One of Zhang's recurrent themes is the resilience of Chinese people in the face of hardship and adversity, a theme which has been explored in such films as To Live (1994) and Not One Less (1999). His films are particularly noted for their rich use of colour, as can be seen in some of his early films, like Raise the Red Lantern, and in his wuxia films like Hero and House of Flying Daggers. His highest-budgeted film to date is the 2016 monster filmThe Great Wall, set in Imperial China and starring Matt Damon. In 2010, Zhang received an honorary doctorate from Yale,[11] and in 2018, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Boston University.[12] In 2022, he joined the Beijing Film Academy as a distinguished professor.[13]
Early life
Zhang was born on 14 November 1951 in Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province. Zhang's father, Zhang Bingjun (张秉钧), a dermatologist, had been an officer in the National Revolutionary Army under Chiang Kai-shek during the Chinese Civil War; an uncle and an elder brother had followed the Nationalist forces to Taiwan after their 1949 defeat. Zhang's mother, Zhang Xiaoyou (张孝友), was a doctor at the 2nd Hospital affiliated Xi'an Jiao Tong University who graduated from Xi'an Medical University. He has two younger brothers, Zhang Weimou (张伟谋) and Zhang Qimou (张启谋).[14] As a result of his family's ties to the Nationalist movement, Zhang faced difficulties in his early life.[15][16]
During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, Zhang left his school studies and went to work, first as a farm labourer for 3 years, and later at a cotton textile mill for 7 years in the city of Xianyang.[16][17] During this time he took up painting and amateur still photography, selling his own blood to buy his first camera.[18] In 1978, he went to Beijing Film Academy and majored in cinematography. He has an Honorary Doctorate Degree from Boston University[19] and also one from Yale University.[20]
Career
Film
Beginnings
When Gaokao was reinstated and the Beijing Film Academy reopened its doors to new students in 1978, Zhang, at 28, was over the Cinematography Department’s admission age limit of 22 and lacked the required academic qualifications.[21] With the help of relatives in Beijing, Zhang appealed to the faculty members as well as prominent artists, such as Bai Xueshi, Huang Yongyu, and Hua Junwu, then the Ministry of Culture's general secretary. Hua presented Zhang’s photography portfolio to Huang Zhen, Minister of Culture, who, impressed by Zhang’s talent, instructed the academy to admit him as a two-year auditing student. After two years, Zhang managed to become an official student and completed the full four-year program.[22] He graduated with the BFA class of 1982, which also included Chen Kaige, Tian Zhuangzhuang, and Zhang Junzhao. The class went on to form the core of the Fifth Generation, who were a part of an artistic reemergence in China after the end of the Cultural Revolution.[3][16][23]
Zhang and his co-graduates were assigned to various state-run studios, and Zhang was sent to work for the Guangxi Film Studio as a cinematographer. Though originally intended to work as director's assistants, the graduates soon discovered there was a dearth of directors so soon after the Cultural Revolution, and gained permission to start making their own films. This led to the production of Zhang Junzhao's One and Eight, on which Zhang Yimou worked as director of photography, and Chen Kaige's Yellow Earth, in 1984. These two films were successes at the Hong Kong Film Festival and helped to bring the new Chinese cinema to the attention of worldwide audiences, signaling a departure from the earlier propagandist films of the Cultural Revolution.[3][23]Yellow Earth is today widely considered the inaugural film of the Fifth Generation directors.[23][24][25]
In 1985, after moving back to his home town of Xi'an, Zhang was engaged as cinematographer and lead actor for director Wu Tianming's upcoming film Old Well, which was subsequently released in 1987. The lead role won Zhang a Best Actor award at the Tokyo International Film Festival.[23]
1980s
1988 saw the release of Zhang's directorial debut, Red Sorghum, starring Chinese actress Gong Li in her first leading role. Red Sorghum was met with critical acclaim, bringing Zhang to the forefront of the world's art directors, and winning him a Golden Bear for Best Picture at the 38th Berlin International Film Festival in 1988.[26]
