Huabiao (simplified Chinese: 华表; traditional Chinese: 華表; pinyin: huábiǎo) is a type of ceremonial columns used in traditional Chinese architecture. Huabiaos are traditionally erected in front of palaces and tombs. The prominence of their placement have made them one of the emblems of traditional Chinese culture. When placed outside palaces, they can also be called bangmu ("commentary board"). When placed outside a tomb, they can also be called shendaozhu ("spirit way columns").

Extant huabiaos are typically made from white marble. A huabiao is typically made up of four components. At the bottom is a square base, called a sumeru base, which is decorated with bas-relief depictions of dragons, lotuses, and other auspicious symbols. Above is a column, decorated with a coiled dragon and auspicious clouds. Near the top, the column is crossed by a horizontal stone board in the shape of a cloud (called the "cloud board"). The column is topped by a round cap, called the "dew-collecting plate". At the top of the cap sits a mythical creature called the denglong (蹬龙), also called a hou (犼), one of the "nine children of the dragon", which is said to have the habit of watching the sky. Its role atop the huabiao is said to be to communicate the mood of the people to the Heavens above.

Datuk Seri Michelle Yeoh or Michelle Yeoh Choo-Kheng (born 6 August 1963) is a Hong Kong-based Malaysian actress, well known for performing her own stunts in the action films that brought her to fame in the early 1990s.

Born in Ipoh, Malaysia, she is based in Hong Kong and was chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World in 1997.

She is best known in the Western world for her roles in the 1997 James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, playing Wai Lin, and the multiple Academy Award-winning Chinese-language martial arts film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, for which she was nominated the BAFTA for "Best Actress". In 2008, the film critic website Rotten Tomatoes ranked her the greatest action heroine of all time. In 2009, she was listed by People magazine – as the only Asian actress – as one of the "35 All-Time Screen Beauties".

She is credited as Michelle Khan in some of her earlier films. This alias was chosen by the D&B studio who thought it might be more marketable to international and western audiences. Yeoh later preferred using her real name.

John Woo Yu-Sen SBS (born 1 May 1946) is a Hong Kong film director, writer, and producer. Recognized for his stylised films of highly choreographed action sequences, Mexican standoffs, and use of slow-motion. Woo has directed several notable Hong Kong action films, among them, A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, Hard Boiled and Red Cliff. His Hollywood films include Hard Target, Broken Arrow, Face/Off and Mission: Impossible 2. He also created the comic series Seven Brothers, published by Virgin Comics. Woo was described by Dave Kehr in The Observer in 2002 as "arguably the most influential director making movies today". Woo cites his three favorite films as David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia, Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai and Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samouraï.

Woo was born amidst the chaos of the Chinese Civil War in 1946. The Christian Woo family, faced with persecution during Mao Zedong's early anti-bourgeois purges after the communist revolution in China, fled to Hong Kong when he was five. Impoverished, the Woo family lived in the slums at Shek Kip Mei. His father was a teacher, though rendered unable to work by tuberculosis, and his mother was a manual laborer on construction sites. The family was rendered homeless by the big Shek Kip Mei fire of 1953. Charitable donations from disaster relief efforts enabled the family to relocate; however, violent crime had by then become commonplace in Hong Kong housing projects.

Huang Xiaoming (born 13 November 1977) is a Chinese actor, singer, and model. He is often referred to as China's "number one heartthrob" or "number one young male" (中国第一小生). His best known roles in television are Yang Guo in The Return of the Condor Heroes (2006) and Xu Wenqiang in Shanghai Bund (2007). Huang graduated from the Performance Institute of the Beijing Film Academy in 2000, alongside other well-known actors such as Zhao Wei and Chen Kun. He first rose to prominence in 2001 for playing Emperor Wu of Han in the television series Da Han Tian Zi. The series reached number one in the ratings when it aired in Taiwan, and his later dramas all achieved high ratings in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau. In 2007, Huang signed a contract with Huayi Brothers and began focusing on his film career, appearing in movies like The Sniper, The Message, and Ip Man 2. In 2010 he became one of the first mainland Chinese actors to star in a Taiwanese television drama, acting as Luo Xi in Summer's Desire, alongside Peter Ho and Barbie Hsu.

Li Lianjie ([lì ljǎntɕjɛ̌]; born April 26, 1963), better known by his stage name Jet Li, is a naturalized Singaporean film actor, film producer, Chinese martial artist, wushu champion, and international star who was born in Beijing.

After three years of intensive training with Wu Bin, Li won his first national championship for the Beijing Wushu Team. After retiring from Wushu at age 19, he went on to win great acclaim in China as an actor making his debut with the film Shaolin Temple (1982). He went on to star in many critically acclaimed martial arts epic films, most notably the Once Upon A Time In China series, in which he portrayed folk hero Wong Fei-hung.

Li's first role in a Hollywood film was as a villain in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998), but his first Hollywood film leading role was in Romeo Must Die (2000). He has gone on to star in many Hollywood action films, including Kiss of the Dragon and Unleashed. He co-starred in The Forbidden Kingdom (2008) with Jackie Chan, The Expendables (2010) with Sylvester Stallone, and as the title character villain in The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor (2008) opposite Brendan Fraser. He also appeared in the Hong Kong film Ocean Heaven (2010), directed and written by Xue Xiaolu.