Yong Mei was born in inner Mongolia in 1970 and came to international attention after appearing in Hou Hsiao-hsien’s The Assassin (2015) as the mother of the heroine portrayed by Nie Yinnian. That film won 35 international awards including the APSA for Achievement in Cinematography (as well as two other nominations including Best Feature Film). Since 2004, she has become an expert at playing professional women or gentle wives and daughters-in-law in popular television dramas. She had substantial roles in the works of notable directors, from Liu Jie’s Young Style and Xue Xiaolu’s Ocean Heaven (2010). Among her other notable roles was a featured role in Aftershock, which won two APSA awards in 2010 including Best Feature Film. In 2019, she starred in So Long, My Son as a grieving mother. She won the Berlin International Film Festival’s Best Actress prize and received her first APSA nomination as Best Performance for by Actress.
The Asia Pacific Screen Academy expresses its respect for and acknowledgement of the South East Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We pay our respects to the Traditional Owners of country, including the custodial communities on whose land works are created and celebrated by the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. We acknowledge the continuing connection to land, waters and communities. We also pay our respects to Elders, past and present. We recognise the integral role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations peoples continue to play in storytelling and celebration spaces.
