Acting career

In 1994, she first entered the film industry by starring in the TV series "My Deskmate".^[8] Xu Jinglei rose to fame in China with the television series A Sentimental Story (1997), where she played a policewoman who falls for a gangster.^[9] Thereafter, she starred in romance film Spicy Love Soup (1997), where she won the Society Award at the Golden Phoenix Awards for her performance.^[5] In 1998, she was elected the third most popular contemporary actress among college students and the top 10 stunners of the New Weekly. In the same year, she took part in the TV drama "Love to the End".^[10] Xu solidified her success in 2002 with the films Spring Subway and I Love You, both popular hits in China and particularly with younger audiences.

In 1998, Xu and actor Li Yapeng paired up in Cherish Our Love Forever, a story based on the life and love between a group of young college students. The television series struck a chord with young audiences and became a massive hit in China, where Xu and Li were hailed as the "Nation's Couple".^[11] The two would later pair up again for the film sequel Eternal Moment (2011), set ten years after the drama.^[12]

Xu solidified her success in 2002 with the films Spring Subway and I Love You, both popular hits in China and particularly with younger audiences.^[13] Along with Zhang Ziyi, Zhou Xun and Zhao Wei, Xu was hailed as one of the Four Dan Actresses in China.^[13] Xu won the Huabiao Award for Outstanding New Actress for her performance in I Love You and the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actress for Spring Subway.^[14] The same year, she won the Golden Rooster Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Far from Home.^[15]

In June 2005, Time named Xu Jinglei as the only Chinese director and actor in an article entitled "China's New Revolution", and called her "a representative revolutionary figure in the Chinese film industry".^[16]

In 2006, Xu starred alongside Takeshi Kaneshiro, Tony Leung and Shu Qi in the crime drama Confession of Pain.^[17] She received her first acting award in Hong Kong; the year's Most Attractive Actress at the Hong Kong Society of Cinematographers (HKSC) Awards.^[18] Xu was then cast as the female lead in the war epic, The Warlords (2007) by Peter Chan.^[19]

After an extended hiatus from acting, Xu made a comeback in the science fiction thriller Battle of Memories (2017).^[20][21]

Directing career

Xu made her directorial debut with the film My Father and I (2003), where she also starred as the lead actress. The film, which tackled the delicate relationship between a Chinese father and his daughter, received widespread critical acclaim and won her a Golden Rooster for Best Directing Debut.^[22][13] Her second directorial work, Letter from an Unknown Woman (2004) was a romantic story based on the classic novel of Stefan Zweig, and won her the Silver Shell for Best Director at the San Sebastian International Film Festival in Spain.^[22][23]

After two successful art-house films, Xu had a shot in innovative film making in Dreams Come True (2006), an experimental film shot in one setting.^[24] However unlike her previous two films, Dreams Come True was panned by critics.^[25]

Xu became the first female director in China whose films gross more than 100 million yuan, for her 2010 film Go Lala Go!.^[22][9] The film, adapted from Li Ke's bestseller of the same name which is about a young woman's growth in society, is Xu's first attempt at commercial production.^[26] Go Lala Go! shows the life of middle-class, revealing the accelerated pace of the society as well as the degradation of the social welfare system as a consequence of the rise of neoliberal mindset. The ideology difference between Go Lala Go! and My Father and I indicates a transition of China's old society to the new society, articulating the social reconstruction of China.^[27]

In 2014, Xu Jinglei, as the only female director, ranked fifth on the Chinese directors value list, which selected from mainland directors who have independently directed five or more films in theaters in the past two decades. Xu appears as "the first female director who has directed six films independently and has earned more than 100 million yuan at the domestic box office and won the international Film Festival awards" on the list. Some industry insiders said that although the persistent exploration of literary avant-garde themes may affect her box office performance, the 36.25 percent return rate confirms the significant effect of "director Xu Jinglei" in the audiences' mind.^[28]

Xu continued to direct romantic features Dear Enemy (2011) and Somewhere Only We Know (2015), which were moderately successful at the box office.^[29][30][31]

Deviating from her former productions which mainly focuses on romance and family, Xu returned with action cop thriller The Missing in 2017.^[22] She also announced that she would be producing an alien-themed online comedy series based on the popular online novel "My 200-Million-Year-Old Classmate".^[22] This is China's first science fiction school-themed online drama, adapted from the novel of the same name, talking about a story of an alien named Abdouri takes over a high school girl, Xuan Mo's body. First time acting as the producer of a web series, Xu indicates that she didn't do it on a whim, but instead hopes to make a movie-like web series. She chose to work on this series because she saw the uniqueness of the characters and the setting of the story and want to create a milestone for Chinese television industry.^[32] For best results, Xu called in her own film crew to help. In addition, in order to present the perfect science fiction special effects in this school youth drama with science fiction elements, Xu Jinglei also invited Nick Hsieh, an international special effects supervisor who has participated in the production of blockbusters such as Pacific Rim and Star Wars, as the special effects director.^[32]

Film

Television series