Jiang Luxia: Difference between revisions

Jiang Luxia (Chinese: 蒋璐霞; pinyin: Jiǎng Lù Xiá; born 25 December 1986) is a mainland Chinese actress. In 2018, she won the prestigious Best Supporting Actress in Hundred Flowers Award for her critical role as "Tong Li, the Female Machine Gunner" in the movie "Operation Red Sea"^[1]. The film has grossed USD$579 million, and received critical acclaim from critics, making it one of the highest grossing Chinese films in 2018.^[2]

Jiang Luxia was the Nationalwide Wushu Champion in Shaolin "quan" in China. She was also a China State "Wuying Level" Sportsman and a State Martial Arts Repertoires A-level Referee. She is excellent in Martial Arts Repertoire, Practical Self-Defense, Qiqong, Taijiquan and Crossbow techniques.

Prior being an actress, Jiang was a popular award-winning Internet Celebrity, actively promoting martial arts under the nickname of "Mao Er Bao Bei".

Jiang is one of the most recognized female action star in Chinese movie industry. She started her career acting in action and martial arts films, where she did most of her own stunts.

Jiang Luxia was born on December 25, 1986 in Tongliao City, Inner Mongolia, People's Republic of China. As a child, she was very sporty and active. Her father noticed that Jiang shown potential in Chinese martial arts due to her good physical fitness. She became inspired to be an actress after watching the "Tai Chi Master" (太極張三豐), a 1993 Hong Kong Martial Arts film directed by Yuen Woo-ping, starring Jet Li and Michelle Yeoh.

“小时候我就特爱看武侠片，尤其是1993版的《太极张三丰》，我看了几十遍，特希���有一天自己也能像电影里那样，又能飞又能打。”

— 蒋璐霞

“I love to watch wuxia movies since I was a child, especially the 1993 movie "Tai Chi Master". I watched it over and over again, hoping that one day I could be like what I saw in the movie. Able to fly and fight”

— Jiang Luxia

Like most of the young girls, Jiang chose to learn dancing when she was 6 years. Her teacher thought Jiang was delicate and fair, so she encouraged Jiang to pick dancing for her after-school classes. However, on the first day of the lesson, the dance teacher observed that Jiang's movement was too stiff and her every move looked like she was punching. The teacher joked that Jiang should learn martial art instead. Jiang took that remarks seriously as she has already cultivate passion for martial art after watching her favorite action movie. There, Jiang switched to learn martial arts instead of dancing.

Up until her fourth grade of elementary school, Jiang realized she could not learn much from the part-time classes and wanted to transfer to a professional martial arts school. She went to Dongling Shaolin Martial Arts School^[3] in Shenyang when she was 11 years old to pursue her studies. "At that time, the martial arts school was following the military system. It felt like becoming a soldier." Jiang enjoyed her life of being highly disciplined and obeying orders, but she realized she outgrown the lessons quickly and desired to learn more in-depth about martial arts.

"I do not know any sect. But when I watched movie since young, I always curious about Shaolin Monastery. It felt like that is the place to learn authentic and traditional martial arts."

She transferred to Songshan Shaolin Temple^[4]at the age of 13. Jiang described life in Songshan Shaolin Temple was particularly difficult and challening. "Most people can't stand the suffering. There were even fewer girls studing there. Living conditions are also very poor. For example, you have to go to the river to wash your clothes. There is no hot water in the bath, and there is no light in the bath. The place where we sleep is very simple, the window is glued with plastic bags and there will be air leakage under the door. I sleep by the door and the winter wind is biting, the wall I lean against is frosty every year, so I can't sleep. There were frostbite on my hands and face."

There was high-intensity training every day. "Get up at 5:30 in the morning, start running at 6 o’clock for an hour and a half on mountainous roads, especially Bodhidharma Cave.^[5] Running on a flat road was not considered as training for us." Jiang was selected to represent her school for various competition and to maintain her ranking.

