As a Chinese, I hate Zhang Yimou

[chichi]

I don't know what's about his movies that appeals foreigners. But for me, his recent movies are all trashes. All he knows is about breast and colors. What he wants to express is highly exaggerated and unrealistic and of nuts. In "curse of gold flowers", are those soldiers nuts to say a word at the same time when the Jay Chou is confroting Fat? That's ridiculous.

I really don't like those so called "大片”(big movie).

I think it's more interesting to watch some TV series produced by TVB, such as Dicey Business, Into Thin Air, CIB Files, Forensic Heros and so on. They are more closed to life yet the plots are really intriguing. Those series reflect Chinese thought of modern times in a realistics way.

As for 大片,it's just a place where directors like Zhang yimou and Chen Kaige manipulate color and show how many people there are in the movie. Pervert!

[roddy]

Exaggerated, unrealistic movies. Shocking. Have you reported this to SARFT?

I don't see what the fuss is about. His movies seem to do well domestically as well as internationally - Curse had a strong box office showing. Seems somewhat childish to start saying you hate a director just because you don't like his more recent movies. Perhaps you could watch something else?

[md1101]

of his movies i've only seen Raise the Red Lantern, Hero and House of flying daggers. I thought they were all really good. Particularly Hero because of the beautiful scenery. there really was some beautiful imagery in that movie.

[skylee]

chichi, I don't share your view. The film is not that bad IMHO. Actually I find it quite interesting. And it is not easy to make a 大片. Think all the funding, logistics, casting, script, acting, shooting and guanxi issues. And I think there is more to the story than breasts and exaggerated costume.

Zhang is no doubt a very talented director who is especially good at manupulating colours. Chen is (or used to be) a good director who has made good films like "farewell to my concubine". And talented people also make mistakes (but I am not saying that golden flower is a mistake, instead it is very precise and accurate in its way).

And hate is a strong feeling.

[chichi]

I hate him because he makes movies to appeal foreigners and make people from other countries misunderstand Chinese.

OK, I　ｄｏｎ＇ｔｈａｔｅ　ｈｉｍ．　Ｉ　ｔｈｉｎｋ　Ｉ'm just disgusted with him.

It's weird though that him movies can always be appreciated by foreigners but Chinese, especially college students seldom like them

[roddy]

Sorry, but the man is on course to take the title of China's most popular film away from Titanic.

"Curse," which stars Gong Li, Chow Yun-fat and Taiwan pop sensation Jay Chow in a tale of an imperial family's vicious decline, is on track to be China's most popular film ever, a title still held by James Cameron's "Titanic," which set a B.O. record of $44 million in 1998.

Surely this demonstrates:

1) Zhang Yimou is a patriot of the highest order and deserves any and all honors available

2) Chinese people like his movies.

You might not like his movies, Chichi, but you aren't doing it 'as a Chinese'. You are doing it as you.

I was going to say you were being particularly mean to Chen Kaige, who has only made one 大片 . Then I remembered Killing Me Softly, and decided you can be as mean to him as you want.

As for him making 'people from other countries misunderstand Chinese' - apart from three movies - Hero, Curse, House of Flying Daggers - I'd say his movies have actually been fairly good depictions of what China was actually like at certain times in history. And anyone who tries to gain an understanding of China from the likes of Curse of the Golden Flower needs their head fixed anyway, no?

[zhwj]

I hate him because he makes movies to appeal foreigners and make people from other countries misunderstand Chinese.

This is basically the same thing people used to tell me even before Hero came out - lots of people said they hated Zhang Yimou because his early movies gave foreigners a bad impression of China as backward and dirty. The guy just can't win.

[wushijiao]

There was an interesting interview with the Chinese director冯小刚, in 南方周末 which he was talking about making so-called 大片 (blockbusters). He mentioned, midway through the interview, that if you want to make a大片 about contemporary life, a movie that is meaningful and analytical, you will almost certainly run into problems with the censors. On the other hand, if you make a 古装 movie (movie of ancient clothes with lots of colors), you will have no problems with the censors whatsoever.

So what does that mean? If you are able to get together the huge sum of money necessary to make a大片, and you make one about regular life and contemporary China, you run a huge financial risk of getting hit by the government censors. In other words, it is the government that has made it risky and expensive to make good movies. It is expensive to re-film scenes, film two endings, or the movie may be banned altogether.

