What should I do about Chinese names: These are typically given with the family name first so Chow Yun-Fat's first name is 'Yun-Fat' and his family name is 'Chow' (nota bene: Fat is NOT his middle name). I see that he is sometimes correctly credited.
In the case of Gong Li (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gong_li), she seems to have been universally credited wrongly - at least this is consistent (but wrong). Is there any way of changing all her entries in one go or will they have to be changed individually?
Again, please forgive me if this is a stupid question, I am still learning my way around 
Charles

This is something that has been asked about on several occasions. I will leave the details to someone that understands it more then I as I don't have many titles this effects. But as of yet Invelos hasn't made any decision for Chinese names as of yet. At least not that I have seen. This isn't something that I would expect to see much consistency for. 

As for what is their "real name" at this point at least... real names don't matter for any cast or crew no matter where they are from. The current rules tells us to use the way someone is credited the most as the name... with the name from the credits (if different) in the credited as field.

As Addicted (Pete) and Merrik said, it has been debated many times but never concluded.

For Chinese and Korean names family names come first; second and third name are given names. A tendency is growing to spell it as First Second-Third names, with a hyphen. The discussion always centers on the interpretation of the field names in DVD Profiler: should it be literally first/middle/lastname or should it have the common (as in: the whole of Western society) interpretation of first(given) second(given) last (family) name. No conclusion yet here. I've noticed IMdB is standardising on First Second-Third Chinese names, but I haven't seen a spelling convergence elsewhere.

Notice this same interpretation issue also comes up when actresses begin to include their spouse's family name. In some western countries the full family name then becomes extended; in others the additional family name is put in place of the middle (given) name. You will see that it varies wildly in profiles with spouse's names all over middle and last name fields, though I thought there was an agreement here to put any combined family name into the last name field and reserve the middle field for true given name(s) (at birth). Though others might disagree as is often the case in these fora.

A final similar note is that it also plays a bit with family names in Japanese. In Japanese, both spoken and written word have the sequence family name - given name. But as soon as the Japanese person speaks or writes a Western language, given name - family name is used. Which means you can predict chaos in credits, depending on the movie's country of origin.

DVD profiler is designed around a first/middle/last name field for persons AND has a linking system to allow you to easily find out what movie contains contributions of the same person. The above means the linking is often broken because of the inconsistencies, left alone spelling errors (etc) in the credits. There is a bit of a remedy with the 'credited as' field, but it cannot correct everything. That field is mainly used to correct blatant spelling errors in the credits, when the actor/crew member used a fake name to hide his/her identity in the movie (example: see Coen brothers credits...) or when there IS agreement on a person's name in these fora (see: common name) and the field can be used for the actual spelling of the credit in the movie. Then again, some overlook to use it...

How to proceed? Best to stick with Ruben's advice for an initial list of actors and crew. Browse around in the numerous threads in this forum section on the correct identification of a person and do not be too shocked by the fierceness of some arguments. People here tend to stick strongly to their own point of view rather than yield to other opinions, so much fireworks in too many threads (sadly).

Many thanks to all of you for trying to help.

I seem to have walked into a minefield - will try to get out without having a foot or two blown off 

My aim is to have the same actor entered consistently in my catalog so I can see which films he/she has been in. Why not use the 'credited as' facility as a way out of this problem?

Take the example of Gong Li in Miami Vice. Surely the only thing that makes sense is  to have her as 'given name = Li / Family name = Gong (as Gong Li).

This is not the same problem as multiple spellings for Chinese actors when different systems for transcribing Chinese characters into Roman script are used.

By the way, the examples of actors with 'western' names like Jet Li are basically all HongKong or Taiwanese based (although Li himself came fropm the mainland). Actors from the PRC itself, like Gong Li or Zhang Ziyi, tend to keep their 'real' names. As Chinese cinema continues to grow, this problem will get worse not better