Li Bingbing is a renowned Chinese actress and singer, born on February 27, 1973, in Wuchang, Heilongjiang. Initially, she had no intention of pursuing an acting career and instead enrolled in a high school for prospective school teachers.
However, after graduation, she discovered her passion for acting and was eventually persuaded by a friend to join the Shanghai Theatre Academy in 1993. Her breakthrough role came in 1999 with Zhang Yuan's film Seventeen Years, which earned her the Best Actress Award at the 1999 Singapore Film Festival.
Li's subsequent success in television series such as Young Justice Bao and wuxia television series like Taiji Prodigy and Eight Heroes cemented her status as an "action actress". Her performance in Feng Xiaogang's A World Without Thieves (2004) marked a turning point in her career, followed by her roles in Dayyan Eng's Waiting Alone (2005) and romance film The Knot (2006).
Li's international recognition began with her role in The Forbidden Kingdom (2008),an action-adventure film co-starring Jet Li and Jackie Chan. She won Best Actress awards at the 2007 Huabiao Awards and the 2008 Hundred Flowers Awards for her performance in The Knot.
In 2009, Li won Best Actress at the 46th Golden Horse Film Awards for her role in The Message, a historical drama about Japanese invaders in China. Her subsequent films include Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2010),1911 (2011),Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011),and Resident Evil: Retribution (2012).
Li's Hollywood breakthrough came with her role in Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014),followed by her appearances in Nest (2015),Meg (2016),and Realm (announced in 2015). She is also a member of the China Zhi Gong Party.
