His success with major comedy roles made him a well known name throughout China.Ge You won the Best Actor Award at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival for his role in the Zhang Yimou movie To Live. 

 

Ge You is an acclaimed Chinese actor. A native of Beijing, he is considered by many to be one of the most recognizable acting personalities in China.

Ge You won the Best Actor Award at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival for his role in the Zhang Yimou movie To Live.The holiday season is officially upon us, and that means it’s time for Oscar-bait in Western cinemas, and hèsuìdàng (贺岁档, New Years’ Cinema) in China. In the run up to Spring Festival, which is still a ways off, some of the year’s biggest movies will be released in December to do battle in the box offices for ticket sales. This happens every year, so what’s the big surprise this year? This year, no matter which movie wins the box office take, we know Ge You will be the winning actor.

Why? Well, there are three films that are getting a lot of attention. Sacrifice (directed by Chen Kaige), Let the Bullets Fly (directed by Jiang Wen), and If You Are the One II (directed Feng Xiaogang) will all be dropping this December. And all three of them will be starring famed Chinese comedic actor Ge You.

Of course, they’re not all comedies. Sacrifice, like most of Chen Kaige’s other films, is a drama, but Ge You has proved a remarkably versatile actor over the course of his more than two decades in the industry. He’s won widespread acclaim for his comedies at home, but his dramatic roles in several films have also won him prestigious acting awards abroad. It seems that people from all over the world can agree on at least one thing when it comes to Chinese cinema: Ge You is great.

As for the man himself, Ge You is a native Beijinger, but before he became an actor he spent some time in the countryside doing manual labor, which may be why he so frequently plays peasant characters who are affable but relatively clueless. He eventually joined a performance troupe in the city and began landing film roles. Because his career took off during the eighties, he was able to work with some of China’s greatest Fifth Generation directors (like Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, who he is working with again this year) when they were just starting out, and his repertoire expanded beyond comedy and into drama.

What’s really incredible is that he’s been able to maintain his stardom for so long. Over two decades into his career, he’s still got major star power, and he hasn’t slowed down at all. In fact, in addition to the three movies he’s got coming out this December, he’s also in another film this year, called Flying Duck, a project that’s being directed by a newcomer but backed by one of China’s Sixth generation legendary directors, Jia Zhangke.

So which ones are you planning to see this December? Are you going to watch the historical drama starring Ge You (Sacrifice), the action/comedy starring Ge You (Let the Bullets Fly), or the romantic comedy starring Ge You (If You Are the One II)? Whichever you choose, we hope you won’t be disappointed. Certainly, we suspect Ge You will be satisfied with whatever choice you make!