Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The fifth generation
In 1984 the Chinese film industry was suddenly brought to international attention for the
first time by the arrival of the so-called “
fifth generation
” of Chinese film-makers. That
year, director
Chen Kaige
and his cameraman Zhang Yimou, both graduates from the first
post-Cultural Revolution class (1982) of the Beijing Film School, made the superb art-house
film
Yellow Earth
, which told a somewhat sobering tale of peasant life in early Communist
times. The film was not particularly well received in China, either by audiences, who expec-
ted something more modern, or by the authorities, who expected something more optimistic.
Nevertheless, it set the pattern for a series of increasingly overseas-funded films, such as
The
Last Emperor
and
Farewell My Concubine
, comprising stunning images of a “traditional”
China, irritating the censors at home and delighting audiences abroad.
Zhang Yimou
Chen Kaige's protégé
Zhang Yimou
was soon stealing a march on his former boss with his
first film
Red Sorghum
, based on the
Mo Yan
novel. This film was not only beautiful, and
reassuringly patriotic, but it also introduced the world to heartthrob actress
GongLi
. The fact
that Gong Li and Zhang Yimou were soon to be lovers added to the general media interest
in their work, both in China and abroad. They worked together on a string of hits, includ-
of these could be described as art-house in the way that
Yellow Earth
had been, and the po-
tent mix of Gong Li's sexuality with exotic, mysterious locations in 1930s China was clearly
targeted at Western rather than Chinese audiences. Chinese like to point out that the figure-
hugging
qipao
regularly worn by Gong Li are entirely unlike the period costume they purport
to represent. Zhang Yimou has since been warmly embraced by the authorities (as evidenced
by his selection as director of the Olympic ceremonies in 2008), though his films have got
worse.
The sixth generation and recent developments
In the 1990s, a new “
sixthgeneration
” of directors set out to make edgier work. Their films,
usually low-budget affairs difficult to catch in China, depict what their makers consider to be
the true story of modern urban life: cold apartments, ugly streets, impoverished people. Good
examples include
Beijing Bastards
and
In the Heat of the Sun
.
Some commercial films from
this period, such as
Beijing Bicycle
and
Spring Subway
were influenced by this social realist
aesthetic.
The most recent trends in Chinese cinema have seen continuations of the sixth-generation
patterns. The
mainstream
directors have become ever more influenced by Western works,
and are making big bucks in China's ever-increasing array of multiplex cinemas - in this
they've been assisted by a government that still limits the number of Hollywood films shown
each year, and pulls them from the screens in order to give home-grown films better sales.