Venice Best Actress Winner Xin Zhilei To Play Anna May Wong, Hollywood’s First Chinese Star, In Biopic For Fundamental Films

EXCLUSIVE: Shanghai and Los Angeles-based Fundamental Films has announced that Xin Zhilei, Best Actress award winner at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, will play Hollywood’s first Chinese star, Anna May Wong, in an upcoming biopic. 

Mark Gao’s Fundamental Films is financing and producing the film, Sunset Boulevard – The Anna May Wong Story, about the extraordinary life of the groundbreaking actress who battled against stereotypical attitudes towards Asian women in Hollywood throughout the 1920s and 1930s. 

Currently in pre-production, the English and Mandarin-language production follows Wong’s life from her humble beginnings as a third-generation Chinese American born in Los Angeles during the early days of Hollywood, through a career that mesmerized audiences worldwide. Her work included roles in inconic films such as The Thief Of Bagdad, opposite Douglas Fairbanks, and Shanghai Express, opposite Marlene Dietrich.

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