Cheng Pei Pei

is one of Asian cinema's martial arts legends and Hong Kong's first Kung Fu Queen.
Trained as a dancer, she was born in Shanghai and later moved to Hong Kong in the early 1960s, where she made her screen debut in The Magic Lamp. The following year, she won a Golden Knight Award for her performance in The Rock and went on to star in Song of Orchid Island. In 1966, she was cast as the twin-sword-wielding Golden Swallow in Come Drink with Me and was catapulted to stardom. The first lady of wuxia -- the stylized genre of swordplay that pre-dates kung fu – Cheng starred in a slate of films, including Dragon Creek, The Thundering Sword, Dragon Swamp, Golden Swallow and The Shadow Whip.
In the 1970s, Cheng immigrated to the US and stepped away from film to raise a family. In the late 1980s, she returned to Hong Kong to resume her screen career with films including Painted Faces, Flirting Scholar and, more recently, as Jade Fox in Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and as Maggie Q's mother in Naked Weapon.