‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ Star Was 78

Cheng Pei-pei, the Chinese-born action film icon who starred in Ang Lee’s Oscar-nominated “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and King Hu’s seminal wuxia feature “Come Drink With Me,” has died. She was 78.

Cheng, considered a pioneer of martial arts roles for female actors, died in the San Francisco Bay Area on Thursday. She had long suffered from a degenerative brain disease and has donated her brain to medical research.

Born in Shanghai on Jan. 6, 1946, Cheng moved to Hong Kong in 1962. With her ballet and dance training, she was soon working with the iconic Shaw Brothers studio. While her feature debut was drama film “Lovers’ Rock,” she became a major star in martial arts, action and swordplay movies following her breakout role in 1966’s “Come Drink With Me,” directed by King Hu. The film set the tone for a sequel (“Golden Swallow” in 1968), an unrealized remake by Quentin Tarantino and a host of other female-driven action movies from East Asia. At the time, it was named as Hong Kong’s submission for the international feature Oscar, but was not nominated.

Cheng then relocated again: to California in the 1970s where she raised four children and attended business school at the University of California, Irvine. All four of her children have had roles in entertainment. Harry Yuan has been a host on National Geographic. Eugenia Yuan was a U.S. Olympic gymnast and has acted in Hong Kong films “3 Extremes II” and “The Eye 2,” Australian TV series “Secret City,” and U.S. productions “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny” and the revived “Hawaii Five-O” TV series.

Cheng’s career enjoyed a significant revival after her co-starring role as the poisonous Jade Fox in “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” in 2000. The film won four Oscars and with $128 million earned at the North American box office, became the first foreign-language film to gross more than $100 million in the…