Zhang Yimou - China's Most Famous Movie Director

Zhang Yimou is China's favorite director. He made his first film as a director in 1987, Red Sorghum. Red Sorghum starred now-famous Chinese actress, Gong Li in her first leading role. The movie showed Chinese peasants in all their reality and gloom for the first time and catapulted both Zhang Yimou and Gong Li into international stardom. Since then, Zhang Yimou has been one of the most famous Chinese directors of all time.

Born in 1951, he was a farmhand and a textile laborer during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. At the age of 27, he began to study at the Beijing Film Academy in the cinematography department. He was late to start studying as the Cultural Revolution had just ended in China. During the Cultural Revolution, studying film was just not possible as the Chinese government only allowed movies that promoted the revolution.

When he graduated from Beijing Film Academy, he graduated with such people as Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang. This group of Chinese directors became famous throughout the world and were known as part of the Fifth Generation, the first directors to begin to make movies after the Cultural Revolution.

After Red Sorghum, Zhang Yimou made Raise the Red Lantern, which also gained international acclaim and won him several awards including being nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Film. The interesting thing about Zhang Yimou is he knows how to make a movie that is appealing to international audiences but that doesn't forget the Chinese audience either.

To Live and The Road Home quickly followed. In The Road Home he also discovered and showcased Zhang Ziyi, who is now not only China's most famous actress but who is also known all over the world. The Road Home was noteworthy in that Zhang filmed the present day scenes in black and white and the scenes that took place in the past in color. This was the opposite of what most movie makers were doing. He also used mostly non-professional actors in the movie so the mayor in the movie is a mayor in real life, the coffin maker is a coffin maker etc. This gave the film its intense reality.