In 1979, Yimou entered the Beijing Central Film Academy (China's only film school) after a long struggle to be admitted. His initial applications were summarily rejected because he was older than the regulation application age. He was accepted only after a personal appeal to the Minister of Culture, who accepted Yimou after viewing his portfolio of photographic work. Yimou studied at the Central Film Academy until 1982, focusing on cinematography. In 1982, Yimou graduated as a member of China's Fifth Generation of filmmakers. The fifth generation is the first to have studied western film forms, and to grow away from the standard communist use of film strictly as a propaganda tool.
After graduation, Zhang was assigned to the Guangxi Film Studio in Southern China where he worked as a cameraman and a cinematographer. While there, he made contact with fellow fifth generation filmmakers Chen Kaige and Zhang Junzhao who later became his collaborators and supporters. An older filmmaker whom Yimou met while at Guangxi, Wu Tianming, also became a supporter of his work.
After the Tiananmen Square protest the head of the Film Bureau charges that filmmakers are guilty of "national nihilism" and "blindly worship Western film theory and artistic genres." Many feared that this would place the work and the lives of the fifth generation in peril. Tiamanmen Square did usher in a new era of stricter scrutiny of the media in China.
In 1989, Zhang Yimou made Ju Dou with Japanese funding. Zhang moved the time of the story (originally set in the 1940s in Liu Heng's novella) to the pre-communist 1920s in an attempt to avoid Chinese censorship. Ju Dou was banned in China when it came out, because the Chinese authorities deemed the movie unsuitable for a Chinese audience. However, it was submitted by China for Oscar nomination consiteration. It was nominated for the Best Foreign Film Oscar, making Zhang Yimou the first Chinese filmmaker to be nominated for an academy award. Yimou was not allowed to attend the award ceremony. Ju Dou wasn't controversial when the Chinese Film Bureau first submitted it for an Oscar. It became so only after the film bureau unsuccessfully sought to withdraw the film for consideration at the Academy Awards.
In 1991 Yimou made Raise the Red Lantern with Taiwanese funding. Yimou's cooperation with the Taiwanese upset the Chinese government caused escalating tensions between Yimou and the Chinese government. Due to this, the film was initially banned in China, but was nominated (as a Hong Kong entry) for an Oscar for Best Foreign Film.
In 1992 Yimou made The Story of Qiu Ju, under the auspices of a Chinese owned company. Perhaps taking this as a gesture of reconciliation and cooperation, the Chinese authorities were pleased with the film, swamping it with awards, and at the same time 'unbanned' Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern.
In 1994 Zhang Yimou made To Live. To Live got Yimou into trouble again when it's Hong Kong based production company was criticized for allowing it's sale and distribution without Chinese censorship and approval.
In 1997 Zhang made Keep Cool. The Chinese propaganda commissars made an attempt to keep it from Cannes' screens. Their efforts failed and it won the Grand Prix du Jury.
On a more personal note, Zhang Yimou's long-term love affair with leading lady Gong Li definitively ended recently, with her marriage to a Singaporean-born businessman.
Find out more about Gong Li.
You will find links to reviews of Zhang Yimou's movies on my Links to Related Pages page