Due to the prolong high intensity of training in all years long, Jiang could no longer be an athlete due to severe back injury. Taking into account of her physical conditions and future development, she decided to pursue her study in university. She admitted to Beijing Sport University when she was 17 years old to study traditional Chinese sport in 2003.^[6]

In 2004, she became the National Champion of Shaolin Martial Arts, National Martial Arts Champion and National First-Class Martial Arts Routine Referee. She was notable for her outstanding contributions among the female athletes in the martial arts field.^[7]

While Jiang is highly skilled in Chinese Martial Arts, she was uncertain of her future. Back in year 2003, the employment rate was low, especially for martial arts student. It is unlikely for every graduate to have the opportunity to be actor or athlete and many might end up working as security guard. She gathered with her good friends to discuss about their future plan after graduation. "At that time, everyone knew that it was not easy to find a suitable job with our major. So we discussed and decided to open a joint martial art gym to teach wushu and self-defense for girls." But they realized that the lack of popularity of martial arts would make it difficult to recruit students. Flyers that were commonly distributed by major colleges and universities have little effect for promotion and they could not afford paying for advertisement. In desperation, they were proposed to upload videos to promote martial arts online. Jiang was unanimously selected to be filmed to perform her skills.

From February 2007 onwards, Jiang and her friends started shooting the series of videos under the nickname "Mao Er Bao Bei" (猫耳宝贝). She was filmed performing martial arts and acrobatic stunts, and most of the videos were filmed in her dormitory room. The videos were created with the accompaniment of upbeat music. Jiang performed with full heroic spirit and her performance was vigorous and energetic.

The "Mao Er Bao Bei" series of videos was extremely popular. The series has recorded at least a click rate of over 25 million and was being searched for over 4 million times with more than 100 million views. It was ranked Top N°4 by the Google search engine in 2007. The record has way surpassed many of the other "web stars" from before.

Jiang was loved by the Internet fans for her healthy and positive image. Each of her new videos was often featured on the home pages of many video portals and websites in order to attract the web viewers.

At that time, it was in the budding stage of technology and many Internet celebrities were broadcasting by uploading videos online. In comparison to other internet celebrities, Jiang stood out as she was highly skilled in martial arts. Due to her popularity, Jiang was invited to the Happy Camp TV Series program, a Chinese variety show which is one of China's most popular shows with minimum viewership of tens of millions that features celebrities and famous figures from all over the world.

Jiang was still studying in university when her classmate approached her by chance to work as a stand-in (stunt double) for a commercial advertisement shooting for Guo Jingjing (Chinese female diver, and multi-time Olympic gold medalist and world champion.) The crew has approached many stuntwomen for the role but many rejected as it was too challenging. As Jiang wanted to make some extra money, she did not think twice and immediately accepted the offer.

The director of the commercial, Hung Yan-yan was the former stunt double for martial art superstar Jet Li and is renowned for playing the role "Kwai Geuk-Chat known as "Clubfoot Seven" (鬼脚七) in the film "Once Upon a Time in China III". Before the shooting, the director taught Jiang how to turn and jump, starting from 1 meter, 3 meter, 5 meters and 8 meters. Eventually, Jiang had to perform the stunt from 13 meters high before falling on cardboard boxes. The director was very surprise and impressed with Jiang's professionalism and skills. He expressed interest to contact Jiang for future collaboration.

The opportunity came four months later in December 2009 when Director Hung cast Jiang as the lead role for his upcoming action film "Coweb" (战,无双). It was Hung Yan-yan's debut as a director starring newcomer Jiang Luxia. That was the first movie that launched Jiang's career as an actress.^[8]

The media has described Jiang as the up-and-coming young action movie star, the female version of Jackie Chan. While Jiang had sustained many serious injuries as a result of all the fight scenes without stunt-double in a tight filming schedule, the public response towards the movie was not overwhelming. The audience has lose interest of the Jiang's status transforming from internet celebrity to action star.

Although Jiang embarked into the movie industry as a lead actress, she did not achieve fame and had lack of success in the showbiz. For ten years, Jiang was mostly casted for insignificant characters or typical action-related role. She was quoted in interview that she hardly receive any job offer and had to accept any minor role available. This was when Jiang considered about changing her image and not to limit herself to fighting scene. She kept her hair long, hoping to play wider range of characters instead of being stereotyped as action actress. However, there were still no new opportunity coming to her way.

