Chen was born in Shanghai, to a family of pharmacologists. She and her older brother, Chase, were raised during the Cultural Revolution. At the age of 14, Chen was discovered on the school rifle range by Jiang Qing, the wife of leader Mao Zedong and major Chinese Communist Party figure, for excelling at marksmanship. This led to her being selected for the Actors' Training Program by the Shanghai Film Studio in 1975, where she was discovered by veteran director Xie Jin who chose her to star in his 1977 film Youth [fr] as a deaf mute whose senses are restored by an army medical team. Chen graduated from high school a year in advance, and at the age of 17 entered Shanghai International Studies University, where she majored in English.
Chen performed alongside Tang Guoqiang in Zhang Zheng's (simplified Chinese: 张铮; traditional Chinese: 張錚; pinyin: Zhāng Zhēng) Little Flower [zh] in 1979, for which she won the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actress. Chen portrayed a pre-Maoist revolutionary's daughter, who, reunited with her brother, a wounded Communist soldier, later learned that his doctor was her biological mother. Little Flower was her second film and she soon achieved the status of China's most-loved actress; she was dubbed "the Elizabeth Taylor of China" by Time magazine for having achieved stardom while still a teenager.
In addition, Chen was in the 1979 film Hearts for the Motherland [zh]. The film directed by Ou Fan (欧凡; 歐凡; Ōu Fán) and Xing Jitian (邢吉田; Xíng Jítián) depicts an overseas Chinese family that returns to China from Southeast Asia out of their patriotic feelings but encounter political troubles during the Cultural Revolution. The songs, "I Love You, China" and "High Flies the Petrel" (高飞的海燕; 高飛的海燕; Gāofēi de Hǎiyàn), sung by Chen's character, are perennial favorites in China. In 1981, Chen starred in Awakening (苏醒; 甦醒; Sūxǐng), directed by Teng Wenji [zh].

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