Margaret Cheung Man-yuk (Chinese: 張曼玉; pinyin: Zhāng Mànyù; born 20 September 1964) is a former Hong Kong actress. Raised in Hong Kong and Britain, she started her career after placing second in 1983's Miss Hong Kong Pageant. She achieved critical success in the late 1980s and into the early 2000s, before taking a break from acting following her last starring role in 2004. She rarely makes public appearances except for fashion events and award ceremonies.
Maggie Cheung | |||||||||||||||
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張曼玉 | |||||||||||||||
.jpg) Cheung in 2007 | |||||||||||||||
| Born | Cheung Man-yuk Margaret 20 September 1964 | ||||||||||||||
| Alma mater | St. Paul's Primary Catholic School, Happy Valley St Edmund's School, Canterbury University of Edinburgh (Honorary Ph.D) | ||||||||||||||
| Occupation | Actress | ||||||||||||||
| Years active | 1984–2004 2009–2013 | ||||||||||||||
| Spouse | |||||||||||||||
| Chinese name | |||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 張曼玉 | ||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 张曼玉 | ||||||||||||||
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Cheung has won numerous accolades at home and abroad for her acting. She has won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress 5 times in the span of 11 years from 1990 to 2001, and holds the record for most wins in that category. She also holds the record for most wins for the Golden Horse Award for Best Leading Actress in Taiwan, having won 4 times. In the West, she was awarded the Silver Bear for Best Actress at Berlin International Film Festival in 1992 and Best Actress at Cannes Film Festival in 2004. In 2004, she became the first Asian actress to be nominated for the French César Award for Best Actress.
Her most acclaimed performances include As Tears Go By, Center Stage, Green Snake, Irma Vep, Comrades: Almost a Love Story, The Soong Sisters, Hero and Clean. The Wong Kar-wai–directed In the Mood for Love (2000), in which she plays a cheongsam-wearing character opposite male lead Tony Leung, is a classic in both the film and fashion worlds.
Early life and education
editMaggie Cheung was born in Hong Kong on 20 September 1964 to Shanghainese parents.[1] She attended St. Paul's Primary Catholic School in Happy Valley, where she began at the primary one level. Her family emigrated from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom when she was eight. She spent part of her childhood and adolescence in Bromley, London, and attended St Edmund's School, Canterbury. She returned to Hong Kong at the age of 18 in 1982 for a vacation but ended up staying for modelling assignments and other commitments. She also briefly had a sales job at the Lane Crawford department store.[2]
In 1983, Cheung entered the Miss Hong Kong pageant and won the first runner-up and the Miss Photogenic award as well.[3] She was a semi-finalist in the Miss World pageant the same year.[4] After two years as a TV presenter, it led to a contract with TVB (the television arm of the Shaw Bros. Studio).[2]
Cheung is a polyglot as a result of her upbringing in Hong Kong and England and ten years' stay in Paris. In Center Stage, Cheung performed in Cantonese, Mandarin, and Shanghainese fluently, switching languages with ease. In Clean, she performed in fluent English, French, and Cantonese.
Career
editSoon after her debut, Cheung broke into the film industry, starring in comedies. She caught the attention of Jackie Chan, who cast her in Police Story (1985) as May, his long-suffering girlfriend. The film was a huge hit and made Cheung a star overnight.[5][6] Cheung was slated to star in TVB's "The Legend of the General Who Never Was", but due to the death of Barbara Yung who was in the midst of filming Battlefield, and The Feud That Never Was a.k.a. Kings of Ideas (橋王之王), Yung's remaining scenes were assigned to Cheung, and Cheung's role was given to Sheren Tang.[7]
Despite her success, Cheung found herself typecast in the roles of comics or weak, clumsy women. Realizing this, Cheung wanted to break away by seeking more dramatic roles. She got this opportunity when Wong Kar-wai cast her in As Tears Go By (1988), her first of many collaborations with Wong.[5][6] Cheung often cites the film as the piece that truly began her serious acting career, and she won critical praise for it. In 1989, she won Best Actress awards at the Golden Horse Award and Hong Kong Film Award for her work in Full Moon in New York and A Fishy Story respectively.[6] In 1991, she became the first Chinese performer to win a Best Actress Award at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival for her work in Center Stage.[8]
Cheung subsequently proved her versatility with roles in action films. Her performance in the sci-fi martial arts smash hit The Heroic Trio (1992) and its sequel, Executioners (1993), impressed both critics and audiences with her martial arts skills.[5] Also in a departure from her usual roles, Cheung played a beautiful and vicious femme fatale in New Dragon Gate Inn (1992).[6]
After taking a break in 1994, Cheung returned to film Olivier Assayas' Irma Vep (1996), which helped her break into the international scene.[5] That same year, she won further acclaim for her work in the romantic film Comrades: Almost a Love Story, in which she played one of a pair of lovers kept apart for ten years by fate and circumstance. The following year, she made her first English-language film in Wayne Wang's Chinese Box (1997). Cast as a mysterious young woman named Jean, Cheung held her own alongside the more internationally well-established stars, Jeremy Irons and Gong Li.[6]
After her 1998 marriage with Olivier Assayas, Cheung stayed mainly in France. She returned to Hong Kong to film In the Mood for Love (2000), which won critical acclaim and a second Taiwanese Golden Horse award for Cheung.[2][5] Thereafter, she starred in Zhang Yimou's Hero (2002) and Wong's 2046 (2004).[5] She won the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her role as a mother who tries to kick her drug habit and reconcile with her long-lost son in Clean (2004).[9]
Cheung was a jury member at the 1997 Berlin Film Festival,[10] the 1999 Venice Film Festival, the 2004 Hawaii International Film Festival, the 2007 Cannes Film Festival,[11] and the 2010 Marrakech International Film Festival.[12] And for the first time in its history, the 59th Cannes Film Festival (2006) used a photographic image of a real actress on its poster – that of Cheung.
