Apr 26, 1961

Shanghai, China

Joan Chen Chong (born as Chen Chong) is a Chinese American actress, film director, screenwriter and producer, best known for her roles in The Last Emperor, Twin Peaks, Red Rose, White Rose, Saving Face, and for directing the feature film Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl.
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Chen Chong first became famous in China for her performance in Zhang Zheng's Little Flower in 1979 for which she won the Hundred Flowers Award, in which she played a revolutionary's daughter in pre-Maoist China, who fall... ... (read more...) s in love with the wounded soldier she and her mom took care. Little Flower was her second movie and earned her to be dubbed "the Elizabeth Taylor of China" by Time magazine, for having achieved stardom while still a teenager. In addition, Chen is famous in China for her role in the 1979 film Hearts for the Motherland (aka Overseas Compatriots or A Loyal Overseas Chinese Family), which depicts an overseas Chinese family that returned to China from southeast Asia out of their patriotic feelings but encountered political troubles during the Cultural Revolution. The songs, I Love You, China and High Flies the Petrel, both appeared in the film through the voice of the heroine played by Chen Chong, are perennial favorites of serious music lovers in China.
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At age twenty, Chen moved to the United States where she studied film at California State University, Northridge. In 1989, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

Her first Hollywood movie was Tai-Pan, filmed on location in China. She went on to star in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor in 1987 and the David Lynch/Mark Frost television series Twin Peaks. In 1994 she came back in Shanghai to star in critically acclaimed Stanley Kwan's Red Rose, White Rose opposite Winston Chao and Veronica Yip.

She directed critically acclaimed Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl in 1998 and Autumn in New York in 2000. She has also appeared in many other movies in China, Hollywood, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.