Born in Shanghai in 1982, Sun Li is one of mainland China most successful screen actresses, best known for anchoring prestige historical drama on television. She rose to national fame with the Qing-court epic Empresses in the Palace (2011), whose sixty-plus episodes made her a byword for imperial gravitas, then followed with Nothing Gold Can Stay (2017) as a Shaanxi merchant matriarch. In film she leaned on martial-arts spectacle in Painted Skin: The Resurrection (2012) and Blades of Blood (2016). Elegant, disciplined and box-office reliable, she is a defining face of contemporary mainland television.