Jiang Luxia

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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 on 10 November 2018 for her critical role as "Tong Li, the Female Machine Gunner" in the movie "Operation Red Sea". The film has grossed USD$579 million, and received critical acclaim from critics, making it one of the highest grossing Chinese films in 2018. ^[1]

Jiang is one of the most recognized female action star in Chinese movie industry. She started her film 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 has been 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 when she was 5 years old 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，特希望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 for the amateur interest class. Her teacher thought Jiang was delicate and fair and she encouraged Jiang to enter dance classes. However, on the first day of the lesson, the teacher observed that Jiang's movement was too stiff and her every move looked like she was punching. Her 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 when she was 6 years old.

She joined the formal martial arts school at the age of 11 before entered the Shaolin Temple at the age of 13. She was admitted to Beijing Sport University in 2003 at the age of 17. ^[2]

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. ^[3]

While Jiang is highly skilled in Chinese Martial Arts, she was uncertain of her future. Back in 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 proposed to upload videos online to promote martial arts. 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 "Cat Ear Baby" (猫耳宝贝). She was filmed performing martial arts in her dormitory room, in the accompaniment of upbeat music. Jiang's performance was vigorous and energetic, with full heroic spirit and healthy image. The series of videos was extremely popular and garnered attention and attracted more than 100 million views.

At that time, it was in the budding stage of technology on the eve of the substantial development of webcasting. Many Internet celebrities were broadcasting by uploading videos online. In comparison, Jiang has real skills, with a hit rate of over 100 million, and she was so well-received that she 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 featuring celebrities and famous figures from all over the world.

She was also invited to "Sports World" column of the CCTV Sports Channel. Later, she won the first prize in the original works group of the first Sina Podcasting Grand Prix, and the best video blog public award in the International Blog Grand Prix, becoming the first-generation Internet celebrity.

In November 2007, she won the "Best Video Blog Public Award" in the International Blog Awards.

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-packed movie "Coweb" (战,无双). It was Hung Yan-yan's debut as a director starring newcomer Jiang Lu Xia. That was the first movie that launched Jiang's career as an actress. ^[4]

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 movie 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 has considered about diversifying 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.

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 martial arts everyday to prevent her stamina from declining. Due to the lack of work, many has 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.^[5]

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 is also a film directed by Dante Lam and had earlier wished she could be act in such movie someday.

The role in the movie called Tong Li, the Machine Gunner was the only female in the 8-person Jiaolong Assault Team of the Marine Corps. As this is a physically taxing role, the director was looking for actress who is physically and mentally strong to portray the character. Jiang, who has been actively training and body building was able to impress the director with her tough muscular figure during the brief interview.^[6] 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 that weighted around 20 kg during filming. This is not a role that an average actress can do, especially the filming took place in hardcore deserted locations.^[7]

The filming took nearly 5 month in Morocco before continuing the shooting in China. Throughout the movie, Jiang performed most of the the dangerous stunts on her own^[8]. She gained utmost respect from her director^[9] 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.^[10]

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 awards, including best supporting actress in the prestigious Hundred Flowers Award in China. ^[11] On her Hundred Flowers Award winning speech^[12]:

“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 to settle down and have family, but my movie dream is not accomplished yet. I finally got for 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.^[13] 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^[14] which won her numerous praises in the media for her determination and persistence to compete in every performances.^[15] Jiang reached the final after delivering 5 rounds of strong performances (without being eliminated after voting)^[16]. While Jiang did not debut in the group at the end, she has attracted a number of new fans and received high votes at the final.^[17]

2021 Sisters Who Make Waves (Season 2)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Jiang Luxia.

• Jiang Luxia at IMDb
• Jiang Luxia on Sina Weibo (in Chinese)
• 战地玫瑰 People in News【芒果TV精选频道】—Apr 2018 (video, 28:53 min)
• Operation Red Sea Trailer #1 (2018)—Jan 2018 (video, 1:19 min)
• 【姐姐SHOWTIME】#蒋璐霞​《#WOMAN​》帅气撩人！舞蹈有力台风燃炸！《乘风破浪的姐姐2》—Jan 2021 (video, 2:20 min)
• Jiang Luxia& Tifa Chen& Vivi Jiang -"Just Dance" | Sisters Who Make Waves —Feb 2021 (video, 5:16 min)
• Sisters Who Make Waves S2 EP5丨MGTV —Feb 2021 (video, 4:43 min)
• 乘风破浪的姐姐2 陳妍希, 贾靑, 李菲儿, 蒋璐霞, 袁姗姗 - SHERO—Mar 2021 (video, 4:44 min)
• 容祖儿组《我管你》超燃炸裂 阿朵郁可唯强力助阵《乘风破浪的姐姐2》第9期 Sisters Who Make Waves S2 EP9丨MGTV—Mar 2021 (video, 6:16 min)
• Sisters Who Make Waves S2 EP12丨MGTV—Apr 2021 (video, 5:12 min)
• Sisters Who Make Waves S2 EP12丨MGTV—Apr 2021 (video, 4:55 min)