Zhao Wei


Zhao Wei, also known as Vicky or Vicki Zhao, is a Chinese actress, singer, filmmaker, and businesswoman. Regarded as one of China's Four Dan Actresses, she rose to fame for her role in the television series My Fair Princess, followed by such popular dramas and films as Romance in the Rain, Shaolin Soccer, Moment in Peking, Painted Skin, Mulan, Dearest, for which she won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress, Lost in Hong Kong and Tiger Mom. Zhao made her directorial debut with So Young, which is a commercial and critical success. She is also a singer with 7 albums and the second largest shareholder of Alibaba Pictures. Zhao ranked 80th on Forbes China Celebrity 100 list in 2013, 22nd in 2014, 7th in 2015, and 28th in 2017.
Since 27 August 2021, Zhao has been blacklisted by the Chinese government, with most content featuring her removed from the Chinese Internet.

Early life

Born and brought up in Wuhu, Anhui, Zhao is the second child to Zhao Jiahai, an engineer, and Wei Qiying, a primary school teacher. She has an elder brother, Zhao Jian, who is her business partner and a major shareholder of production company Talent Television & Film. Zhao Jian's ex-wife Chen Rong, whom he divorced in 2017, used to be Zhao's manager.
Zhao attended Wuhu Normal School Affiliated Primary School for her elementary education, Wuhu No. 17 Middle School for junior high, and Wuhu Normal School, a secondary specialized school. After graduating from Wuhu Normal School in 1994, she enrolled in the Xie Jin Heng Tong Star Academy of Performing Arts as part of its first cohort of students. In 1996, she was admitted to the Beijing Film Academy with the highest entrance examination score in the country. She graduated in 2000 with a bachelor’s degree in performing arts, earning a score of 90 out of 100 on her graduation thesis.

Career

Early career (1994–1997)

In 1993, while Zhao was a student at Wuhu Normal School, the movie A Soul Haunted by Painting, directed by Huang Shuqin, starring Gong Li and Derek Yee, was filming in Wuhu. Zhao was cast in the role of a young prostitute in the brothel where Gong's character worked, her first acting experience. She appeared briefly at the beginning of the film and had no dialogue.
Zhao developed a strong interest in acting after this first experience, and decided to become an actress. In 1994, after graduating from the Wuhu Normal School, she gave up her job as an apprentice pre-school teacher. She moved from her hometown to Shanghai and enrolled in the Shanghai Xie Jin-Hengtong Star Academy, an acting school founded by the Chinese director Xie Jin, where she received acting training during 1994–1995. She was also selected by Xie to star in his movie Penitentiary Angel, her first major role. "I am too young to understand the role," she said about her working experience with Xie, "but if you've been cast in a film by a famous director, no matter how well you did, other less-famous directors will also want to cast you." The film landed her other roles in TV series including her first leading role in Sisters in Beijing.

Rise to stardom (1998–2001)

In 1997, novelist and producer Chiung Yao was casting the TV series My Fair Princess, a joint production by mainland China and Taiwan adapted from Chiung Yao's own novel. She identified Zhao as a talent after watching Sisters in Beijing and offered Zhao the title role of Huan Zhu Ge Ge a.k.a. Xiao Yanzi, a rebellious and funny princess who dared to challenge authority and rules in the palace. Filming the series was an arduous task for Zhao and her co-stars; Zhao herself acknowledged the intensity of filming:
The hard work of the cast yielded unexpected results. This comedic period drama quickly became a phenomenal sensation and swept TV ratings in Taiwan, mainland China, Hong Kong and Southeast Asian countries such as Singapore and Vietnam. Zhao rose to prominence and became a household name overnight. In 1999, she became the youngest actress to win the Golden Eagle Award for Best Actress. She is regarded by many as mainland China's first "national idol", and was named one of Taiwan's "Top Ten Most Outstanding Individuals in Television". However, alongside the phenomenal success were increasingly negative critics in mainland China, attacking the rebellious role as a "bad influence" over children. During the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in 2002, a member of the CPPCC submitted a proposal to boycott the "little swallow".
Zhao once again worked with Chiung Yao for the 2001 television series Romance in the Rain, a costume drama set in the 1930s and 1940s. In this series, Zhao played a vengeful girl who tried to exact revenge against her parents. The series was a commercial success, and recorded the highest ratings of the year.
Zhao soon felt that she had achieved all she could in television and began to shift her career focus from TV to films.