Codename Cougar (or The Puma Action), a minor experiment in the political thriller genre, was released in 1989, featuring Gong Li and eminent Chinese actor Ge You. However, it garnered less-than-positive reviews at home and Zhang himself later dismissed the film as his worst.[27] In the same year, Zhang began work on his next project, the period drama Ju Dou. Starring Gong Li in the eponymous lead role, along with Li Baotian as the male lead, Ju Dou garnered as much critical acclaim as had Red Sorghum and became China's first film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.[28]Ju Dou highlighted the way in which the "gaze" can have different meanings, from voyeurism to ethical appeal. In 1989, Zhang became a member of the jury at the 16th Moscow International Film Festival.[29]
1990s
After the success of Ju Dou, Zhang began work on Raise the Red Lantern. Based on Su Tong's novel Wives and Concubines, the film depicted the realities of life in a wealthy family compound during the 1920s. Gong Li was again featured in the lead role, her fourth collaboration with Zhang as director. Raise the Red Lantern received almost unanimous international acclaim. Film critic Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times noted its "voluptuous physical beauty" and sumptuous use of colours.[30] Gong Li's acting was also praised as starkly contrasting with the roles she played in Zhang's earlier films. Raise the Red Lantern was nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 1992 Academy Awards, becoming the second Chinese film to earn this distinction (after Zhang's Ju Dou). It eventually lost out to Gabriele Salvatores's Mediterraneo.
Zhang's next directorial work, The Story of Qiu Ju, in 1992, once again starring Gong Li in the lead role. The film, which tells the tale of a peasant woman seeking justice for her husband after he was beaten by a village official, was a hit at film festivals and won the Golden Lion award at the 1992 Venice Film Festival.[31]
Zhang Yimou director
Next, Zhang directed To Live, an epic film based on the novel by Yu Hua of the same name. To Live highlighted the resilience of the ordinary Chinese people, personified by its two main characters, amidst three generations of upheavals throughout Chinese politics of the 20th century. It was banned in China, but released at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize, as well as earning a Best Actor prize for Ge You.[32][33]To Live was officially banned but still shown in theaters in China.[34]
Shanghai Triad followed in 1995, featuring Gong Li in her seventh film under Zhang's direction. The two had developed a romantic as well as a professional relationship, but this would end during production of Shanghai Triad.[35] Zhang and Gong would not work together again until 2006's Curse of the Golden Flower.
1997 saw the release of Keep Cool, a black comedy film about life in modern China. Keep Cool marked only the second time Zhang had set a film in the modern era, after The Story of Qiu Ju. As in The Story of Qiu Ju, Zhang returned to the neorealist habit of employing non-professional actors and location shooting for Not One Less in 1999[36][37][38] which won him his second Golden Lion prize in Venice.[39] Shot immediately after Not One Less, Zhang's 1999 film The Road Home featured a new leading lady in the form of the young actress Zhang Ziyi, in her film debut. The film is based on a simple throw-back narrative centering on a love story between the narrator's parents.
Zhang's next major project was the ambitious wuxia drama Hero, released in China in 2002. With an impressive lineup of Asian stars, including Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Zhang Ziyi, and Donnie Yen, Hero told a fictional tale about Ying Zheng, the King of the State of Qin (later to become the first Emperor of China), and his would-be assassins. The film was released in North America in 2004, two years after its Chinese release, by American distributor Miramax Films, and became a huge international hit. Hero was one of the few foreign-language films to debut at number 1 at the U.S. box office,[41] and was one of the nominees for Best Foreign Language Film at the 2003 Academy Awards.
