Numbers

Fifth-Generation Filmmaker

How It's Used

“Along with fellow Fifth-Generation film-maker Zhang Yimou, director Chen Kaige is best known among international arthouse audiences for his opulent visual style. But while delivering the exotic spectacle expected of Asian cinema by western audiences, Chen's films have also presented an oblique critique of the Communist authorities at home.”

“‘The Blue Kite’ was directed by Tian Zhuangzhuang, a member of the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers, which also includes Zhang Yimou and Chen Keige. He had a hard time of it. In a statement about the film, he says he finished filming in 1992. ‘But while I was involved in post-production, several official organizations involved with China's film industry screened the film. They decided that it had a problem concerning its political 'leanings,' and prevented its completion. The fact that it can appear today seems like a miracle.’

“His contemporaries had similar problems with films critical of recent history. Chen Keige's 'Farewell My Concubine' (1993) and Zhang Yimou's 'To Live' (1994) were scarcely seen within China, which was happy to share in the money they earned overseas but was not eager to dramatize those hard times for the people who had lived through them. The Communist Party that rules China today is directly descended from the party that went haywire during the Cultural Revolution, even if it rules a nation racing headlong toward capitalism.”

“Another slim volume that offers a concise, informative overview of mainland Chinese cinema, with a focus on the last half-decade. Chinese cinema history can be loosely summarized in six generations, beginning with early 20th-century pioneer filmmakers, who were followed by predominantly martial arts makers in the 1920s. The '30s and '40s marked the so-called "Golden Age" of Chinese films, during which Chinese films began to win international awards, while the later "fourth generation" produced Soviet-inspired propagandist films of the early Mao years. The Fifth Generation, however, put Chinese cinema into theaters all over the world--Chen Kaige ("Farewell My Concubine"), Zhang Yimou ("Red Sorghum" and "Raise the Red Lantern") and Tian ZhuangZhuang ("The Blue Kite"), as well as the luminous Gong Li. The Sixth Generation are post-Tiananmen Square filmmakers, who both expose conditions of modern life in China while rebelling against what they perceive as the lush, nostalgic style of the Fifth Generation.”

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