Miami Gong Show - Chinese superstar makes her (real) Hollywood debut

Gong Li, thee face of mainland Chinese cinema (before a younger lady named Ziyi came along...and got with her man/director on top), makes her real Hollywood debut tonight in Michael Mann's updated version of Miami Vice. Yes, the Gonger did recently appear in the Hollywood produced Memoirs of a Geisha (where she faced off against that very same younger advesary) and, yeah, she did speak English there but now she's in Miami freakin Vice. Cant get much more American/Hollywood/Western than that.

Gong is also currently filming Young Hannibal: Behind the Mask, the prequel to the Silence of the Lambs and the Hannibal Lecter character where she plays a mentor to the young flesh hungry psycho. In Miami Vice, she plays the wife of a Cuban drug lord and gets in tight with Colin Farrel's Sonny Crocket character.

Starring in movies such as Raise the Red Lantern and Farewell My Concubine, both of China's premier directors, Zhang Yimou (who also directed Hero and House of Flying Daggers) and Chen Kaige, respectively, Gong Li was the undisputed (wo)man of mainland Chinese movies. At age 40, she now makes her (real) splash in the American and Hollywood movie world.

Read this interview with Gong on why she chose to debut here when she did and how Chinese censorship has come along.

And read about why Michael Mann, who was the creator of the original TV series, aswell as the director behind the best cops and robbers flick of our time in Heat, chose to make avoid the retro 80 cheez and make a real movie.

More Miami Vice trailers here.