Bai Ling - topless photoshoot (HQ)

Bai had previously appeared in several Chinese movies. In 1984, Bai appeared as a fishing village girl in the movie On the Beach. Later she filmed several other movies, including Suspended Sentence , Yueyue , Tears in Suzhou without much attention. She became famous after playing a girl with a psychological disorder who has an affair with her doctor, in the film Arc Light directed by Zhang Junzhao . She attended Moscow International Film Festival in 1989. Since coming to the United States in 1991, she has appeared in a number of American movies.

She appeared in The Crow (1994), playing the half-sister/lover of the main villain, Top Dollar. Hu guang was her most celebrated role in the Chinese film industry, and Red Corner (1997) would be considered her break-out role in English film. She was named one of People's "50 Most Beautiful People in the World" in 1998. She appeared in Chris Isaak's music video "Please" in 1998. She shaved off her hair, which had exceeded a length of 36 in (90 cm) for her role in Anna and the King, and is widely known in Thailand as "Tuptim", her character's name from the film, even though the movie is officially banned because of its depiction of the King of Siam. She filmed scenes for Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005) as Senator Bana Breemu, but her role was cut during editing. She claimed that this was because of her posing nude for the June 2005 issue of Playboy magazine, whose appearance on newsstands coincided with the movie's May 2005 release, but director George Lucas denied this, stating that the cut had been made more than a year earlier.[6] Her scenes were included in the "deleted scenes" feature of the DVD release.

Later in 2005 Bai was a castmate of the VH1 program called But Can They Sing?. The show gave several non-singer celebrities an attempt at singing on every episode and then allowed the audience and home viewers to vote off one contestant each week. Bai Ling was most famous for her risqué and raunchy get-ups and her performances of Madonna's "Like a Virgin" and The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated". Bai was eliminated just before the grand finale but was invited back on the final week for a special performance of Divinyls' "I Touch Myself".

She appeared in one episode of the show Lost.

Bai made a guest appearance on a episode of Entourage titled "China Town". She played a stunt co-ordinator named Li Lei, who Vincent Chase (Adrian Grenier) sleeps with.