Zhang Yimou is an internationally acclaimed director working in China. He was born in Xi’an, in Shaanxi Province.Zhang Yimou graduated in the fifth class of the Beijing Film Academy in 1982.Zhang and his co-graduates were assigned to small inland studios, and as a cinematographer, he began working for the Guangxi Film Studio. His first work, One and Eight (as director of photography), was made in 1984. Zhang’s next collaboration, with fellow graduate Chen Kaige, the latter acting as director, was to be one of the defining Chinese films of the 1980s, Yellow Earth (1984). This is widely considered the inaugural film for the Chinese Fifth Generation directors that were apart of an artistic reemergence in China after the end of the Cultural Revolution. Zhang continued to work with Chen for the latter’s next film, The Big Parade (1985). Their collaboration was one of the most fruitful of the Fifth Generation period.In 1987 Zhang embarked on his directorial debut, Red Sorghum, starring Chinese actress Gong Li, handpicked by Zhang, in her first leading role. Released to widespread critical acclaim, Red Sorghum catapulted Zhang into the forefront of the world’s art directors, winning him the Golden Bear for Best Picture at the 1988 Berlin Film Festival. Its rich, earthy visual style of narrative storytelling came to be the hallmark of Zhang’s early films.In 1989, Zhang began work on a drama Ju Dou. Starring Gong Li as the titular main character, along with Li Baotian in the male leading role, Ju Dou was an early example of Zhang’s unique use of colors and lush cinematography and female-centered films. The picture garnered as much critical acclaim in film circles as his Red Sorghum and became China’s first entry to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.Fresh after the success of Ju Dou, Zhang began work on what has been considered by many as his magnum opus, Raise the Red Lantern. Based on novelist Su Tong’s book Wives and Concubines, the film depicted the realities of life in a rich family compound during the 1920s. Gong Li was again featured in the leading role, her fourth collaboration with director Zhang. With a unique filmmaking style characterized by highly intense scenes through controlled, formalized color photography, Raise the Red Lantern was Zhang’s most personal effort to this point.The film was released in its home country in 1991 to immediate political controversy, due to officials fearing that the story would be taken as an allegory against Chinese communist authoritarianism. Although the screenplay had been approved by censors prior to shooting, the film itself was initially banned from theatrical release in China.The Story of Qiu Ju (1992) marked a significant change in direction for Zhang. Employing a far lighter tone and generous touches of everyday humor, Zhang used non-professional actors together with his long-time collaborator Gong Li to achieve a neorealist effect in telling a tale of Chinese peasantry waddling through ineffective bureaucracy. It was also released to critical praise, winning the Golden Lion for Best Picture at the 1992 Venice International Film Festival.Subsequently, Zhang directed To Live, an epic film based on an acclaimed novel by Yu Hua. To Live highlighted the resilience of the ordinary Chinese folks, personified by its two leads, amidst three generations of historical upheavals throughout Chinese politics of the 20th century. The longest of his films to date, it was released at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize, as well as a Best Actor prize for Ge You.Having received international recognition for his earlier works, Zhang completed a major phase of his directorial work with the period gangster drama Shanghai Triad. The film, which was released in 1995, featured leading actress Gong Li in her seventh film under Zhang’s direction. The two had previously formed the basis for their professional collaboration behind an ongoing romantic relationship. However, this would end during production of Shanghai Triad, and Zhang and Gong would not work together again for a decade.1997 saw the release of Keep Cool, a small-scale film about life in modern China. After its release, Zhang found his new leading lady in the form of the young actress Zhang Ziyi. His 1999 film The Road Home, featuring Zhang Ziyi in her film debut, is a simple throw-back narrative centering around a love story between the narrator’s parents. As in The Story of Qiu Ju, Zhang returned to the neorealist habit of employing non-professional actors and location shooting for the companion piece in Not One Less (1999), which won the Golden Lion prize at the Venice International Film Festival for the second time.Happy Times, a relatively minor film by Zhang, represented his second foray into modern Chinese city life. A seriocomic drama starring popular Chinese actor Zhao Benshan and actress Jie Dong, it was an official selection for the Berlin International Film Festival in 2002.Zhang’s next major project was the ambitious wuxia drama Hero (2002). The film was a major change in direction for Zhang, as it represented his first foray into epic filmmaking. Boasting an impressive lineup of Asian stars, including Jet Li, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Zhang Ziyi, and Donnie Yen, Hero introduced a fictional tale revolving around Ying Zheng, the king of the State of Qin (later the first Emperor of Qin) and his would-be assassins. The film became a huge international hit and, with the intervention of American director Quentin Tarantino, was released in North America two years after its Chinese release after being shelved by American distributor Miramax Films. Hero became one of the few foreign-language films to debut at #1 at the U.S. box office, 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. Set in the Tang Dynasty of China, it starred Zhang Ziyi, Andy Lau, and Takeshi Kaneshiro as characters caught in a dangerous love triangle. House of Flying Daggers was generally received well among critics, who noted the flamboyant use of color that harked back to some of Zhang’s earlier works. However, compared to Hero, it was a more modest international success.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 legendary Japanese actor Ken Takakura, who wishes to repair relations with his alienated son, eventually led by circumstance to set out on a journey to China. Zhang claims that he had been an admirer of Takakura for over thirty years, and as such has fulfilled his own wish of working with the Japanese veteran on a film project. Zhang produced The First Emperor, an opera by Tan Dun (composer of the soundtrack for Hero and other wuxia films), which had its world premiere at the Metropolitan Opera on 21 December 2006.In 2007, Zhang cast Gong Li, Jay Chou, and Chow Yun-Fat in his epic Curse of the Golden Flower.
As director
As cinematographer
As actor
A 21st Century American teenager takes a spellbinding, dangerous journey into martial arts legend in the new action/adventure epic FORBIDDEN KINGDOM. Shot on location in China, THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM marks the historic first-ever onscreen pairing of martial arts superstars Jackie Chan (RUSH HOUR, DRUNKEN MASTER) and Jet Li (FEARLESS, ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA), and features the awe-inspiring action choreography of Wo Ping (THE MATRIX, CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON). While hunting down bootleg kung-fu DVDs in a Chinatown pawnshop, Jason (played by Michael Angarano - “24”, “Will and Grace,” LORDS OF DOGTOWN, SEABISCUIT) makes an extraordinary discovery that sends him hurtling back in time to ancient China. There, Jason is charged with a monumental task: he must free the fabled warrior the Monkey King, who has been imprisoned by the evil Jade Warlord. Jason is joined in his quest by wise kung fu master Lu Yan (Jackie Chan) and a band of misfit warriors including Silent Monk (Jet Li). But only by learning the true precepts of kung fu can Jason hope to succeed - and find a way to get back home.