Zhao Tao

Zhao Tao

Born: January 28, 1977
in Taiyuan - Shanxi - China
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Zhao Tao (Chinese: 赵涛, born 28 January 1977) is a famous Chinese actress, work in China and Europe, she has over 10 films to her credit since starting her career in 1999, muse of director Jia Zhangke. Zhao first came into international prominence through close collaboration with Chinese director Jia Zhangke and is credited with helping to bring Chinese cinema to Europe, especially Italy. As Shun Li in Io sono Li, her best starring role to date, she became the first Asian actress to win a prize at David di Donatello. Zhao's native language is Jinese, but she is multilingual, having learned to speak Italian, Mandarin and Szechuanese.

Biography

She was born January 28, 1977, in Taiyuan, Shanxi, which is also the hometown of the heroine in Still Life. As a child, she studied classical Chinese dance. In 1996, she enrolled in the folk dance department at Beijing Dance Academy. After graduation, she became a dance teacher in Taiyuan Normal College, where she was spotted by Jia during casting for Platform. Since then they work frequently together.

In 2011 she starred in the Italian movie Shun Li and the Poet by Andrea Segre, the movie was screened in the Venice Days section of the 68th Venice International Film Festival.

Zhao won the David di Donatello Award, the Italian Oscar, for Best Actress for her bilingual role.

Movies for Zhao Tao...