Zhang followed up the huge success of Hero with another martial arts epic, House of Flying Daggers, in 2004.[42] Set in the Tang dynasty, it starred Zhang Ziyi, Andy Lau, and Takeshi Kaneshiro as characters caught in a dangerous love triangle. House of Flying Daggers received acclaim from critics, who noted the use of colour that harked back to some of Zhang's earlier works.[43]
Released in China in 2005, Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles was a return to the more low-key drama that characterized much of Zhang's middle period pieces. The film stars Japanese actor Ken Takakura, as a father who wishes to repair relations with his alienated son, and is eventually led by circumstance to set out on a journey to China. Zhang had been an admirer of Takakura for over thirty years.[44]
Zhang's recent films, and his involvement with the 2008 Olympic ceremonies, have not been without controversy. Some critics claim that his recent works, contrary to his earlier films, have received approval from the Chinese government. However, in interviews, Zhang has said that he is not interested in politics, and that it was an honour for him to direct the Olympic ceremonies because it was "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity".[46] In 2008, he won a Peabody Award "for creating a spell-binding, unforgettable celebration of the Olympic promise, featuring a cast of thousands" at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.[47] On 24 May 2010, Zhang was awarded an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree by Yale University, and was described as "a genius with camera and choreography".[48]
Zhang's 2011 The Flowers of War was his most expensive film to date, budgeting for $90.2 million,[49] until his 2016 The Great Wall surpassed it with a budget of $150 million.[50] After the mixed reception and financial disappointment of The Great Wall, Zhang returned in 2018 with the critically acclaimed Shadow,[51] which received 12 nominations at the 55th Golden Horse Awards and won four, including Best Director.[52]
Stage direction
Starting in the 1990s, Zhang Yimou has been directing stage productions in parallel with his film career. In 1998, he directed an acclaimed version of Puccini's opera Turandot, firstly in Florence and then later Turandot at the Forbidden City, Beijing, with Zubin Mehta conducting, the latter documented in the film The Turandot Project (2000).[53] He reprised his version of Turandot in October 2009, at the Bird's Nest Stadium in Beijing, and plans to tour with the production in Europe, Asia and Australia in 2010. In 2001, Zhang adapted his 1991 film Raise the Red Lantern for the stage, directing a ballet version.[54]
Zhang has co-directed a number of outdoor folk musicals under the title Impression. These include Impression, Liu Sanjie, which opened in August 2003 at the Li River, Guangxi province;[55]Impression Lijiang, in June 2006 at the foot of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in Lijiang, Yunnan province; Impression West Lake, in late 2007 at the West Lake in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province; Impression Hainan in late 2009, set in Hainan Island; and Impression Dahongpao set on Mount Wuyi, in Fujian province. All five performances were co-directed by Wang Chaoge and Fan Yue.
Zhang also led the production of Tan Dun's opera, The First Emperor, which had its world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on 21 December 2006.[56]
In 2017 he directed an innovative ballet titled ‘’2047 Apologue’’, where the 12 minute solo finale The Weaving Machine was choreographed by Rose Alice Larkings and including hundreds of LED lamps. Onstage as Rose Alice danced the 12 minute solo was an elderly Chinese weaver at her loom, highlighting the old crafts and industries which remain so important in a world of new technology.
