Faye Wong

Faye Wong was born Wang Fei on August 8, 1969, in Beijing, and moved to Hong Kong in 1987 at age 18. She initially performed under the name Shirley Wong, signing with Cinepoly Records in 1988 and releasing her debut album the following year. She struggled to adapt to Cantonese and to the Hong Kong entertainment industry at first, working briefly as a model before training with vocal coach Tai See-chung.

Her 1992 cover of the Japanese song "Fragile Woman" became a commercial breakthrough, and the 1994 album Random Thoughts pushed her sound toward the R&B and alternative rock influences of artists such as the Cocteau Twins, with whom she later collaborated. That year she also appeared in Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express, playing a diner worker infatuated with a police officer, and won Best Actress at the Stockholm International Film Festival for the role.

The albums Mystery and Sky, both released in 1994, extended her audience into Mandarin-speaking markets. By March 2000, Guinness World Records credited her with 9.7 million albums sold and named her the best-selling Cantopop female artist. She recorded "Eyes on Me" for the video game Final Fantasy VIII in 1998, one of the best-selling singles tied to a video game soundtrack, and won Best Female Artist at the 2004 Golden Melody Awards.

Wong stepped back from performing after her second marriage in 2005 and returned to the stage in 2010. In 2006 she founded the Smile Angel Foundation, which funds treatment for children born with cleft lip and palate, a cause connected to her daughter Li Yan's own condition at birth.