Name	Ziyi Zhang
Height
Naionality	Chinese
Date of Birth	9-February-1979
Place of Birth	Beijing, China
Famous for	Acting

Zhang was born and raised in Beijing, to Zhang Yuanxiao, an accountant and later economist, and Li Zhengzhou, a kindergarten teacher. She is very close to her older brother, Zhang Zinan. Zhang began studying dance when she was 8 years old; subsequently, she joined the Beijing Dance Academy by her parents' suggestion at the age of 11. While at this boarding school, she noticed how mean the other girls were to each other while competing for status amongst the teachers. Zhang disliked the attitudes of her peers and teachers so much that, on one occasion, she ran away from the school. At the age of 15, Zhang won the national youth dance championship and began appearing in television commercials in Hong Kong. In 1996, Zhang entered China's prestigious Central Academy of Drama (regarded as the top acting college in China) at the age of 17.
At the age of 19, Zhang was offered her first role in Zhang Yimou's The Road Home, which won the Silver Bear award in the 1999 Berlin Film Festival.
She rose to further fame in 2000 with her role as Jen (Chinese version: Yu Jiao Long) in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, for which she won several awards in the Western world, such as Chicago Film Critics Association Awards, Toronto Film Critics Association Awards and Independent Spirit Awards. Zhang's first appearance in an American movie was in Rush Hour 2. In the movie, her character's name is "Hu Li", which is Mandarin Chinese for "Fox".
Zhang then appeared in Hero (2002), with her early mentor Zhang Yimou. This was a huge success in the English-speaking world and was nominated for an Oscar and a Golden Globe award in the category of Best Foreign Language Film.