The Cinema of China is one of three distinct historical threads of Chinese-language cinema together with the Cinema of Hong Kong and the Cinema of Taiwan. Since 1949 the cinema of mainland China has operated under restrictions imposed by the Communist Party of China's State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television and the Publicity Department. Many films with political overtones made in China are still censored or banned in China itself; however, some of these films are distributed abroad commercially or at film festivals. China also restricts the showing of foreign-made films in Chinese cinemas to 20 each year.

Currently, the vast majority of the Mainland-produced movies uses Mandarin. Mainland films are often dubbed into Cantonese when exported to Hong Kong for theatrical runs.

As of 2010 Chinese cinema is the third largest film industry by number of feature films produced annually. In 2011 Chinese films earned 54% of a total box office of US$2.06 billion. China's box-office receipts grew 33.3 percent in 2011 and by the first quarter of 2012, it has surpassed Japan in box-office receipts by becoming the second-largest in the world.

China (ⁱ/ˈtʃaɪnə/; Chinese: 中国; pinyin: Zhōngguó; see also Names of China), officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is the world's most-populous country, with a population of over 1.3 billion. Covering approximately 9.6 million square kilometres, the East Asian state is the world's second-largest country by land area, and the third- or fourth-largest in total area, depending on the definition of total area.

The People's Republic of China is a single-party state governed by the Communist Party of China. It exercises jurisdiction over 22 provinces, five autonomous regions, four directly controlled municipalities (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), and two mostly self-governing special administrative regions (Hong Kong and Macau). Its capital city is Beijing. The PRC also claims Taiwan—which is controlled by the Republic of China (ROC), a separate political entity—as its 23rd province, a claim controversial due to the complex political status of Taiwan and the unresolved Chinese Civil War. The PRC government denies the legitimacy of the ROC.

Maggie Cheung Man yuk (born 20 September 1964) is a Hong Kong actress. Raised in England and Hong Kong, she has over 70 films to her credit since starting her career in 1983. Some of her most commercially successful work was in the action genre, but Cheung once said in an interview that of all the work she has done, the films that really meant something to her are Song of Exile, Centre Stage, Comrades: Almost a Love Story and In the Mood for Love. As Emily Wang in Clean, her last starring role to date, she became the first Asian actress to win a prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Cheung is multilingual, having learned to speak English, Mandarin and French. Her native language is Cantonese.

Born in Hong Kong, Maggie Cheung traces her family roots to Shanghai. In 1971, she entered Primary one of St. Paul's Convent School. Her family emigrated from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom when she was eight. She spent part of her childhood and adolescence in England. She returned to Hong Kong at the age of 18 in 1982 for vacation, but ended up staying for modeling assignments and other commitments; she also shortly obtained a sales job at Lane Crawford department store. In 1983, she entered the Miss Hong Kong pageant and won the first runner-up and the Miss Photogenic award as well. She was a semi-finalist in the Miss World pageant the same year.