Li Bingbing
The Transformers franchise has made stars of the likes of Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox over the years and with the fourth instalment director Michael Bay is looking to propel more talent to stardom.
It was revealed that there was a new addition to the Transformers 4 cast list in the form of Li Bingbing - and this could well be her major English speaking breakthrough.
Li may not be a household name but she is an incredibly experienced actress having kicked off her acting career back in 1994.
She has worked predominately in Chinese film but in recent years she has been making the move into English speaking film - and enjoying success in the process.
Li kicked off her acting career in 1994 and worked on a string of TV projects such as Red Rose, White Rose and Junsao before making the leap into feature film.
Her big screen debut came in 1998 when she starred in Seventeen Years, which was directed by Zhang Yuan. The movie played on the festival circuit that year and Li picked up a Best Actress Award at the Singapore Film Festival.
Over the next few years she moved between TV and film projects with movies such as Waiting Alone and A World Without You bringing her more awards success.
She captured the attention of western audiences in 2008 when she teamed up with Jet Li and Jackie Chan in The Forbidden Kingdom. The movie was martial arts adventure film was directed by Rob Minkoff and was distributed by Lionsgate Films and The Weinstein Company.
But it wasn’t until 2011 that she landed her first leading role in an English speaking role as she starred in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan; which was a big screen adaptation of the novel of the same name by Lisa See.
Since then she has gone on to appear in Resident Evil: Retribution and it seems that she is a talent to keep and eye on.
Her star looks set so rise even further as she joins the Transformers franchise - a movie that is set o begin filming this year.
The movie will see Michael Bay return to the director’s chair and the franchise will go in a new direction after the departure of Shia LaBeouf.
Mark Wahlberg has taken over the lead role while Stanley Tucci and British actor Jack Reynor are also on board.
Who Li will play in the movie is not yet clear but some of the movie is set to be filmed in China.
Li is also set to star in a new action/fantasy movie called 400 Boy which will see her team up with director Alastair Paton.
It seems that Li Bingbing is an actress who is well and truly on the rise as she successfully moves between Chinese and English speaking projects.
Transformers 4 is set to be released 27th June 2014.
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