On 7 February 2007, The New York Times rated Cheung as one of the 22 Great Performers in 2006 for her Cannes winning role as Emily in Clean.[13] After 25 years of making movies, she decided to retire from acting to pursue a career as a film composer. She had mentioned she would like to compose music and paint after having fulfilled her acting potential.[14] Her last film appearance was as Mazu, Chinese goddess of the sea, in the film Ten Thousand Waves (2010) by British filmmaker and installation artist Isaac Julien.[15]
As UK's Independent puts it, since her Cannes moment in 2004, Cheung "turned her back on film"[14] and has shifted her focus to philanthropy, making music, and editing. In April 2010, Cheung was appointed as UNICEF's Ambassador to China.[16] In July 2011, she was awarded a doctor honoris causa at the University of Edinburgh.[17] Cheung retired from acting in 2013 and has since kept a low profile.[18]
Cheung has provided celebrity endorsement for Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group.[19]
Post-retirement
editIn May 2014, Cheung performed at the 2014 Shanghai Strawberry Music Festival. In June 2019, during a guest appearance on Mango TV reality show Master in the House in which she mentored boyband Next, Cheung spoke frankly about her 2014 performance's poor reception.[20][21]
In 2015, Cheung composed and performed the theme song "If You Were Gone" (Chinese: 如果沒了你) for the anthology film Cities in Love.[22] According to producer Gu Xiaodong, Cheung dedicated almost half a year to producing the song.[23] In June 2022, Cheung performed a DJ set at the grand opening of a new Gucci store at The Landmark in Hong Kong.[24]
Personal life
editCheung married French director Olivier Assayas in 1998; they divorced in 2001.[25] She began a relationship with German architect Ole Scheeren in 2007,[26] but the relationship ended in 2011.[27]
Cheung has been rumoured to have been romantically involved with In the Mood for Love co-star Tony Leung, who is married to fellow actor Carina Lau. Lau quashed rumours of a feud by uploading a photo of her running into Cheung at an airport in 2013.[28]
In 2020, the Singaporean publication Today wrote that Cheung had no plans to return to acting, instead devoting her time to fashion, music, and producing and editing films. [29]
Filmography
edit| Year | Chinese Title | English title | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1984 | 青蛙王子 | Prince Charming | |
| 緣份 | Behind the Yellow Line | ||
| 1985 | 摩登仙履奇緣 | Girl with the Diamond Slipper | |
| 警察故事 | Police Story | ||
| 聖誕奇遇結良緣 | It's a Drink, It's a Bomb | ||
| 1986 | 玫瑰的故事 | Lost Romance | |
| 開心鬼撞鬼 | Happy Ghost 3 | ||
| 原振俠與衛斯理 | The Seventh Curse | ||
| 1987 | 七年之癢 | Seven Years Itch | Cameo |
| 天賜良緣 | Sister Cupid | ||
| 心跳一百 | Heartbeat 100 | ||
| 精裝追女仔 | The Romancing Star | ||
| A計劃續集 | Project A Part II | ||
| 用愛捉伊人 | You Are My Destiny | Cameo | |
| 1988 | 應召女郎1988 | Call Girl '88 | |
| 愛的逃兵 | Love Soldier of Fortune | ||
| 過埠新娘 | Paper Marriage | ||
| 雙肥臨門 | Double Fattiness | ||
| 旺角卡門 | As Tears Go By | ||
| 南北媽打 | Mother vs. Mother | ||
| 月亮星星太陽 | Moon, Star, Sun | ||
| 求愛敢死隊 | How to Pick Girls Up! | ||
| 警察故事續集 | Police Story 2 | ||
| 肥貓流浪記 | Beloved Son of God | ||
