Comedy queen turns serious

Ma Li, known for her light roles, brings a tear to the eye in the biopic The Dumpling Queen, Xu Fan reports.

She's best known for making audiences double over with laughter. But in her latest role, Ma Li — one of China's most bankable comedic actresses — proves she can also break their hearts. The Dumpling Queen, marking Ma's first such departure from her usual crowd-pleasing roles in hits such as Goodbye Mr. Loser and Successor, has earned 411 million yuan ($57.2 million) at the box office, becoming one of the country's most commercially successful blockbusters this year.

During a recent interview with China Daily, Ma shares that she immediately connected with the biopic, which recounts a tenacious mother's unwavering love for her two young daughters, when Hong Kong director Andrew Lau invited her to join the project.

"The character has reminded me of my own mother, who never backs down, no matter how tough life gets," Ma recalls.

A native of Northeast China's Liaoning province, Ma once described herself on a variety show as "someone without a childhood" after her parents divorced when she was 8 years old. However, her mother, a businesswoman in the catering industry, provided her with enough support — until a financial crisis hit in 2003.

Then a fresh graduate of the Central Academy of Drama, Ma realized she had to become the breadwinner. She began chasing every opportunity, including working as an extra for just 50 yuan and waking up around 4 am to take the bus to give children acting lessons.

Thanks to being recognized for her comedic talents through her work with the popular troupe Mahua FunAge, Ma built a strong reputation — from stage plays to Spring Festival galas — eventually rising to the top ranks of stardom with multiple blockbusters, including director Zhang Yimou's Article 20, which earned her Best Actress at the 37th Hundred Flowers Awards.

For Ma, the new film represents a return to the roots of her decades-long career. "It has enabled me to go back to the essence of acting — using the simplest techniques to portray the real life of an extraordinary woman," she explains.

Inspired by the real-life story of Zang Jianhe (1945-2019), a business legend who founded a renowned food brand, the film follows Ms Zang (played by Ma), a 32-year-old mother who leaves her hometown in East China's Shandong province to seek a better life in Hong Kong. Despite not speaking Cantonese and being separated from her husband, she juggles three exhausting jobs: caring for an elderly woman in the morning, washing dishes at a restaurant, and cleaning trams at night. However, after a fall leaves her with a severe back injury, the protagonist reaches a breaking point, even contemplating jumping from a rooftop in despair.

Fortunately, a kindhearted neighbor — a dessert soup vendor — offers a glimmer of hope. Inspired, she turns to the one skill she knows best: making dumplings, a craft passed down from her mother. Through sheer resilience and relentless effort, she overcomes many hardships, rising from a humble street vendor to successfully establishing her own food brand, selling frozen dumplings overseas.

She recalls her first meeting with director Lau, known for blockbusters like Infernal Affairs, where he shared touching stories about growing up in Tai Kei Leng village, a rural part of Hong Kong, under the care of his mother — a strong and resilient woman who raised six children.