王菲 (Faye Wong), also known as 王靖雯. Born August 8, 1969 in Beijing, China, is a popular singer in Asia, especially mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and more recently in Japan and to some extent in the West.
She is believed by critics and fans alike to be one of the most commercially and artistically distinguished singers in Chinese pop music history, with a following so large and devoted that media in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China often place the title tiānhòu, (天后; diva or goddess) before her name, while Japanese fans call her “Diva of Asia”. Shy, intensely private, and unsocial, she is one of the very few people widely popular on both sides of the Taiwan straits despite her aggressive avoidance of the media. Not only admired openly by well-known celebrities around the world (most likely Asian ones), she was also labeled as the gay icon among the gay community.
According to The Guinness Book of Records she sold 9.7 millons copies of all her albums as of March 2000.
She has acted in several TV shows and films, most memorably in Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express, a role that garnered her international acclaim. She also won the award for “Best Actress” at the 1994 Stockholm Film Festival. Her most recent movie, 2046, she stars as an android and one of Tony Leung’s love interests.
She is known not only to many Final Fantasy fans from her famous song “Eyes On Me”, which was used in the game Final Fantasy VIII and in its promotional campaign in 1998, but also as one of the faces of such brand advertisements as Head & Shoulders shampoo and Pepsi-Cola.
Faye Wong also sung a cover of the theme song for the well-acclaimed blockbuster film Hero, and the song is available on the movie’s sound track.
She was previously married to Dou Wei, and had one daughter with him. She is now married to mainland actor Li Ya-Peng, and recently had another daughter with him.
Musical career
Born in Beijing, People’s Republic of China, she was originally named Xia Lin (Chinese: 夏琳; pinyin: Xià Lín), adopting her mother’s maiden name because the Wang family was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution (her grandfather was a Republic of China congressman when it governed the mainland). At the age of 15, several years after the turmoil ended, her name was changed to Wang Fei (王菲). She inherited a talent for music from her mother, who was a soprano, and recorded several low-cost albums in high school covering the songs of Teresa Teng, her personal idol.
Modest beginnings
In 1987, she moved with her family to Hong Kong and began her musical career after a brief stint as a model, sometimes using the stage name “Miss Charm”. She signed a contract with Cinepoly and released three albums under the stage name Shirley Wong (Chinese: 王靖雯; pinyin: Wáng Jìng Wén, Cantonese: Wong Ching Man). Containing a large number of covers of songs by artists from the US and Japan, these albums attracted little attention and a lukewarm response from critics. Frustrated with her career direction, she decided to take some time off in 1991 and travel to New York for vocal studies and cultural exchange. This brief hiatus would prove to be important for her artistic development.
During her absence, Cinepoly released a few compilations repackaging songs from her three albums, thereby keeping her somewhat visible at the record stores.
A year after returning to Hong Kong, she burst into the spotlight with her 1992 album Coming Home, which incorporated R&B influences like her previous two and was a drastic change in musical direction from the more traditional Cantopop fare of her earlier albums. On this album, she covered the song “Fragile Woman,” originally sung by the Japanese music diva Miyuki Nakajima. While this song had been covered by other Chinese singers, her angelic version nonetheless swept over Hong Kong and single-handedly lifted her to superstardom. The album also included her first English-language song, “Kisses in the Wind”; she is on record as stating that this is her personal favourite song. In 1992-93 she also starred in TVB shows such as Files of Justice II (壹號皇庭II) and Legendary Ranger (原振俠).
For Coming Home and all subsequent releases, she changed her stage name back to her original name “Wong Fei” (王菲). Not satisfied to rest on her laurels, she wrote the Mandarin lyrics for the ballad “No Regrets” (執迷不悔) in 1993, which led many people to praise her not just as a talented singer but as a gifted songwriter as well; in February, the similarly titled album was released and became an instant best-seller. Although the songs were mostly more soft contemporary arrangements, like most of what was being traditionally released in Hong Kong, it also had a few dance songs and two versions of the title track: Wong’s Mandarin song, and the other with Cantonese lyrics by Chen Shao Qi (the Mandarin version is by far the more popular one)
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