Joan Chen Joan Chen Chong is a Chinese-born actress and film director, best known for her roles in The Last Emperor, Twin Peaks, Red Rose White Rose, Saving Face, and for directing Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl. Chen Chong first became famous in China for her performance in Little Flower (1979) for which she won the Hundred Flower Awards. In addition, Chen is famous in China for her role in the film Overseas Compatriots (1979), which depicts an overseas Chinese family that returned to China from southeast Asia out of their patriotic feelings but encountered political troubles during the Cultural Revolution. The songs, I Love You, China and High Flies the Petrel, both appeared in the film through the voice of the heroine played by Chen Chong, are perennial favorites of serious music lovers in China.
At age nighteen she won the Hundred Flower Awards award for acting in China. At age twenty she moved to the United States where she studied film at California State University, Northridge. In 1989, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Her first Hollywood movie was Tai-Pan, filmed on location in China. She went on to star in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor in 1987 and the David Lynch/Mark Frost television series Twin Peaks.
In 1994 she came back in Shanghai to star in critically acclaimed Stanley Kwan's Red Rose White Rose opposite Wilson Chao and Veronica Yip.
She directed critically acclaimed Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl (Chinese: 天浴; Pinyin: Tiān Yù) in 1998 and Autumn in New York in 2000. She has also appeared in many other movies in China, Hollywood, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.
She married Cardiologist Peter Hui on Jan 18, 1992. They have 2 children and live in San Francisco.
On Deadly Ground (1994)