"Once I was chosen for a movie. To prepare for the role, I had been training for three months. Shortly before the shooting started, I was told that they decided to drop me as they wanted another actress to play my role." Due to the lack of work, many have persuaded her to give up her dream and do something else while she is still young. But Jiang decided to persevere as she believe the opportunity would come one day. When she was not working, she would continue training and workout in the gym to ensure she is physically fit and prepared for future opportunity. She insisted to exercise and practice everyday to prevent her stamina from declining. ^[9]

Jiang was still struggling with her dream of acting until she was informed that the film director Dante Lam was casting for the movie Operation Red Sea. Jiang has watched "Operation Mekong" before, which was also a film directed by Dante Lam and had earlier wished she could act in such movie someday.

The role in the movie called Tong Li, the only female in the 8-person Jiaolong Assault Team of the Marine Corps. As this is a physically taxing role, the director is looking for actress who is physically and mentally strong to play the character. Jiang, who has been actively training and body building all the while was able to impress the director with her tough muscular figure during the brief interview.^[10] To be accepted for the role, Jiang has to agree to the director's request to further increase her muscle mass and to cut her shoulder length hair near to bold bald haircut inspired by Demi Moore's role in GI Jane and Charlize Theron's role in Mad Max: Fury Road.

In order to portray more realistic visualization to the audience, the actors were required to wear uniforms that weighted more than 12 kg and had to carry weapons and gadgets weighted around 20 kg during filming, especially for Jiang who had to carry the heaviest weapon^[11] due to her role as the Machine Gunner. This is not a role that an average actress can do, especially the filming took place in hardcore deserted locations in Africa.^[12]

The filming took nearly 5 month in Morocco before continuing the shooting in China. Throughout the movie, Jiang performed most of the dangerous stunts on her own^[13]. She gained utmost respect from her director^[14] and co-stars for her dedication in playing an extremely laborious and challenging role. Even when Jiang was injured prior the filming, she endured the pain everyday and given her best during filming.^[15]

Her hard work finally paid off as she was highly acclaimed after the movie was released. She was nominated in various movie festivals and won many accolades, including best supporting actress in the prestigious Hundred Flowers Award in China. ^[16] On her Hundred Flowers Award winning speech^[17]:

“两次来佛山，第一次来拍戏，第二次就领奖了，佛山是我的福地。承蒙厚爱，得此殊荣。感谢导演，简短的谈话就定了我，让我11年的坚持有了回报。感谢爸爸妈妈，想让我有归宿，但我的电影梦还没做完。11年终于等来这个机会，我相信人生没有低谷，只有蓄势待发。”

— 蒋璐霞

“I came to Foshan twice. The first time to film, and the second time to receive the award. Foshan is my blessed place. Thank you for the love and honor. Thank you to the director for giving me the role after a brief conversation. My 11 years of persistence has finally paid off. Thanks to mom and dad who care for me, hoping I could settle down and have family, but my movie dream is not accomplished yet. I finally got this opportunity after 11 years of waiting. I believe that there is no trough in life, but preparation and readiness to take action when the opportunity arrives .”

— Jiang Luxia

Apart from actively acting in a number of film and television series, Jiang has also participated in the highly successful Chinese Reality Television Show, Sisters that Make Waves (Season 2) that premiered on Mango TV on 23rd January 2021.^[18] Jiang was among the 30 female celebrities over 30 years old who must compete to debut in a seven-member girl group. Among other high profile celebrities in the show included Na Ying, Bibi Zhou, Rainie Yang, Cecilia Cheung, Joey Yung and Yang Yuying.

Though Jiang has no formal background and experience in singing and dancing, she gave outstanding and memorable performances^[19] which won her numerous praises in the media for her determination and persistence to compete in every performances.^[20] Jiang reached the final after delivering 5 rounds of strong performances (without being eliminated after voting by live audiences)^[21]. While Jiang did not debut in the group at the end, she has attracted a number of new fans and received considerably high votes at the final.^[22]

• 2021 Sisters Who Make Waves (Season 2)
• 2010 Super Trio series
• 2007 Happy Camp (TV series)

• Jiang Luxia at IMDb
• Jiang Luxia on Sina Weibo (in Chinese)
• Jiang Luxia on Hong Kong Cinemagic (in Chinese)

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