Cheng Pei-pei, the iconic martial arts actress known for her roles in films like “Come Drink with Me” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” has passed away at the age of 78.
“It is with a heavy heart that we announce that the rumors are true. Our mother, Cheng Pei Pei, passed away peacefully at home surrounded by her loved ones on July 17,” her family wrote in a statement posted on Facebook on Friday.
Cheng had been living with corticobasal degeneration (CBD), a rare, progressive disease that damages brain cells over time, affecting movement, speech, memory, and swallowing. There is currently no treatment to stop its progression.
“She chose not to make this news public so that she could deal with her condition in private and spend her remaining time with her children and grandchildren,” the statement reads.
“To all her friends, colleagues, and fans, thank you for all the support you showed her over the years. Our mom wanted to be remembered by how she was: the legendary Queen of Martial Arts… a versatile, award-winning actress whose film and television career spanned over six decades, not only in Asia but internationally as well,” the family added.
Born in Shanghai in 1946, Cheng trained in ballet before moving to Hong Kong as a teenager.
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She enrolled in a performing arts training course at Shaw Brothers Studio, a pioneer of the kung fu film genre, which helped her establish her acting career.
Cheng starred in Shaw Brothers films such as the 1964 historical drama “The Last Woman of Shang” and the 1964 romance “Lover’s Rock” (“Qing ren shi”).
Her breakthrough role came in 1966 when she starred as a skilled martial artist in the action crime classic “Come Drink with Me.” Cheng later moved to the United States in 1971, where she married and had four children before eventually divorcing. She returned to Hong Kong in the 1990s and starred in the Oscar-winning 2000 action-adventure “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” as the villainous fighter Jade Fox.
“I’m always up for a fight,” Cheng told Time Out magazine in 2015. “It’s exhilarating. I’ve always been an active person, so when I got a chance to act out fight scenes, I was happy to oblige.”
Her final role was as the matchmaker in the 2020 live-action movie “Mulan.”