| 黃色故事 | The Game They Call Sex | ||
| 流金歲月 | Last Romance | ||
| 1989 | 小小小警察 | Little Cop | |
| 不脫襪的人 | A Fishy Story | ||
| 少女心 | Hearts No Flowers | ||
| 再見王老五 | The Bachelor's Swan-Song | ||
| 我要富貴 | My Dear Son | ||
| 求愛夜驚魂 | In Between Loves | ||
| 急凍奇俠 | The Iceman Cometh | ||
| 神勇雙妹嘜 | Doubles Cause Troubles | ||
| 1990 | 人在紐約 | Full Moon in New York | |
| 三人新世界 | Heart into Hearts | ||
| 客途秋恨 | Song of the Exile | ||
| 紅場飛龍 | The Dragon from Russia | ||
| 愛在別鄉的季節 | Farewell China | ||
| 滾滾紅塵 | Red Dust | ||
| 阿飛正傳 | Days of Being Wild | ||
| 1991 | 志在出位 | Today's Hero | |
| 豪門夜宴 | The Banquet | ||
| 富貴吉祥 | The Perfect Match | ||
| 黑雪 | Will of Iron | ||
| 雙城故事 | Alan & Eric - Between Hello & Goodbye | ||
| 阮玲玉 | Center Stage | a.k.a. Actress | |
| 1992 | 兩個女人，一個靚，一個唔靚 | Too Happy for Words | Short film |
| 白玫瑰 | Rose | ||
| 家有喜事 | All's Well, Ends Well | ||
| 真的愛妳 | True Love | ||
| 新龍門客棧 | New Dragon Gate Inn | ||
| 譁! 英雄 | What a Hero! | ||
| 雙龍會 | Twin Dragons | ||
| 警察故事3: 超級警察 | Police Story 3: Supercop | ||
| 三人做世界 | Heart Against Hearts | Cameo | |
| 戰神傳說 | Moon Warriors | ||
| 1993 | 千面天王 | Millionaire Cop | |
| 赤腳小子 | The Bare-Footed Kid | ||
| 東方三俠 | The Heroic Trio | ||
| 武俠七公主 | Holy Weapon | ||
| 青蛇 | Green Snake | ||
| 飛越謎情 | Enigma of Love | ||
| 東成西就 | The Eagle Shooting Heroes | ||
| 神經刀與飛天貓 | Flying Dagger | ||
| 追男仔 | Boys Are Easy | ||
| 現代豪俠傳 | Executioners | ||
| 廉政第一擊 | First Shot | ||
| 濟公 | Mad Monk | ||
| 1994 | 新同居時代 | In Between | |
| 東邪西毒 | Ashes of Time | ||
| 1996 | 甜蜜蜜 | Comrades: Almost a Love Story | |
| 迷离劫/迷離劫 | Irma Vep | ||
| 1997 | 宋家皇朝 | The Soong Sisters | |
| 中国匣 | Chinese Box | ||
| 1999 | 爱在异乡的故事 | Augustin, King of Kung-Fu | |
| 2000 | 一見鍾情 | Sausalito | |
| 花樣年華 | In the Mood for Love | ||
| 2002 | 英雄 | Hero | |
| 2004 | 2046 | 2046 | |
| 錯得多美麗 | Clean | ||
| 2009 | 惡棍特工 | Inglourious Basterds | Deleted scene[30] |
| 2010 | 全城熱戀 | Hot Summer Days | Cameo |
| Better Life | Short film[31] | ||
| 萬層浪 | Ten Thousand Waves |
| Year | Original Title | English title |
|---|---|---|
| 1984 | 畫出彩虹 | Rainbow Round My Shoulder |
| 新紮師兄 | Police Cadet '84 | |
| 1985 | 武林世家 | The Fallen Family |
| 拆擋拍擋 | Zhe Dang Pai Dang | |
| 楊家將 | The Yang's Saga | |
| 拆档拍档 | The Feud That Never Was |
Awards
editWins
editNominations
edit| Year | Award | Category | Nominated work | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1989 | Hong Kong Film Awards | Best Actress | As Tears Go By | Nominated |
| 1990 | Farewell China | Nominated | ||
| Best Supporting Actress | Red Dust | Nominated | ||
| 1992 | Best Actress | New Dragon Gate Inn | Nominated | |
| 2002 | Hero | Nominated | ||
| 1992 | Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards | Best Leading Actress | New Dragon Gate Inn | Nominated |
| 1998 | Golden Bauhinia Awards | Best Actress | The Soong Sisters | Nominated |
| 2000 | In the Mood for Love | Nominated | ||
| 2002 | Hero | Nominated | ||
| 2005 | César Awards | Best Actress (Meilleure actrice) | Clean | Nominated |
| 2002 | Chlotrudis Awards | Best Actress | In the Mood for Love | Nominated |
| 2007 | Best Actress | Clean | Nominated |
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ "Style File: Maggie Cheung".
