On Labor Day, Zhu Yuanyuan introduced her new role on social media - a businessman who "lives a life of ease and coolness". Unexpectedly, the bad news came more than half a month later. This was her last performance in the world, which made countless fans sad and shocked. Even her colleagues who filmed with her did not know that this smiling actress had been suffering from cancer for several years.
At 11:39 on May 17, 2025, the famous actress Zhu Yuanyuan died of illness at the age of 51. At noon today (May 21), her husband, actor Xin Baiqing, published an obituary on his personal social media platform, "In the nearly five years of fighting cancer, she did not become pessimistic and depressed, but remained firm and confident in facing difficulties. She also passed on her love for life with laughter and warmth to everyone around her."
Zhu Yuanyuan won the Best Supporting Actress Award at the 36th Popular Film Hundred Flowers Awards for her role in "My Sister".
"Laughter", "warmth" and "love of life" are the first impressions that Zhu Yuanyuan has left on and off the stage in her 30 years of performing arts.
In 2022, Zhu Yuanyuan won the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Supporting Actress for the movie "My Sister". Her acceptance speech is still fresh in my mind, "The love of the audience is the greatest encouragement for filmmakers. Gold and silver cups are not as good as the audience's reputation. Filming well and shaping the character are the most important things."
"My Sister" roadshow promotional photos
On March 18, 1974, Zhu Yuanyuan was born in Qingdao, Shandong. In the dialect of the peninsula, beautiful young girls are often praised as "Xiao Man, good looking". This was very appropriate for Zhu Yuanyuan when she took the art exam. As the "class flower" of the 93rd acting class of the Central Academy of Drama, Zhu Yuanyuan once recalled that the recruiting teacher had called her in and told her not to move her teeth, "If you move your teeth, I won't want you." Unexpectedly, it was the teacher's far-sighted advice that allowed her to keep her two small canine teeth, which became a unique personal symbol compared to the stereotyped aesthetics of female stars in the future.
The 93 acting class has left a strong mark in the history of the Central Academy of Drama. Zhu Yuanyuan, Liu Mintao, Xin Baiqing, Wang Qianyuan, Li Naiwen, Tang Xu, Zhao Chunyang, etc., regardless of whether they are "stellar" in the eyes of others, are all well-known acting talents in the industry. Among them, Zhu Yuanyuan became famous very early. She tried her hand in the TV series "A Place of Chicken Feathers" when she was a junior. After graduation, she became the first generation of "national daughter-in-law" on the screen by playing Li Yunfang in "The Happy Life of Poor Mouth Zhang Damin".
Li Yunfang in "The Happy Life of Poor Mouth Zhang Damin"
How to depict the life of Chinese citizens in cities in the 1990s? These two TV series can still be regarded as vivid slices of society today. Before the introduction of the housing reform policy in 1998, people's housing conditions were generally cramped and cramped. In "The Happy Life of Poor Mouth Zhang Damin", the couple played by Liang Guanhua and Zhu Yuanyuan built a wedding room of less than six square meters around a tree. Helplessly, the tree trunk passed through the bed and stood between the newlyweds who wanted to be intimate, which made people laugh. It is not only a vivid portrayal of the background of the times, but also a practical handle for how they interpret how to find joy in suffering.
Stills from "The Happy Life of Poor Mouth Zhang Damin" Pictures from the Internet
Being talkative is the wisdom that old Beijingers have tempered in the face of hardships in life. Zhang Damin's words, "Yunfang, put on your shoes and go to the fields. Eat all the things that make you unhappy as dishes and have a meal." fully express the appreciation and love of ordinary people in ordinary life. Complementing Liang Guanhua's performance, Zhu Yuanyuan also did not interpret Yunfang as a stereotyped good wife and mother. When Yunfang encountered the crisis of being laid off, she did not cry hysterically, but held back her tears, and the subtle movements of tidying up her clothes with trembling hands showed the character's inner anxiety and forbearance. This "restrained acting" performance style makes the emotions more contagious and highlights the resilience of the grassroots people.
Zhu Yuanyuan's performance was remembered by the audience because she successfully sublimated daily trivialities into artistic reality. She made Li Yunfang's "happiness" no longer a false joy, but a vitality rooted in the daily life of firewood, rice, oil and salt, and then brought to life the tenacity and warmth of an ordinary woman in the torrent of the times and the fireworks of the market. She won the Outstanding Actress Award at the 10th Beijing Television Art Spring Swallow Award and the Audience's Favorite Actress Award at the 18th China TV Golden Eagle Award, which is well deserved.
From the small screen to the big screen, Zhu Yuanyuan has also left many unforgettable images. "Tengu", released in 2006, is a film that is easily overlooked and underestimated. The film exposes the cruel reality of power corruption, ecological destruction and alienation of human nature in the lower-class rural areas with a cold brushstroke, which can be regarded as a moral tragedy full of allegorical colors. Zhu Yuanyuan plays Taohua, the wife of forest ranger Li Tiangou (played by Fu Dalong) in the film, a role that requires her to "play ugly" for the first time.
Stills from "Tengu", Fu Dalong and Zhu Yuanyuan. Photos from the Internet
This "ugly" performance not only reflects her hunched back, drooping eyelids, rubbing the corners of her clothes, and tightening her apron to imply the numbness caused by long-term violent discipline, but also immerses herself in the "dullness" of using dialect to shape the character. Through the performance method of "external restraint and internal release", Zhu Yuanyuan peeled off the contradictions of the character layer by layer, and finally left a very painful female footnote for Chinese realist films with a destructive explosion.
Zhu Yuanyuan once said that being admitted to the Central Academy of Drama allowed her to gain both career and love. In her freshman year, she and Xin Baiqing started dating, but were separated by her class teacher Gao Jingwen on the grounds that it would delay her studies.
In an interview program, Zhu Yuanyuan recalled that they were both first loves, and the sudden breakup made her cry all day. She took the tape her lover gave her and listened to a song sung by Xin Baiqing when they were walking together in Beihai in the past. "Zhang Yusheng's "If You Are Cold", the first time I heard this song was when Xin Baiqing sang it to me: If you are cold, I will hold you in my arms; if you hate, I will wipe away your tears; if you love me, I will broadcast it to the whole world..."
In 2014, Zhu Yuanyuan, Xin Baiqing and their daughter Benben took wedding photos together. The photo is from Xin Baiqing's personal Weibo album
In the nearly 20 years since she formed a family with Xin Baiqing, this film couple has never had any scandals. In 2008, after their daughter Benben was born, Zhu Yuanyuan chose to retire from the film industry and stay at home to take care of her husband and children. It was not until the last few years when her daughter grew up that she returned to the public eye again. Although the characters she played were either supporting roles or cameos, she still became the highlight of many films with her outstanding acting skills. At a time when middle-aged actresses encountering career bottlenecks has become a hot topic in society, she has proven that as long as you have the ability, the audience will not forget you.
Today, when the news of her death came out, many viewers forwarded a video clip from "Send You a Little Red Flower" - in this movie, Zhu Yuanyuan played a playful mother who kept all her sadness in her heart and kept cheering for her son who was suffering from cancer. And her line has become the best commemoration of her, "Everyone will experience loss in life, and we are all afraid of loss, but the most powerful counterattack against this fear is to live every minute and every second seriously."
Send You a Little Red Flower