2008 and 2022 Beijing Olympics opening and closing ceremonies
Zhang was a runner-up for the Time Magazine Person of the Year award in 2008. Steven Spielberg, who withdrew as an adviser to the Olympic ceremonies to pressure China into helping with the conflict in Darfur, described Zhang's works in the Olympic ceremonies in Time magazine, saying "At the heart of Zhang's Olympic ceremonies was the idea that the conflict of man foretells the desire for inner peace. This theme is one he's explored and perfected in his films, whether they are about the lives of humble peasants or exalted royalty. This year he captured this prevalent theme of harmony and peace, which is the spirit of the Olympic Games. In one evening of visual and emotional splendor, he educated, enlightened, and entertained us all."[59]
Style
In terms of style and personality, he leans towards a director's thinking of sensation and intuition. This kind of director's thinking focuses on visual perception, emphasizing elements such as composition, color, and lighting, and using a vivid and intuitive visual style to reflect or express the subject's emotions.[60]
Zhang Yimou is good at mastering simple colors, clear but not trivial or complicated. Using appropriate color combinations to express the ultimate beauty that one wants to give to the audience in their subjective thoughts.[60] Taking red as an example, in "Red Sorghum", red represents fresh blood, savage plateau, and initial desire.[61]
The films created by Zhang Yimou can meet the needs of the times and social development in terms of artistic expression, incorporating some of his own thinking and exploration, with a focus on macro social themes and contemporary thinking.[62]
Reception of Zhang Yimou's films has been mixed. While some critics praise his striking aesthetics and ability to break into the Western art market, some Chinese-based critics have attacked Zhang for pandering to Western audiences and portraying China as weak, exotic, and vulnerable.[63]
Personal life
Xiao Hua
Zhang Yimou's first wife is Xiao Hua. Xiao was born in Xi’an in 1951 to an intellectual family whose ancestral home was in Beijing. At the age of four, Xiao was sent to live with her grandmother in Beijing, where she grew up. In 1965, she returned to Xi’an to attend the middle school and became a classmate of Zhang. After graduation, Zhang invited Xiao to join him in the Down to the Countryside Movement to settle in rural Shaanxi. Xiao agreed and they were sent to Qian County for 3 years, when they began a relationship. In 1971, Zhang and Xiao returned to Xi'an. Zhang became a worker at a cotton mill in Xianyang, while Xiao was assigned to a factory in Xingping County. Starting in 1972, China allowed workers, farmers, and soldiers to apply for university. Xiao tried but failed the entrance exams for two consecutive years. In 1975, she was recommended for admission to Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Zhang, having been deprived of the opportunity for college education due to his “anti-revolutionary” family background, discouraged her from attending, saying, "You’ll grow close to your university classmates, find common ground with them, and eventually look down on me." As a result, Xiao declined the opportunity.[64][65]
In 1978, the national college entrance exam was reinstated in China and Zhang applied to the Beijing Film Academy. The age limit for the Cinematography Department was 22, and 28-year-old Zhang was initially rejected. Through Xiao's brother-in-law, eventually, Zhang managed to get his photography portfolio to Huang Zhen, then China's Minister of Culture. Huang appreciated Zhang’s work and approved his admission. Before heading to Beijing for his studies, he and Xiao had a modest wedding. After graduating in 1982, Zhang was assigned to Guangxi Film Studio as a cinematographer, rarely returning home. On March 31, 1983, their daughter Zhang Mo was born while Zhang was filming One and Eight in Guangxi. In October 1987, while doing Zhang’s laundry, Xiao found a love letter from Gong Li in his pocket. A few days later, Xiao received a call from Gong's then boyfriend, surnamed Yang, who told her: “I’ve met with Zhang Yimou. He said that my relationship with my wife was a misunderstanding that arose from our time in the countryside.” In 1988, Zhang and Xiao divorced.[64][65]
Gong Li