- ^ a b c "Maggie Cheung: The Lady Is A Vamp". The Independent. 5 October 2011.
- ^ "Miss Hong Kong 1983". misshkbeauties.com. Retrieved 18 September 2010.
- ^ "Miss World Previous Title Holders - 1983". missworld.tv.[permanent dead link]
- ^ a b c d e f "Hong Kong Actress Maggie Cheung". China.org.cn.
- ^ a b c d e "Maggie Cheung: A Multi Award-Winning Actress from Hong Kong". Women of China.
- ^ "《岁月风云》热播 邓萃雯回首过去体味人生(图)". Sohu. Xinhua News. 8 July 2007. Archived from the original on 27 January 2024.
入行时，TVB最红的花旦是翁美玲和张曼玉，我拍《薛仁贵》时，翁美玲还在，怎知到我拍第二套戏，她已经过了身，她不在，公司很焦急，原本为她度身订造的角色，落在张曼玉身上，而我，又顶了张曼玉原来的角色，之后我有份演出的都是做女主角。配角，应该未做过。
- ^ Rockwell, John (25 February 1992). "'Grand Canyon' Wins The First Prize at Berlin Festival". The New York Times.
- ^ "Maggie Cheung Snatches Best Actress Award at Cannes". Sina.
- ^ "Annual Archives - Juries". berlinale.de. Retrieved 18 September 2010.
- ^ "Juries 2007". festival-cannes.fr. Archived from the original on 3 December 2010. Retrieved 18 September 2010.
- ^ "Jury 2010". festivalmarrakech.info. Archived from the original on 21 July 2011. Retrieved 4 July 2011.
- ^ Hirschberg, Lynn (11 February 2007). "Great Performers". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 3 November 2012. Retrieved 18 September 2010.
- ^ a b Flynn, Bob (10 April 2007). "Maggie Cheung : Why the Asian Star is turning her back on film". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 6 December 2007.
- ^ Gritten, David (6 October 2010). "Maggie Cheung returns in Ten Thousand Waves". The Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 12 January 2022. Retrieved 13 October 2010.
- ^ "Maggie Cheung appointed UNICEF Ambassador in China". Unicef.
- ^ "Honorary degree for Maggie Cheung". Archived from the original on 26 July 2014. Retrieved 13 March 2011.
- ^ "Maggie Cheung Gets Unfairly Slammed by Netizens After Someone Posts This Photo of Her".
- ^ Wolfgang Schaefer and JP Kuehlwein, Rethinking Prestige Branding, Kogan Page, 2015, p92.
- ^ 唱歌被稱車禍現場！張曼玉：「為甚麼因為你們幾句話，我就不再唱歌。」 [Singing was called the scene of a car accident! Maggie Cheung: "Why do I stop singing because of a few words from you?"]. Yahoo News Hong Kong (in Chinese). 14 June 2019. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
- ^ "Low voice, flat pitch: Actress Maggie Cheung slammed for her singing". The Straits Times. 7 May 2014. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
- ^ "Maggie Cheung releases song from new film". chinaculture.org. 14 August 2015. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
- ^ Xiao Yang (10 August 2015). 張曼玉首次為電影做歌 其聲音曾被評"被上帝拋棄" [Maggie Cheung composed a song for a movie for the first time, and her voice was once criticized as "abandoned by God"]. People's Daily (in Chinese). Retrieved 24 February 2023.
- ^ Lim Ruey Yan (26 June 2022). "Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung turns DJ in surprise appearance". The Straits Times. Retrieved 24 February 2023.
- ^ "Maggie Cheung talks about her divorce". China Daily.
- ^ "Maggie Cheung Makes Beijing New Home in Name of Love - All China Women's Federation". womenofchina.cn. Retrieved 5 April 2018.
- ^ "Maggie Cheung dumped for younger girl". Retrieved 5 April 2018.
- ^ "高招 劉嘉玲 拉張曼玉逆襲 世紀合照 破13年僵局". 蘋果日報. 25 November 2013. Archived from the original on 24 November 2020.
- ^ Tan, Tammi (26 October 2020). "Maggie Cheung, Who Hasn't Made A Movie In 16 Years, Said She No Longer Deserves To Be Called An Actress". Today.
- ^ "Maggie Cheung Okays with 'Basterds' Cut". China Daily. 22 May 2009. Retrieved 22 May 2009.
- ^ "Maggie Cheung waits to age before return to films". The Washington Times.
- ^ "Maggie Cheung". IMDb. Retrieved 8 April 2010.
- ^ "Maggie Cheung". chinesemov.com. Retrieved 8 April 2010.
External links
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