Marco Polo was commissioned by the Edinburgh Festival and premiered in 1996 at the Munich Biennale, with subsequent performances at the Holland and Hong Kong Festivals. The German magazine Oper named Tan Dun composer of the year for Marco Polo.

Tan Dun's engagements have included the U.S. premiere of Death and Fire with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and James Levine conducting at Carnegie Hall; the world premiere of the opera Peony Pavilion, directed by Peter Sellars at the Vienna Festival, the Barbican Centre in London, MC 93 Bobigny in Paris, the Rome Festival, and the University of California at Berkeley; and the U.K. premiere of his Symphony 1997 at the BBC Proms with Yo-Yo Ma, again conducted by Tan Dun.

Among many international awards he has received, Tan Dun was named one of the Musicians of the Year (1997) by The New York Times and was selected by Toru Takemitsu for the 1996 City of Toronto Glenn Gould Prize in Music and Communication. In 1995, he was selected by Hans Werner Henze to be one of the artistic jurors for the Munich International Music Theatre Award. Tan Dun is currently the artistic director of the Tanglewood Contemporary Festival and the artistic director of the 2000 Festival for the Barbican Centre London. 

(Biography from the official Tan Dun website)

Yo-Yo Ma (Cello Solos)  

of Harvard University, from which he also received an honorary doctorate in 1991. Ma and his wife, Jill, have two children, Nicholas and Emily.

To celebrate the 250th anniversary of J.S. Bach’s death, Ma performs a second round of Bach transcriptions and Boccherini concertos on Simply Baroque II, the sequel to the best-selling Simply Baroque (released in January 1999, SK 60680). As he does on both recordings, Ma plays a Baroque cello -- his own Stradivarius reconfigured as a Baroque instrument -- with the period-instrument Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, under the direction of Ton Koopman, in Bach chorales and arias especially transcribed for cello and orchestra, and Boccherini concerto for this recording by Koopman. Simply Baroque and Simply Baroque II represent Ma’s first recordings on a period instrument. Simply Baroque II will be in stores in August.

Early spring 2000 saw the release of another widely anticipated sequel album, with Ma collaborating once more with Edgar Meyer and Mark O'Connor on the follow-up to Appalachia Waltz -- Appalachian Journey.

Featuring traditional and original music written and arranged by Meyer and O'Connor, the album features singer James Taylor and singer/songwriter and violinist Alison Krauss as special guests. The release of Appalachian Journey was followed by an international tour, with the April performance in New York’s Avery Fisher Hall filmed for television broadcast and home video release. Ma’s other spring 2000 release was a disc of Dvorák chamber music with Isaac Stern, Jaime Laredo and Emanuel Ax.

Yo-Yo Ma’s most recent solo recording, Solo (SK 61739 outside the U.S. and Canada), released in September 1999, is the first album to be included as part of the cellist's three-year "Silk Road" project, which emphasises the musical folk traditions of territories along the ancient silk trading route. This first CD includes works by Zoltán Kodály, David Wilde, Alexander Tcherepnin, Bright Sheng and Mark O'Connor.

Ma also performs on the recent release Lulie the Iceberg, a one-time performance, recorded live at Carnegie Hall, of a musical tale for children about the environment. Based on a children's book by Princess Hisako of Takamodo, Lulie the Iceberg features an exciting original musical score by American composer Jeffrey Stock performed by Ma, violinist Pamela Frank and Grammy Award-winning saxophonist Paul Winter, accompanied by chorus and orchestra.

Ma began 1998 with the release of Inspired by Bach on Sony Classical, a multimedia collaboration with artists from six different disciplines. In addition to the score with Ma's new interpretation of the six solo cellos suites of J.S. Bach, the release also includes six short films capturing the cellist's creative encounters with garden designer Julie Moir Messervy, choreographer Mark Morris, Kabuki actor Tamasaburo Bando, filmmaker Atom Egoyan, the eighteenth-century artist and architect Piranesi, and ice dancers Christopher Dean and Jayne Torvill. The films have been released on home video by Sony Classical and have won numerous honors -- including two 1998 Emmy Awards and 16 Canadian Gemini nominations. Later in the year, Sony Classical released the world premiere recording of John Tavener's Wake Up...And Die, paired with Ma's performance of Tavener's celebrated work for cello and orchestra, The Protecting Veil.

Ma's remarkable year included the continued success of Appalachia Waltz, an original recording of traditional American fiddle music that featured Ma with Nashville-based violinist Mark O'Connor and bassist Edgar Meyer, as well as his performance in a music video for director Sally Potter's feature film The Tango Lesson, in which he plays Astor Piazzolla's "Libertango." Additionally, two of Ma's Sony Classical recordings - Hush with vocalist Bobby McFerrin and the soundtrack to Immortal Beloved - have been certified gold records by the Recording Industry Association of America.

In November 1997, Ma was named Artist of the Year in the Gramophone Awards. The magazine noted, "In a year of quite extraordinary diversity, the cellist Yo-Yo Ma has shown that the boundaries of ‘classical’ music need not be restraining as he has vaulted spectacularly from classical cello concertos, to blue-grass music via a disc of tangos to a host of specially composed works featuring his remarkable talent.... With Ma, there is only one category of music - the kind he wants to make." The Gramophone prize capped a remarkable year of achievement in recording, with Sony Classical releases including Soul of the Tango, featuring the tango music of Astor Piazzolla (awarded the 1999 GRAMMY for Best Classical Crossover Album); a trio of new cello concertos by Richard Danielpour, Leon Kirchner and Christopher Rouse; Tan Dun's Symphony 1997; the string quintets of Schubert and Boccherini; the music of André Previn, recorded with the composer and soprano Sylvia McNair; and the soundtrack recording of Liberty!, a PBS documentary series about the American Revolution.

(Biography from the official Yo-Yo Ma website)