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Lisa Lu is a Chinese-American actress. She started her career as a teenager, performing in Kunqu theatrical productions, a traditional style of Chinese opera. The Chinese Civil War (1927-1949) ended with a Communist victory. While the new regime financially subsidized China's theaters for most of the 1950s, it started withdrawing its support by the end of the decade and shut them down during the 1960s. Lu migrated to the United States by the late 1950s, in search of more career opportunities.

In 1960, Lu had her first notable film role as Madame Su-Mei Hung, the widow of a Chinese officer, in The Mountain Road (1960), set during World War II. She joins an American unit in an anti-Japanese mission in the Pacific War, and engages in a brief romance with their leader Major Baldwin (played by James Stewart). The relationship ends when Baldwin burns down an entire Chinese village, and creates thousands of casualties among the innocent civilians he treats as collateral damage. The conflict between the two lovers is based on Baldwin's idea that the end (his mission) sanctifies the means, and on her disagreement with his indiscriminate killings.

In 1961, she played the character of Chinese slave girl Su Ling, in an episode of Bonanza (1959). In 1962, she appeared in the Western film Rider on a Dead Horse (1962) and in the crime-drama Womanhunt (1962). She had a hand-full of television appearances for the rest of the decade. In the late 1960s, Lu found more work in Hong Kong films, most notably The 14 Amazons (1972), in which she played the semi-legendary She Saihua, a female general in the army of Emperor Taizong of Song (who reigned from 976-997).

In 1973, Lu appeared in the American horror film Terror in the Wax Museum (1973). In 1975, she starred in Qing guo qing cheng (1975) as the Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908, reign as regent 1861-1908). The film depicts the relationship between the powerful regent and her puppet ruler, the Guangxu Emperor (1871-1908, reigned 1875-1908). She reprised her role in the sequel, The Last Tempest (1976).

In 1977, she had a supporting part in the dystopian science fiction film, Demon Seed (1977), in which the computer Proteus imprisons and forcibly impregnates its creator's wife (played by Julie Christie), in an effort to create a human host for its prodigious sentience. In 1979, Lu had a supporting role in Saint Jack (1979). The film depicts the efforts of small-time pimp Jack Flowers (played by Ben Gazzara) to create a lucrative brothel in Singapore, while defying the control of the local organized crime syndicate.

In 1981, Lu played a nun in Don't Cry, It's Only Thunder (1982), set in the Vietnam War, which depicts a cynical and selfish soldier. When a promise to an old friend causes him to offer volunteer service in a local orphanage, the soldier starts caring about people other than himself. The following year, she narrated the documentary film Sewing Woman (1982), about the life of an immigrant worker, Zem Ping Dong, in San Francisco. In 1986, she had a small role in the adventure film Tai-Pan (1986), set in the aftermath of the First Opium War (1839-1842), and depicting a powerful trader and opium smuggler in 1840s Hong Kong. The film was an adaptation of the 1966 novel "Tai-Pan" by James Clavell. It was both a critical and box-office flop.

In 1987, Lu played Empress Dowager Cixi for a third time, in The Last Emperor (1987). Early in the film, the dying Cixi chooses Puyi (1906-67, reigned 1908-12) as the new emperor of the Qing dynasty, despite him being underage and being outranked in the succession order by his father and several uncles. The film covers the consequences of this deathbed decision. In 1988, Lu had a small role in the mini-series Noble House (1988). The series was based on a 1981 novel by Clavell, and served as a sequel to Tai-Pan (1986), although set in 1980s Hong Kong. It features the descendants of the merchant princes of the 19th century, and the efforts of centuries-old companies to adapt and survive in a changing world.

In 1993, Lu appeared in the generational-saga film The Joy Luck Club (1993), which features the lives of a group of Chinese women, from their childhoods in China to old age in the United States, and their relationships with their Chinese-American daughters. She played the mother of General Shi Yan-sheng in Temptation of a Monk (1993), set in 7th century China. After several years of playing mostly bit parts, Lu played a supporting role in the comedy-drama The Postmodern Life of My Aunt (2006) as the gossipy neighbor of protagonist Ye Rutang (Siqin Gaowa). Lu continued played small roles for the rest of the 2000s.

In 2010, she had a substantial role in the drama film Apart Together (2010) as the aging "widow" Qiao Yu-e, whose husband disappeared in 1949 during the final phase of the Chinese Civil War. Qiao was pregnant at the time. Decades later, her missing husband turns up alive, returning from self-exile abroad. He tries to reconcile with a wife who barely remembers him, and with their son, who has never met him. In 2012, Lu appeared in the romantic drama Dangerous Liaisons (2012) as Du Ruixue, the matriarch of a dysfunctional family. In 2018, aged 91, Lu appeared in the romantic comedy Crazy Rich Asians (2018) as Shang Su Yi, matriarch of a wealthy and influential Singaporean family.

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