Caught by the Tides
Title: Caught by the Tides
Released: May 18, 2024
Type: Movie
In early 2000s China, Qiao Qiao and Guao Bin share a passionate but fragile love. When Guao Bin disappears to try his luck in another province, Qiao Qiao decides to go looking for him.
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An Elephant Sitting Still
Title: An Elephant Sitting Still
Character: History Teacher
Released: December 14, 2018
Type: Movie
In the northern Chinese city of Manzhouli, they say there is an elephant that simply sits and ignores the world. Manzhouli becomes an obsession for the protagonists of this film, a longed-for escape from the downward spiral in which they find themselves.
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Ash Is Purest White
Title: Ash Is Purest White
Character: Zhao Qiao
Released: September 21, 2018
Type: Movie
Set in China's underworld, this tale of love and betrayal follows a dancer who fired a gun to protect her mobster boyfriend during a fight. On release from prison 5 years later, she sets out to find him.
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Where Has Time Gone?
Title: Where Has Time Gone?
Released: October 19, 2017
Type: Movie
A short film omnibus featuring the work of five directors representing five countries involved in the 2017 BRICS summit, an annual international relations conference held between Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The collection—taking the concept of time as a unifying theme—depicts the economic, political, and social alienations and contradictions that create, compound, and structure issues as wide-ranging as poverty, class stratification, and homeless; familial distress; spousal abuse; and natural disaster.
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Revive
Title: Revive
Released: June 15, 2017
Type: Movie
Revive is one of five short films within the Jia Zhangke-produced omnibus film Where Has Time Gone? with contributions from each of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). In Jia’s segment, a Chinese couple in the ancient town of Pingyao attempts to breathe new life into their old love as they ponder having a second child. Pingyao, home to the film festival Jia has co-founded, is a highly picturesque UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Jia humorously plays with a very recent dilemma – the second child policy dates from only 2013 – in a setting itself forcibly revived from history.
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Mountains May Depart
Title: Mountains May Depart
Character: Shen Tao
Released: October 30, 2015
Type: Movie
The life of Tao, and those close to her, is explored in three different time periods: 1999, 2014, and 2025.
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Smog Journeys
Title: Smog Journeys
Released: January 22, 2015
Type: Movie
Jia Zhangke's short film for Greenpeace East Asia depicts the effects of air pollution in northeast China, a region frequently blanketed in dangerous levels of air pollution. 'Smog Journeys' traces two families from two different backgrounds; one a mining family in Hebei province, and the other a trendy middle class family in Beijing. Both face a similar fate. Air pollution is one of China's most pressing environmental and health issues. Greenpeace calls for a shift from coal to clean renewable energy, as well as short term measures that better safeguard people's health.
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Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang
Title: Jia Zhangke, A Guy from Fenyang
Character: Self
Released: October 20, 2014
Type: Movie
Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhangke returns to the shooting locations of his films, along with his actors, friends and close collaborators. Jia recalls the inspiration sources for his movies, such as Platform, Still Life and A Touch of Sin. The film is the memory of a filmmaker and of a country in convulsion, China, which reveals itself little by little.
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A Touch of Sin
Title: A Touch of Sin
Character: Xiao Yu
Released: October 4, 2013
Type: Movie
Four independent stories set in modern China about random acts of violence.
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3.11 A Sense of Home
Title: 3.11 A Sense of Home
Character: (segment "Alone Together")
Released: November 4, 2011
Type: Movie
In memory of the Japanese earthquake on 3.11, each director presents a 3 minute and 11 second short film in tribute to those who were lost that day.
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Shun Li and the Poet
Title: Shun Li and the Poet
Character: Shun Li
Released: September 23, 2011
Type: Movie
A study of the friendship between a Chinese woman and a fisherman who came to Italy from Yugoslavia many years ago, who live in a small city-island in the Veneto lagoon.
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Ten Thousand Waves
Title: Ten Thousand Waves
Character: Blue Goddess
Released: October 13, 2010
Type: Movie
TEN THOUSAND WAVES is a 9-screen installation shot on location in China. The work poetically weaves together stories linking China’s ancient past and present. Through an architectural installation, the work explores the movement of people across countries and continents and meditates on unfinished journeys. Conceived and made over four years, TEN THOUSAND WAVES sees Julien collaborating with some of China’s leading artistic voices, including the legendary siren of Chinese cinema Maggie Cheung; rising star of Chinese film Zhao Tao; poet Wang Ping; master calligrapher Gong Fagen; artist Yang Fudong; acclaimed cinematographer Zhao Xiaoshi; and a 100-strong Chinese cast and crew. The film’s original musical score is by fellow East Londoner Jah Wobble and The Chinese Dub Orchestra and contemporary classical composer Maria de Alvear.
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I Wish I Knew
Title: I Wish I Knew
Character: Self
Released: September 24, 2010
Type: Movie
Focuses on the people, their stories and architecture spanning from the mid-1800s, when Shanghai was opened as a trading port, to the present day.
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Title: 大生活
Character: Hong Yu
Released: March 18, 2009
Type: TV
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Remembrance
Title: Remembrance
Released: November 29, 2008
Type: Movie
Jia Zhangke’s short for Modern Weekly’s special tenth anniversary issue.
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Black Breakfast
Title: Black Breakfast
Released: October 23, 2008
Type: Movie
Short-movie from Stories on Human Rights, 2008.
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24 City
Title: 24 City
Character: Su Na
Released: September 27, 2008
Type: Movie
As a decades-old state-run aeronautics munitions factory in downtown Chengdu, China is being torn down for the construction of the titular luxury apartment complex, director Jia Zhangke interviews various people affiliated with it about their experiences.
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Cry Me a River
Title: Cry Me a River
Released: July 11, 2008
Type: Movie
An ancestral city; through its delicious botanical garden and its branched canals, we observe the clues and traces of its ancient culture. Two couples of men and women, former lovers, meet again one year later. The yesterday's breath of youth is still perceptible in their conversations. Is it still possible for us to love? Does youth really have an end? Like the networks linking the old city, what type of ecological existence does their culture require? Written by Venice Film Festival
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Our Ten Years
Title: Our Ten Years
Released: September 29, 2007
Type: Movie
Throughout ten years of a key era in Chinese and Hong Kong history, a girl becomes fixated on a fellow commuter who she observes regularly. While the two never speak to one another, the girl captures her appearance and life changes during the years through various means such as photos and drawings.
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Still Life
Title: Still Life
Character: Shen-Hong Guo
Released: November 16, 2006
Type: Movie
A town in Fengjie county is gradually being demolished and flooded to make way for the Three Gorges Dam. A man and woman visit the town to locate their estranged spouses, and become witness to the societal changes.
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Walking on the Wild Side
Title: Walking on the Wild Side
Released: March 24, 2006
Type: Movie
Han Jie’s feature debut draws on his own experiences growing up in a desolate mining district in northern China’s Shanxi province. A Chinese road movie, Walking on the Wild Side charts a young gang’s continuous flights from one kind of trouble to the next. Mirroring the stark and barren landscape, the film relays the grim story of these delinquents’ dreams of liberty and easy money. Played by nonprofessional actors who are real life troublemakers, the film offers a realism that is at once oppressive, cruel, and sympathetic.
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The World
Title: The World
Character: Tao
Released: September 1, 2004
Type: Movie
A young dancer, her security-guard boyfriend and others work at World Park, a bizarre cross-pollination of Las Vegas and Epcot Center where visitors can interact with famous international monuments without ever leaving the Beijing suburbs.
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Unknown Pleasures
Title: Unknown Pleasures
Character: Qiao Qiao
Released: June 6, 2002
Type: Movie
Two disaffected, unemployed Chinese youth drift through life on the streets of their industrial town, their paths crossing with that of a dancer who advertises for a liquor company.
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Platform
Title: Platform
Character: Yin Ruijuan
Released: August 29, 2001
Type: Movie
China's rapid changes from the late-1970s to the early 1990s, as seen through the lives of four performers in a theater troupe.