From Renegade to Revered:
How Zhang Yimou Became China’s
Biggest Director
Written by Dan Casey, Nerdist
Written by Dan Casey, Nerdist
You might not know the name Zhang Yimou, but chances are that you know his work. At age 66, Zhang Yimou occupies a rarified space as one of China’s most celebrated filmmakers, metamorphosing from arthouse darling to blockbuster mastermind. He has been nominated for multiple Academy Awards; he has won the prestigious Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival; he made one of the few foreign films to open at #1 at the U.S. box office; and he famously directed the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which was watched by an estimated 4 billion people worldwide. Now, Zhang is facing what is possibly his biggest challenge yet: making the most expensive film ever shot in China, and shooting it completely in English for a global audience. That film, The Great Wall, represents the culmination of a tumultuous and celebrated career that took Zhang from the farms and factories of China to the upper echelons of its creative elite. It wasn’t an easy path—far from it—and that is precisely what makes Zhang’s story so compelling.
Long before Zhang Yimou was directing $150 million blockbusters starring Matt Damon and China’s biggest stars, he endured what has been described as a “miserable childhood.” When the Cultural Revolution broke out in China, Mao Zedong and the Communist Party brought sweeping changes to the country, shuttering institutions deemed to be out of ideological lockstep with the party line. His father was a Nationalist officer and his mother was a medical doctor, two professions that were deemed “bad elements” by the newly instated regime. As a result, Zhang was taken from his home and shipped out to the countryside to be “reeducated” by peasants. It was, perhaps, a rude awakening for young Zhang, who toiled on farms and worked in cotton textile mills for the better part of a decade, but it ultimately imbued him with an understanding and appreciation for the hardscrabble existence of working class Chinese people.
Although artistic pursuits were discouraged during the Cultural Revolution, filmmaking was something that was in Zhang’s blood – quite literally if some anecdotes are to be believed. It is said that Zhang sold his blood over the course of many months in order to buy his first camera. It was that same camera that would prove to be his way out of a life slaving away in the factories. In 1978, Zhang was 27 years old and he applied to study at the Beijing Film Academy, which had just reopened after shuttering its doors during the height of the Cultural Revolution. The Academy sought to bar Zhang’s entry, citing his advanced age, but he appealed the decision. Fortunately, his keen aesthetic instincts could not be denied, and the pictures he took with his camera, primarily of working class Chinese people, earned him a spot in the Academy’s ranks.
Much like The Dirty Dozen, the clique of USC film students in the mid-1960s that included the likes of George Lucas, John Milius, and Howard Kazanjian, Zhang’s graduating class was similarly auspicious. Dubbed “The Fifth Generation,” the Beijing Film Academy class of 1982 would go on to change the face of Chinese cinema. While the Fifth Generation’s oeuvre was largely concerned with the nation of China itself, these new filmmakers sought to deconstructing the national myths of their home country, going against the grain of the intensely nationalistic cinema of the past half century. But before he could change the world’s conversation about Chinese cinema, Zhang had to cut his teeth behind the camera.
Fresh out of college, he was assigned to work as a cinematographer at Guangxi Film Studio, a small local studio located in inland China. It was a newly established studio and a far cry from the comparatively cosmopolitan studios of Beijing, but it wasn’t without its advantages. Unlike the Beijing Studios, which had rigid apprenticeship programs that would see prospective directors toil away in assistant positions for nearly a decade, Guangxi allowed its creatives greater opportunities for growth. In 1984, Zhang worked as director of photography on Zhang Junzhao’s One and Eight and Chen Kaige’s Yellow Earth, which both went on to achieve success on the international stage, signaling a tonal shift in the types of movies being produced in China. Today is widely accepted that Yellow Earth is the opening salvo in the barrage of films that the Fifth Generation would produce in the years ahead.
In 1985, Zhang moved back to his hometown of Xi’an, and began working at Xi'an Film Studio where he would make the transition from cinematographer to director. At Xi’an Film Studio, Zhang proved his prowess both behind the camera and in front of it, serving as cinematographer and lead actor in Wu Tianming’s Old Well, a film about a man trying to dig a well in his drought-addled hometown. Released in 1987, Zhang would go on to win the Best Actor award at the Tokyo International Film Festival for his efforts. That wasn’t the only major thing to happen to Zhang in 1987; that year also saw the release of his directorial debut, Red Sorghum, a film based on Nobel laureate Mo Yan's eponymous novel about a young woman working at a sorghum liquor distillery.
