Cheung portrayed 1930s Chinese screen icon Ruan Lingyu in Stanley Kwan's 1992 film "Center Stage", for which she wore qipao, the dresses worn by stylish Chinese women throughout much of the first half of the 20th century. It had been Cheung's most recognized performance to date and her hardest, partly due to the clothing, which restricted her freedom of movement. For Wong's film, Cheung, playing a married woman in her thirties who had carried over the elegance of her younger years in the pre-revolutionary mainland, would again wear qipao, known in Cantonese as cheongsam, and spoke of it as the way of understanding her character Su Li-zhen, whose quiet strength Cheung felt was unlike her own more spontaneous spirit.