Qing Xu

Summer Qing is a native of Beijing, and graduated from Beijing Film Academy's renowned performing division. She made an attention-grabbing film debut as the female lead in Kaige Chen's 1990 Cannes Film Festival-competing Life on a String (1991) (Life on a String), about a pair of blind musicians in a rural village. Qing's naturalistic performance contributed greatly to the film, which cemented Chen's reputation as one of the foremost international filmmakers. Soon after, she played the lead in the film of another acclaimed director, Zifeng Ling's Kuang (Crazy), and was nominated for Best Actress at one of China's top film awards, the Hundred Flowers awards. The TV series, "Close to Forbidden City", then shot her to fame across the country as a sweet-natured ingénue.