Red Sorghum dazzled international audiences with the simplicity of its storytelling, the vibrancy of its color palette (something that would become a hallmark of Zhang’s work), and what Roger Ebert called “the almost fairy-tale quality of its images and the shocking suddenness of its violence, that Hollywood in its sophistication has lost.” The film catapulted both Zhang and its star, Gong Li, to international stardom, and went on to win the coveted Golden Bear award at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival in 1988. More importantly, it established Zhang as one of the most dynamic and sought after voices in Chinese cinema, earning him financing for two follow-up films, Judou (1990) and Raise the Red Lantern (1991).
While Zhang’s star continued to rise on the international stage, domestically it was another story. The Communist party banned Judou and Raise the Red Lantern from release in China, not because they were especially subversive but as a form of artistic extortion. They refused to screen the films in China until Zhang agreed to make a film that was more in line with the party’s ideals. Zhang played ball with the Communist censors, directing the The Story of Qiu Ju in 1992, which went on to win the Golden Lion award at the Venice Film Festival, which is the highest honor the festival can confer and an extremely prestigious accolade. Those who saw Zhang’s cooperation as a sign of surrender likely ate their words when they saw Zhang’s 1994 film To Live. The historical epic was deeply critical of the Communist Party’s policies and programs, and it rankled party leadership, leading to a two a two-year ban from filmmaking for both Zhang and star Gong Li. Although To Live went on to win the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, as well as a Best Actor award for Ge You, Zhang was forbidden from attending. Considering that this film was made just 5 years after the brutal events of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, it was bold of Zhang to put his career on the line like that.
Yet not even the threat of government censorship could prevent Zhang from pursuing his passion. He continued making films at a steady pace, and began shifting his gaze from the past the present, eschewing early 20th century Chinese settings to tell stories set in modern-day China. Zhang continued honing his craft throughout the 1990s, racking up awards, and using the lens of female sexuality to subvert the patriarchal paradigm that dominated Chinese society at the time.
Never content to rest on his laurels, Zhang began making a name for himself as a preeminent action director thanks to the 2002 wuxia epic Hero. Filled with assassins, swordplay, and a murderer’s row of top Chinese talent—including Donnie Yen, Jet Li, and Maggie Cheung—the film not only became the highest-grossing film in China of all time (at the time), but also one of the most profitable foreign language films in North American box office history. It opened at #1 at the U.S. box office (in 2004 after a lengthy delay), grossing $18 million in its opening weekend, a figure which gives it the second highest opening weekend for a foreign language film ever, right behind Passion of the Christ. And if that wasn’t impressive enough, the film earned a nomination for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards, to boot.
Zhang followed the success of Hero with another martial arts epic, House of Flying Daggers. This film feels particularly auspicious in Zhang’s filmography as it united his more modern, kinetically charged, action-oriented style of dramatic storytelling with his penchant for vibrant colors. When it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, audiences reportedly gave it a standing ovation lasting between 20 and 60 minutes, led by none other than director Quentin Tarantino. It was a moment that finalized Zhang’s transition from the world of arthouse film to big-budget blockbusters. It also cemented, in the eyes of some viewers, that Zhang had somehow “sold out,” opting to work in tandem with the Chinese government rather than at cross-purposes with it.
“China has stepped into a new era, an era of consumption and entertainment,” Zhang said in a 2007 interview, “You can condemn it if you like, but it is a trend of globalization.”
“He went from being this renegade making films that were banned and an eyesore for the Chinese government to kind of being the pet of the government, in some people’s eyes,” said Michael Berry, a professor of Chinese culture at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in an interview with The New York Times.
Despite Zhang’s claims to the contrary that he never intended to be political, his filmography is full of stark, honest, gritty examinations of Chinese life that refused to toe the party line. Although they had the perhaps unintended effect of putting some of the Communist party’s policies under the microscope, Zhang’s films were born from the director’s deep-seated love of his country. Nowhere was that love and passion for his homeland on display more than when Zhang directed the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Zhang spent more than two years designing and rehearsing the show, often while sequestered in a secret Olympics compound, far away from prying eyes. The 2008 Olympic opening ceremony is widely regarded as the greatest of all time, involving more than 14,000 performers, 15,153 costumes, 30,000 fireworks, and 40 tons of wire that was used to suspend both people and objects from the air.
