Cover Zhang Ziyi attending the Asian Film Awards at Hong Kong Cultural Centre in March 2026 (Photo: Getty Images)
Zhang Ziyi attending the Asian Film Awards at Hong Kong Cultural Centre in March 2026 (Photo: Getty Images)
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Following her win at the Asian Film Awards 2026, legendary Chinese actor Zhang Ziyi reflects on legacy, physical endurance and transitioning behind the camera, from her acting debut to ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’
For Chinese actor Zhang Ziyi, 2026 has marked a monumental chapter of reflection and transition. Having recently accepted the prestigious Excellence in Asian Cinema Award at the Asian Film Awards in Hong Kong, the globally revered actor is already looking toward a bold creative future. Standing on the precipice of a new narrative era, Zhang is slated to release her full-length directorial debut, Swam 100 Meters Across the Shore, for a theatrical release in mainland China in 2027.
With over two decades of international cinematic dominance behind her, Zhang’s transition behind the lens feels like a natural evolution for an artist who has spent her career entirely onscreen. Yet, her global path to cinematic royalty began not in front of a camera, but inside the rigid classrooms of a traditional dance academy—an environment where she candidly admits she initially struggled.
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Above Zhang Ziyi speaking at a masterclass at the Asian Film Awards on March 15, 2026 in Hong Kong (Photo: Getty Images)
Zhang Ziyi speaking at a masterclass at the Asian Film Awards on March 15, 2026 in Hong Kong (Photo: Getty Images)
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“I was actually a terrible student in dance school,” Zhang says. Though trained extensively in traditional movement, she lacked the natural flexibility her peers possessed. “I had a lot of physical stiffness. Every year during mid-term and final exams, we had to perform a movement where you pull your leg straight up behind your back. I could only manage to force it up twice a year when the headmaster and teachers were watching. Pulling it up that one time meant I would be physically broken for a long time.”
Despite her self-described clumsiness, this brutal physical baseline instilled a relentless grit. When director Zhang Yimou cast her at just 19 years old in her first feature film, The Road Home (1999), she possessed no formal acting techniques, relying entirely on raw instinct. “I was an inexperienced second-year student from Beijing’s Central Academy of Drama,” she says. “There was no method to my acting back then. The innocence and sincerity of the character required a pure, unvarnished reality—what we call in school ‘true hearing, true seeing and true feeling’.”
This standard of absolute realism was pushed to its physical limits when Ang Lee cast her as an uncontrollable martial arts prodigy called Jen Yu in the martial arts masterpiece Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000). The global sensation launched her into the international spotlight, but the reality on set was one of gruelling endurance. “It was real physical pain, and I suffered all kinds of injuries every single day,” Zhang recalls. “I held onto every ounce of stubbornness in my body to fulfil the director’s imagination of Yu. I used to have extreme psychological stress, often having nightmares and waking up crying.”
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Above Zhang Ziyi (Photo: Getty Images)
Zhang Ziyi (Photo: Getty Images)
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Zhang says that she didn’t possess the deep, philosophical understanding of Yu that she has today. At the time, she viewed her simply as a rebellious child. “I never had a rebellious phase in my own life. All of my personal rebellion was given to my characters. My characters revolted against the world on my behalf.”
In 2004, in Hou Yong’s Jasmine Women, Zhang took on the immense challenge of playing three generations of women from the same family. The role required her to perform a raw, agonising childbirth scene over three freezing nights under a rain machine. “There was no room for technique; it required immersive empathy and extreme physical and emotional surrender,” she says. Years later, when she gave birth to her own child, she realised the cinematic version she performed was arguably more emotionally gruelling than reality because she had access to modern pain relief, whereas the historical characters she portrayed did not and relied on her imagination of the experience.
Above From left: Zhang Ziyi as Jen Yu and Michelle Yeoh as Yu Shu Lien in ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ (Photo: Getty Images)
From left: Zhang Ziyi as Jen Yu and Michelle Yeoh as Yu Shu Lien in ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ (Photo: Getty Images)
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Her dedication to authenticity reached its pinnacle during her three-year training and filming period for Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster (2013). Playing Gong Er, the only daughter of the head of baguazhang (one of the three main Chinese martial arts of the Wudang school), she didn’t just learn the physical movements; she embodied the character's internal restraint. “The training wore away my youthful arrogance and made me brave. It taught me to understand Gong’s decisiveness and her uncompromising refusal to look back.” By the time she starred in Gu Changwei’s Love for Life (2011) and Derek Yee’s The Whispering Boy, Zhang had mastered the ability to craft characters defined by what she calls “a true sense of brokenness and the subsequent reconstruction of reality”.
As a veteran female actor who has consistently chosen flawed, complex and emotionally demanding roles over safe, commercial ones, Zhang views her position on the global stage with deep responsibility. When asked at the Asian Film Awards how Asian actors can truly establish themselves internationally without being reduced to mere cultural tokens, her answer was definitive.
“The East is not a margin; it is a background filled with infinite colours,” Zhang says. “Actors are not symbols—we are bridges. We step onto the global stage not to conform or cater to Western expectations, but to let the world witness the power of Asian storytelling and the resilience of Asian women. True international advantage never comes from mimicking another culture, but from staying deeply rooted in our own heritage.”
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Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
