Maggie Cheung was born in Hong Kong in 1964. She lived in the UK with her family from age eight to seventeen. After returning to her hometown, she entered the Miss Hong Kong pageant and finished as runner-up.
She then worked for the TV network TVB, appearing in numerous popular series. Cheung has an impressive body of work spanning nearly 80 films. Her film career received a major boost from the worldwide success of Jackie Chan's Police Story (1985).
After that breakthrough, she went from her television work to appearing in as many as twelve films a year. When she met Wong Kar-wai, he offered her the female lead in As Tears Go By (1988) — a role that changed her status almost overnight, turning her into a muse of Hong Kong's art-house cinema. She starred in Ann Hui's wonderful autobiographical film Song of the Exile (1990), won Best Actress in Berlin for her role in Stanley Kwan's Centre Stage (1992, playing the legendary Chinese silent-film star Ruan Lingyu), and appeared in Tsui Hark's Green Snake (1993).
Wong Kar-wai made further use of her talent and screen presence in Days of Being Wild (1990) and Ashes of Time (1994), and gave her the female lead in his exquisite In the Mood for Love (2000).
In 2002 she gave a standout performance in Zhang Yimou's Hero. Alongside her Silver Bear from Berlin, Cheung has won four Golden Horse awards (Taiwan's equivalent of the Oscars), a Golden Bauhinia (Hong Kong's equivalent of the Golden Globes), and further honors at festivals in Turin and Chicago. In 2004 she won Best Actress at Cannes for her leading role in Olivier Assayas's Clean.