During NBC’s coverage of the event, a deep male voice bellowed, “The footprints in their history stretch back 5,000 years, but for the world's greatest wall builders, makers of a Forbidden City, what happens tonight is not merely a small step, but a great leap." Watched by more than 1 billion people around the world, the opening ceremony lived up to the Neil Armstrong quote its narrator used. It was a quote that also invoked the Great Leap Forward, the ironically named and ultimately disastrous policy of rapid industrialization that culminated in the Cultural Revolution. Yet this opening ceremony was no mere piece of entertainment; it was a way for Zhang and the Chinese government to reintroduce China to the world, to attempt to dispel misconceptions and preconceived notions about the nation. The results were a resounding success, earning Zhang a Peabody Award and finally making him a megastar in China.
“Before the Olympics, Zhang was a trailblazer for an elite minority of culture lovers,” said Fudan University professor Yang Junlei in a 2010 interview with NPR. “But afterward, because of the success of the opening ceremony, he's become a national cultural hero who is widely approved of by ordinary Chinese people."
Zhang continued to parlay his cultural cache into opportunities to tell Chinese stories to international audiences. In 2011, Zhang made what was then China’s most expensive film to date, Flowers of War. The film starred Christian Bale as an American mortician who journeyed to the Chinese city of Nanjing in 1937 to make his fortune, only to get caught up in the brutal invasion by Japanese forces. While the film opened to mixed reviews, it served as an all-important opening salvo in the next wave of Chinese-American co-productions, and laid the groundwork necessary for Zhang to take on what could be described as his most ambitious project to date, The Great Wall.
As the Chinese film industry continues to grow, directors like Zhang are faced with the unique challenge of bringing Chinese stories not only to Chinese audiences, but to global audiences. “A good film should do more than just cater to local audiences; it should also help to shape their tastes,” Zhang remarked in a 2014 interview with The Wall Street Journal. It is a telling statement for the master filmmaker who stands at the vanguard of the Chinese film industry, which is poised to break out of its domestic confines on to the international stage.
While The Great Wall isn’t the first internationally-focused co-production between China and Hollywood, it is certainly is the most ambitious. Perhaps more importantly, it is a project which Hollywood brought to China with the intent of making something for a global audience rather than trying to adapt a purely American or purely Chinese film for another market. Conceived of by Legendary Pictures founder Thomas Tull in the wake of a trip to China, Legendary East began courting Zhang Yimou because of his prestigious pedigree and his proven ability to handle large-scale action cinema. More importantly, they wanted a filmmaker like Zhang because of his deep-seated passion for bringing authentic Chinese stories to the big screen.
"They were worried that I might laugh at the script," Zhang said of his initial talks to direct The Great Wall, "but I accepted their offer. They were thrilled."
Zhang also understood what The Great Wall means in terms of the changing tides of cultural influence and the growing importance of China’s soft power. With its massive budget, a murderer’s row of A-list talent from both the United States (Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, Willem Dafoe) and China (Andy Lau, Jing Tian), and a story deeply steeped in Chinese folklore, The Great Wall seems perfectly poised for not only Zhang, but Chinese-made blockbusters to make a dent in the global marketplace.
“They came to me, which indicates the power shift in the world,” Zhang said in an interview with China.org.cn. “China's national power and market have greatly improved so they have to pay attention. The world has changed. If it were 10 years ago, no way they would come to me. At the same time, Hollywood is drying up in originality; they need to explore new stories and new markets.”
Zhang will be the first to admit that he doesn’t think The Great Wall is going to be the film that will single-handedly alter the international cinematic landscape. However, the veteran director also thinks audiences will sense that there’s something unique in this film’s DNA.
"But they can also feel it has something different, something China,” Zhang said he hopes of viewers who might see it as just another Hollywood movie. “That's what I want to achieve."
With the film poised to hit American theaters later this month, Zhang is cautiously optimistic, not only about the film’s box office prospects, but what it means for the future of Chinese film abroad.
"That is my ultimate hope, a Chinese film can be as profitable as the Transformers franchise, and can be as influential as Star Wars. World audiences are dying to see it. That is when Chinese films will really go out to the world. But, there's a long way to go.
Indeed, there may be a long way to go, but if there’s anyone who can help lead the charge, it is Zhang Yimou.
The Great Wall opens on February 17, 2017.
