Do we like Gong Li?
Our score: 7 out of 10. A clean record on harm and a long run of decent public work, marked down only because she rarely says anything on the issues we care about.
Gong Li was spotted as a student by director Zhang Yimou and became one of the biggest names in world cinema, from the early Zhang films through to Hollywood. Her later work includes Disney's Mulan, where she played the witch, and a 2021 sports drama in which she played a famous volleyball coach.
The Hollywood run drew a bit of heat, because Mulan's closing credits thanked Xinjiang government bodies and boycott calls followed. Those calls were aimed at the studio and the lead actress's own comments, and the sources we read don't show Gong Li making any statement on Xinjiang. That's honestly all the evidence we found on that front, so we're not pinning it on her.
Her most politically loaded moment came at the 2018 Golden Horse Awards, where she chaired the jury. After a documentary winner spoke about Taiwan's independence, cameras caught her looking livid, and she then declined to join Ang Lee on stage to present the top prize. Some Chinese commentators read that as a deliberate line in the sand, but the report we read has no statement from her. In 2014 her agent also called the same festival “unprofessional” after she lost best actress.
On the harm check, we found nothing: no remarks about trans or gay people, no vaccine or climate-denial talk, no election conspiracies, and no work with grievance merchants. The flip side is that she is cautious about public statements. In 2019 she said the Kering Women in Motion award was “a tribute to all women, to their status, to their importance in the world.”
In 2021 Chinese netizens turned on her over a Vogue shoot in which she wore a white Adidas top, amid anger at the brand over Xinjiang cotton. Some commenters called her a “Singaporean banana”, a nasty dig at her 2008 switch of citizenship. It was online abuse aimed at her, and the report we read carries no response from her.
The real good stuff is long-running: she has been an FAO Goodwill Ambassador since 2002 and in 2010 urged fans to sign a petition to end chronic hunger. She also says she turns down roles that don't let her develop the character fully, and she has pushed for a film classification system to protect young kids from violent content.