Zhang Yimou

The 2022 Winter Olympics opening ceremony was held in Beijing.

The Opening Ceremony of the XIII Paralympic Winter Games, held in Beijing, China at 4 March 2022.

Actress Zhang Ziyi, actor-and-director Wu Jing, comedian Shen Teng, and actor-and-director Xu Zheng come together to direct four short films as part of a new anthology drama paying tribute to China’s families.

In a kingdom ruled by a young and unpredictable king, the military commander has a secret weapon: a shadow, a look-alike who can fool both his enemies and the King himself. Now he must use this weapon in an intricate plan that will lead his people to victory in a war that the King does not want.

7/10
9.5%

A focuses on 1957, one of the most prolific years for the Swedish director. During the year he shot two films, opened two of his most celebrated films (The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries), and produced four plays and a TV movie while juggling with a complicated private life.

7.4/10
10%

European mercenaries searching for black powder become embroiled in the defense of the Great Wall of China against a horde of monstrous creatures.

5.9/10
3.6%

When Liang Xia's obsession for a perfect wedding puts a strain in the relationship with her fiancé, he ultimately calls it quits and breaks up with her. In a heartbroken state, Liang Xia carelessly ingests a magical item, which transports the 28-year-old’s mind back to when she was only seventeen years old.

6.3/10

The tragic story of a Tang Dynasty imperial consort who was the favorite of the Emperor Xuanzong.

4.1/10

Lu and Feng are a devoted couple forced to separate when Lu is arrested and sent to a labor camp as a political prisoner during the Cultural Revolution. He finally returns home only to find that his beloved wife no longer remembers him.

7.3/10
8.8%

In the sixties, Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) built a house on the remote island of Fårö, located in the Baltic Sea, eighty nautical miles off the east coast of Sweden. He left Stockholm and went to live there. When he died, the house was preserved. A group of very special cinephiles, came from all over the world, have traveled to Fårö in search of the genius and his legacy. (An edited version of the Swedish mini-series “Bergmans video,” 2012.)

7.3/10

A Westerner finds refuge with a group of women in a church during Japan's rape of Nanking in 1937. Posing as a priest, he attempts to lead the women to safety.

7.6/10
4.1%

The daughter of a right-winger, schoolgirl Jing Qiu (Zhou Dong-Yu) is sent to the countryside for reeducation, and tasked to help write a textbook. There she meets Lao San (Shawn Dou), a young soldier with a bright future ahead. Despite the class divide and parental disapproval, romance blooms against turbulent times.

7.1/10

Wang is a gloomy, cunning and avaricious noodle shop owner in a desert town in China. His neglected, sharp-tongued wife is involved in a secret affair with Li, one of Wang’s employees. A timid man, Li reluctantly keeps the gun his lover has bought to kill her husband. But Wang is watching their every move. He bribes patrol officer Zhang to murder the illicit couple. It seems like a perfect plan: the affair will come to a cruel, bloody but satisfying end… or so he thinks. The equally wicked Zhang has an agenda of his own. As the plot twists, more blood will flow, and ever greater violence will erupt…

5.6/10

The 2008 Summer Olympics opening ceremony was held at the Beijing National Stadium, also known as the Bird's Nest. It began at 8:00 pm China Standard Time (UTC+8) on August 8, 2008, as 8 is considered to be a lucky number.The number 8 is associated with prosperity and confidence in Chinese culture. The stadium was full to its 91,000 capacity according to organizers.The final ascent to the torch featured Olympic gymnast Li Ning, who appeared to run through air around the membrane of the stadium. Featuring more than 15,000 performers, the ceremony lasted over four hours and was reported to have cost over US$100 million to produce.The opening ceremony was lauded by spectators and various international presses as spectacular and spellbinding and by many accounts "the greatest ever".

8.2/10

A young boy is enchanted by the arrival of a travelling movie show in his village.

6.6/10
5.1%

A collective film of 33 shorts directed by different directors about their feeling about cinema.

6.8/10
10%

During China's Tang dynasty the emperor has taken the princess of a neighboring province as his wife. She has borne him two sons and raised his eldest. Now his control over his dominion is complete, including the royal family itself.

