Wen Zhang

Wen Zhang (born 26 June 1984 in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province) is a Chinese actor. After graduating from China's Central Academy of Drama in 2006, he starred in many popular TV dramas including You Are Smiling, While I am Weeping, Bloom of Youth and The Song of Youth. During 2007 and 2008, Wen became well known for his roles as Xiang Nan in hit TV drama Struggle and as Xiao Bei in Dwelling Narrowness. In recent years, Wen has started to focus on his film career. In 2008, he starred in director Li Dawei's comedy A Tale of Two Donkeys and received wide acclaim from college students. Ocean Heaven is his fifth film in which he plays an autistic son and stars alongside Jet Li, who plays Wen's father. In 2011, Wen worked with Li again in The Sorcerer and the White Snake and played Li's disciple. --- In his role for Ocean Heaven playing the autistic character of 'Dafu', he acted extremely realistically which saw many people believing the actor to in fact be autistic. He is seen continually swimming with ease and playing with dolphins in the aquarium which have become some popular aspects of the film. In order to portray this character well, Wen Zhang (playing Dafu) went swimming every day. He previously did not know how to swim, but because swimming and diving are his character's strong points, he became an expert swimmer. He also visited an autism school every day, working to understand the students’ way of thinking. Thanks to this, we may have another Jet Li in our hands (at least, with the charity aspect, not the martial arts), as he says about his experience: “I found something that is more important than performing.” --- Wen married Chinese actress Ma Yili, who is eight years older, and they have had a two-year-old daughter.