Film (2001–2010)

Zhao went on to star in a few Hong Kong movies. In 2001, she starred in the comedy film Shaolin Soccer alongside Hong Kong actor and director Stephen Chow. Zhao played an ugly-duckling steamed bun-maker-cum-tai chi-master, a great contrast from the glamorous image she had established for herself in previous roles. Zhao was nominated at the Chinese Film Media Awards for Best Actress. This was followed by a supporting role in Chinese Odyssey 2002 as "Phoenix", for which she was nominated Golden Horse Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 2002, Zhao played an assassin in So Close, which also stars Shu Qi and Karen Mok.
In 2003, Zhao starred in four films: My Dream Girl, Warriors of Heaven and Earth, Green Tea, and Jade Goddess of Mercy. After much speculation over who was cast for the female lead An Xin in Ann Hui's film Jade Goddess of Mercy, the role was finally offered to Zhao, and her performance was well received by critics. In 2004, the Chinese Association of Film Performing Arts presented her the Golden Phoenix Award for this role. She was also nominated at the 27th Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actress for her performance in Warriors of Heaven and Earth.
In 2004, Zhao was cast to dub the character Princess Fiona for when Shrek 2 was released in China.
The year 2005 proved to be another successful year for Zhao. She won the Golden Goblet Award for Best Actress at the Shanghai International Film Festival and tied with Zhang Ziyi for the Huabiao Award. Both awards were for her performance in A Time to Love. Zhao once again won Best Actress for the film at the 8th Changchun Film Festival in 2006.
After a four-year break from television series, Zhao starred as Yao Mulan in a remake of Lin Yutang's Moment in Peking. The television series became Zhao's fourth TV drama to become the highest rated drama of the year. Zhao was nominated at the 26th Flying Apsaras Awards for Outstanding Actress.
Following the success of Moment in Peking, Zhao starred in The Postmodern Life of My Aunt, which premiered at film festivals around the world, including the Toronto International Film Festival. Though Zhao only appeared for ten minutes in the film, her performance led her to be nominated at the 43rd Golden Horse Awards and the 27th Hong Kong Film Awards for Best Supporting Actress.
In 2006, Zhao made a surprising move by sitting for the national entrance exam for postgraduate studies. After passing, Zhao returned to her alma mater, the Beijing Film Academy in September 2006 as a postgraduate student in the Department of Film Directing, where she studied under director Tian Zhuangzhuang. That year, Zhao was ranked No. 4 on Forbes 2006 China Celebrity 100 list. She was selected as the "Most Beautiful Woman" in China through a national vote by Sina.com & Sohu.com's users. People magazine also listed Zhao as "100 Most Beautiful People" in 2006.
Zhao then portrayed a cabby in the 2007 film The Longest Night in Shanghai, starring alongside Masahiro Motoki and Dylan Kuo. The same year, Zhao starred in the television series Thank You for Having Loved Me. She reportedly received a salary of 100,000 yuan per episode.
From 2008 to 2009, Zhao starred in John Woo's historical epic Red Cliff. Set in the Three Kingdoms period, the film is mainland China's most expensive production then. She played Sun Shangxiang, the independent-minded sister of warlord Sun Quan, who disguises herself as a male enemy soldier to gather intelligence. Zhao received two nominations at the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Supporting Actress.
She next appeared in Gordon Chan's horror-adventure film Painted Skin. The film set a new milestone in Chinese film by grossing 100 million yuan in six days. Zhao's role as a general's wife was particularly acclaimed, and she received Best Actress nominations at the 27th Golden Rooster Award and 3rd Asian Film Award.
In 2009, Zhao played the legendary character Hua Mulan in Jingle Ma's Mulan.
Ma called Zhao the "perfect fit" for the cross-dressing heroine. Zhao won the Best Actress Award at the 10th Changchun Film Festival, 30th Hundred Flowers Awards and 19th Shanghai Film Critics Awards for her performance in the film.
On 6 August 2009, she was elected vice-president of the China Film Performance Art Academy and executive member of the council of the China Environmental Society.
After filming the wuxia film 14 Blades alongside Donnie Yen, starting in mid-2010, Zhao took a two-year break from acting. On 11 April 2010, she gave birth to a girl, Huang Xin, the only child of her and businessman Huang Youlong, whom she married in 2008.
In June 2010, she returned to the limelight as a jury member of the 13th Shanghai International Film Festival.