7/10
6.5%

Takada, a Japanese fisherman has been estranged from his son for many years, but when the son is diagnosed with terminal cancer his daughter-in-law, Rie, summons him to the hospital. Through a series of obstacles and relationships, he is brought unexpectedly closer to both an understanding of himself and of his son.

7.3/10
8%

In 9th century China, a corrupt government wages war against a rebel army called the Flying Daggers. A romantic warrior breaks a beautiful rebel out of prison to help her rejoin her fellows, but things are not what they seem.

7.5/10
8.8%

A documentary on the filming of the movie House of Flying Daggers

Women enter and exit a science fiction author's life, over the course of a few years, after the author loses the woman he considers his one true love.

7.4/10
8.6%

The movie follows director Zhang Yimou as he is preparing to make the movie Hero.

6.7/10

One man defeated three assassins who sought to murder the most powerful warlord in pre-unified China.

7.9/10
9.5%

Zhao is an old laid-off worker who's dreaming of getting married. After trying unsuccessful proposals, he finally pair off with a gargantuan divorcée with two children. She, however, demands a lavish wedding and that Zhao finds a job and another place to stay for her blind step-daughter. Pretending he's the General Manager of a non-existent posh hotel "Happy Times", Zhao had to find ways and means of keeping both mother and stepdaughter happy.

7.4/10
7.2%

Teacher Gao loves the students in his poor village and is devoted to educating them in the hope of their greater futures. When he is called away to tend to his dying mother for a month, the Mayor calls in an inexperienced 13 year-old replacement, Wei Minzhi; much to Teacher Gao's dismay. Teacher Gao cannot stand the thought of losing anymore students: he has already lost twelve to ever-increasing attrition, and he promises Wei an extra 10 yuan if she succeeds in ensuring that upon his return, there will be not one less. Wei's difficult mission to fulfill Teacher Gao's wish and her own concern for the welfare of the children begins.

7.7/10
9.5%

Prompted by the death of his father and the grief of his mother, a man recalls the story of how they met in flashback.

7.8/10
8.9%

Turandot at the Forbidden City is a 1998 live production of Puccini's opera Turandot directed by Zhang Yimou. The opera was performed by Giovanna Casolla, Audrey Stottler, and Sharon Sweet alternating as Princess Turandot; Kristján Jóhannsson, Sergej Larin and Lando Bartolini as Calàf; and Barbara Frittoli, Angela-Maria Blasi and Barbara Hendricks as Liù, with Zubin Mehta conducting the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

8.2/10

China, the 1990s. A young bookseller is in love with a woman. The woman is now with another guy, a rich man. The rich man sends his people to beat the bookseller. In the fight, the laptop computer from a man looking at the scene gets broken. Who will pay for the computer? The bookseller wants revenge. Will it be useful? The bookseller and the laptop owner are from different ages and classes. They are two different points of view, two different Chinas. How will they fight for justice?

7.2/10

40 international directors were asked to make a short film using the original Cinematographe invented by the Lumière Brothers, working under conditions similar to those of 1895. There were three rules: (1) The film could be no longer than 52 seconds, (2) no synchronized sound was permitted, and (3) no more than three takes. The results run the gamut from Zhang Yimou's convention-thwarting joke to David Lynch's bizarre miniature epic.

6.9/10
10%

Shanghai, China, 1930. When young Shuisheng arrives from the countryside, his uncle Liushu puts him at the service of Bijou, the mistress of Laoda, supreme boss of the Tang Triad, constantly threatened by his enemies, both those he knows and those lurking in the shadows.

7.1/10
8.7%

Fugui and Jiazhen endure tumultuous events in China as their personal fortunes move from wealthy landownership to peasantry.

8.3/10
8.6%

Insurrection deposes the tyrannical first emperor of China during the evil Qin Dynasty. Warrior/general Xiang Yu and the cunning peasant Liu Pang join forces to win through civil war. Xiang Yu's weakness for Lady Yu combine with Liu Pang's treachery result in Liu founding the legendary Han dynasty

6.6/10

The Story of Qiu Ju is a 1992 Chinese comedy-drama film. The film was directed by Zhang Yimou and, as in many of his films, stars Gong Li in the title role. The screenplay is an adaption of Chen Yuanbin's novella The Wan Family's Lawsuit. The film tells the story of a peasant woman, Qiu Ju, who lives in a rural area of China. When her husband is kicked in the groin by the village head, Qiu Ju, despite her pregnancy, travels to a nearby town, and later a big city to deal with its bureaucrats and find justice.