Zhang's personal and professional relationship with his muse Gong Li has been highly publicized. Their relationship started in 1986 on the set of Red Sorghum, when Zhang was married to Xiao while Gong was in a relationship with Yang. Yang violently assaulted Gong after finding out her relationship with Zhang.[66] In 1988, Zhang divorced Xiao for Gong. In 1995, soon after shooting Shanghai Triad, their 7th collaboration during their relationship, Zhang announced their break-up amidst rumors of Gong's affair with then managing director of British American Tobacco in China, Ooi Hoe Seong (whom she married a year later).[67][68] According to Gong's mother, however, they split due to Zhang's reluctance to marry Gong after their 9-year relationship. After their break-up, Zhang invited Gong to star in his films Hero and House of Flying Daggers, but she declined both.[69] They reunited in 2006 for the film Curse of the Golden Flower and in 2014 for Coming Home.[70]
Chen Ting
In 1999, 19-year-old Chen Ting met Zhang when she auditioned for his film Happy Times. The two began a secret relationship, and their first son, Zhang Yinan, was born in 2001, followed by their second son, Zhang Yiding, in 2004, and their daughter, Zhang Yijiao, in 2006. The couple did not marry until December 2011 in Wuxi, Jiangsu, where Chen lives, in order to secure hukou for their children.[71]
On March 11, 2012, actress He Jun revealed Zhang’s remarriage and his three children on Weibo.[72] He Jun had been a backup candidate for The Flowers of War cast, but was dismissed after revealing her participation in the production on Weibo in December 2010. It was suggested that He’s revelation was orchestrated by Zhang Weiping, the head of New Pictures and Zhang Yimou's business partner until their breakup in 2012, a claim He denied. Further online allegations claimed that Zhang had fathered seven children with four different women. Zhang was subsequently investigated by the authorities for violating China's one-child policy.[73] On 29 November 2013, under the public pressure, Zhang admitted in a statement that he and his wife, Chen Ting, have two sons and a daughter, and that they would cooperate with Wuxi's family planning authorities for an investigation and accept any legal consequences. The statement also suggested that certain individuals had used illegal means to expose Zhang's privacy.[74][75][76] On January 9, 2014, the Wuxi Family Planning Bureau fined the couple 7,487,854 RMB (roughly US$1.2 million) for violating China's one-child policy. In 2015, Zhou Xiaofeng's biography of Zhang, Destiny: The Lonely Zhang Yimou, claimed that Zhang Weiping orchestrated the exposé about Zhang Yimou's remarriage and children.[77] On May 31, 2021, as China promulgated a three-child policy, Chen posted a poster titled “The Three-Child Policy Is Here” on Weibo, with the caption “Mission accomplished ahead of time”. Zhang Yimou’s studio reposted her Weibo.[78]
^Mei Gui (玫瑰) (2022). 张艺谋：人过古稀 [Zhang Yimou: a man over seventy years old]. Culture and History Vision (in Chinese). 626. Yuhua District, Changsha, Hunan: Integrated Media Center of the Hunan Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference: 64–67. ISSN1672-8653.
^Zhou Xiaofan (周小烦) (2022). 张艺谋：双奥导演返璞归真 [Zhang Yimou: director of the Olympics returning to nature]. Youth Digest (in Chinese). 361. Beijing: China Youth Press: 10–11. ISSN1673-4955.
^"Citations for Recipients of Honorary Degrees at Yale University 2010". YaleNews. 2010-05-24. Retrieved 2023-06-22. A genius with camera and choreography... From film to opera to live performance, your artistry amazes and entertains... We are delighted to bestow on you this degree of Doctor of Fine Arts.
^"张艺谋出任北京电影学院特聘教授" [Zhang Yimou Appointed as Distinguished Professor of Beijing Film Academy].
^张艺谋的父亲母亲及家族历史 [History of Zhang Yimou's Parents and Family]. iFeng (in Chinese). 5 October 2008.
^Memoirs from the Beijing Film Academy: The Genesis of China's Fifth Generation. Ni Zhen, translated by Chris Berry. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002, pp. 44.
^Memoirs from the Beijing Film Academy: The Genesis of China's Fifth Generation. Ni Zhen, translated by Chris Berry. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002, pp. 45-6.
^Zhang Yimou (2008). "Going to Film Academy, Changed My Life" 《考上电影学院，改变了我一生》. 《青年文摘》 [Youth Literary Digest] (in Chinese). Beijing: China Youth Press. pp. 122–125. ISBN978-7-5006-6468-0.
^Zhang Yimou. Frances K. Gateward, Yimou Zhang, University Press of Mississippi, 2001, pp. 63-4. "Though officially banned, the film is widely available on video, and some theatres somehow still manage to show it."
In 2010, the list started to include Chinese celebrities born in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other countries. Prior to that it only included celebrities born in mainland China.
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