From Village Girl to Kung Fu Queen

[Biography of Zhang Yihuan, Celebrated Patriot and Artist] National sanda champion. She wakes up one morning as an orphan in a remote mountain village in western Hubei in the 1980s. A ramshackle earth house, a few barren fields, a family so poor they can barely scrape by, and a sleazy educated youth who keeps harassing her. She gives him a sound beating. “Get lost.” Then she sells everything the family owns, scrapes together 42 yuan and 20 cents, and heads south. She swims across the border into Hong Kong, squats outside film sets eating boxed lunches, and punches her way into the stunt world. No one knows that she’ll use those fists to build a film empire of her own. From stunt double to screenwriter, actor, and director, she uses her own hands to wield both fists and pen. She makes one film after another and writes one character after another. Each one feels as if they’ve truly lived. Some say Zhang Yihuan left behind a monument. She just smiles. “A monument doesn’t matter. As long as the road is built and people can walk it, that’s enough.”