7.6/10
8.6%

China in the 1920s. After her father's death, 19 year old Songlian is forced to marry the much older lord of a powerful family. With three wives already, each living in a separate house within the great castle, there is fierce competition for his attention and the privileges that are gained. This competition gets out of hand...

8.1/10
9.6%

A woman married to the brutal and infertile owner of a dye mill in rural China conceives a boy with her husband's nephew but is forced to raise her son as her husband's heir without revealing his parentage in this circular tragedy. Filmed in glowing technicolour, this tale of romantic and familial love in the face of unbreakable tradition is more universal than its setting.

7.7/10
10%

Tony Rayns presents the work of the 'Fifth Generation' and other innovative filmmakers who emerged during the 1980s in China.

China 3000 years ago. It's the time of the Qin dynasty. The emperor seeks immortality by busily letting his alchemists search for a formula and building the famous terracotta army from the bodies of outlaws and the condemned. This is the time Mong Tiang Fong and court lady Twon fall deeply in love. Such a thing is not tolerated at the court and when their relationship is discovered both are sentenced to death. In the meantime the alchemists have discovered the formula of immortality, but decide to destroy their work. However Twon gets possession of one immortality pill which she manages to give to Tiang Fong before he's made a terracotta warrior too. China 1930. While on location a film crew discovers parts of the grave of emperor Qin guarded by the terracotta warriors. Tiang Fong, being immortal, awakes...

6.8/10

A commercial airliner on a routine flight between Taipei and Seoul is hijacked and taken to mainland China by the Taiwan Revolutionary Army Front. Chinese authorities cannot seize the plane because of the presence of an important business figure on board, but agree to cooperate with Taiwanese authorities to defuse the tense situation.

4.3/10

An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows anew.

7.4/10
8.3%

A married village worker teams up with an old girlfriend to try to dig a well for his water-starved village. The well collapses and they are trapped. Their enforced confinement leads to them exploring their feelings for each other and those around them.

7.1/10

Army volunteers train for places in China's 1984 National Day parade, where they are expected to be a perfect marching unit.

6/10

Yellow earth focuses on the story of a Communist soldier who is sent to the countryside to collect folk songs for the Communist Revolution. There he stays with a peasant family and learns that the happy songs he was sent to collect do not exist; the songs he finds are about hardship and suffering. He returns to the Army, but promises to come back for the young girl, Cuiqiao, who has been spellbound by his talk of the freedom women have under Communist rule and who wants to join the Communist Army.

7.1/10
10%

Director Zhang Junzhao's superbly tense revisionist war film (featuring striking cinematography from future Fifth Generation standard bearer Zhang Yimou) is widely considered to be the first work of Mainland Fifth Generation cinema.

6.9/10

In the southwest frontiers of China there lie many luxuriant forests where live a great variety of plants and animals. Three kids of Daizu minority is told by a granny that a red elephant which is the symbol of God lives in the forest so in a summer vacation they go into the forest to look for the elephant and finally they discover the secret of the elephant.

6.6/10

An urban crime drama film which will cover topics from anti-corruption to anti-crime.

A story about a movie fan in a remote farmland who strikes a relationship with a homeless female vagabond.

Main Characters/Performers: 1. Xiao Mei - first appearing as new star dancer in lavish Peony Pavilion brothel, Mei is believed to be the blind daughter of a rebel group's recently assassinated leader- played by Zhang Ziyi . 2. Jin - police captain in the ruling Tang emperor's service, enlisted by his superior Leo to play the role of double agent by helping Mei escape and getting her to lead him - and government troops - to the rebel stronghold - played by Takeshi Kaneshiro. 3. Leo - introduced as a high ranking policeman in the Tang emperor's service, Leo turns out to a mole planted years earlier by the rebels working to overthrow the corrupt ruling Tang government - played by Andy Lau.

6.9/10

A spy drama film set during the wartime.

5/10