She came to the attention of American audiences for her portrayal of Wanrong in the Bernardo Bertolucci historical epic film The Last Emperor (1987), which won nine Academy Awards including Best Picture.

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.

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.

[4] 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.

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.

In 1985, she appeared in the American television show Miami Vice as May Ying, former wife of Martin Castillo and husband to Ma Sek in the episode "Golden Triangle (Part II)".

In 2004, she starred in Hou Yong's family saga Jasmine Women, alongside Zhang Ziyi, in which they played multiple roles as daughters and mothers across three generations in Shanghai.

She also starred in the Asian-American comedy Saving Face as a widowed mother, who is shunned by the Chinese-American community for being pregnant and unwed and has come to live with her lesbian daughter.

She also played the part of goddess Guan Yin in the 2010 Chinese TV adaptation of Journey to the West, directed by Cheng Lidong (程力栋; 程力棟; Chéng Lìdòng).

She selected five films for screening during the festival: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Dead Man Walking, Hannah and Her Sisters, Still Life and Edward Scissorhands.

[8][9] In 2010, Chen joined the cast of Wang Leehom's directorial debut Love in Disguise, Alexi Tan's (陈奕利; 陳奕利; Chén Yìlì) Color Me Love (爱出色; 愛出色; Ài Chūsè; alongside Liu Ye),[10] Ilkka Järvi-Laturi's Kiss, His First (alongside Tony Leung Ka-fai and Gwei Lun-mei)[11] and veteran acting coach Larry Moss' Relative Insanity (along with Juliette Binoche).

[15] She also appeared in several episodes of the 2018 Chinese television drama Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace as Ula Nara Yixiu (the Empress Xiaojingxian).

Angi Han of The Hollywood Reporter wrote of her performance, that the "role often trusts her remarkable ability to convey a lifetime’s worth of regret or joy or swallowed anger through a simple gaze".

[21] In May 2008, Chen appeared alongside James Kyson Lee, Silas Flensted, and Amy Hanaialiʻi Gilliom in a public service announcement for the Banyan Tree Project campaign to stop HIV/AIDS-related stigma in Asian & Pacific Islander communities.