The best example is 鬼子来了, a movie that is funny, entertaining, and yet psychologically complex and depressingly moving, which was banned. And because of the government, people might think twice before spending the millions it takes to make something like that.

So, it is only logical that Chinese directors might care about ensuring that their movies stay profitable (especially since the Mainland market mainly buys pirated DVD’s anyway). So, I think many Chinese directors are in a pretty dire dilemma. How do you make a challenging film for Chinese young people and college students without stepping on one of the millions of “sensitive” areas while not losing money? I have no idea.

Chichi, although I love Zhang Yimou’s earlier stuff, I certainly know what you mean, but as an American. Some people think that Hollywood movies have become even more dumbed down now that foreign revenues make up an increasingly large part of the total revenues. Complicated witty dialogue doesn’t come out very well in subtitles, but shooting scenes and T&A are universally understood. So for every bad, cookie-cutter Hollywood blockbuster out there, I blame the moronic non-American world! (Semi-joking, the American audience has its fair share of blame too).

[miss_China_so_much]

Don’t blame Zhang Yimou: blame the government!

I agree with wushijiao. Blame the GCD first,

I do like Zhao Yimou's early stuff, especially <红高粱> , even <秋菊打官司> and <一个都不能少>, but not that red lantern and all his things in recent 5 years.

[chichi]

Maybe it is bec of the gov't that those great directors can't produce some really good stuff.

But still there are good movies having been made, such as Crazy Stone. It also shows how poor people are here and how backward it is. But it's movie supported by the story itself, not the scale of the production, not the colors.

Zhang Yimou is just good at using beautiful screenplay to please foreigners 'cause they don't understand the story and can't realize how empty the meaningless the story is

Look at what young Chinese people think of the movie

http://post.baidu.com/f?kz=157059581. ( think the comment made by this person is really good!)

http://www.douban.com/subject/1499008

[roddy]

Well at least we can forgive the foreigners as they don't understand Chinese culture and are too stupid to know better. But all those Chinese people going to see it . . .

As for the links:

有两伙狐朋狗友赠票，我想了想，免费的看看也好，看完了回来还可以骂张艺谋

. . . I'm not sure they were all going in with a completely open mind . . .

[fulgentius]

Because I never tire of repeating facts, especially when they are being ignored:

"Curse," which stars Gong Li, Chow Yun-fat and Taiwan pop sensation Jay Chow in a tale of an imperial family's vicious decline, is on track to be China's most popular film ever, a title still held by James Cameron's "Titanic," which set a B.O. record of $44 million in 1998.

Please note that this article is about the reception of the film in China.

[Ian_Lee]

Actually Zhang Yimou's films have gradually lost the appeals to foreigners.

"House of Flying Daggers" did poor in U.S. Box Office. And "Curse" seems also so so. Unlike "Hero", the other two both got only limited release in U.S.

[trevelyan]

The big problem with Curse is that it is sophomoric. The plot is uninteresting and moves so slowly the audience is always 20 minutes ahead of the action on screen. Dramatic tension is created by the deus ex machina approach of finding new bad guys to stuff onscreen, however improbable the required setup. And the overt political commentary (corruption behind a facade of unity) is only significant for showing how facile political critique has to be to appear in contemporary mainland cinema.

In contrast, I'd encourage anyone who has the opportunity to see Mexican director Guillermo del Toro's new film Pan's Labyrinth. This opened early in Toronto for some reason and I got the chance to catch it over the Christmas break. It is a brilliant film with beautiful cinematography that never insults the intelligence of its audience. I look forward to the day I see a Chinese film that can rival it, both in terms of its creative vision as well as in the dextrous handling of complex allegory and symbolism to make a relatively simple point in a subtle and rewarding fashion.

[Quest]

On the other hand, if you make a 古装 movie (movie of ancient clothes with lots of colors), you will have no problems with the censors whatsoever.

That is until you start to enunciate ancient conflicts between different ethnic groups. 蒙古鞑奴 censored, 满清鞑子 censored。Oddly, it's ok to use 南蛮子 or 鸟语花香。Who's in power, 一目了然。

[chichi]

A good movie doesn't have to be political. Like the movie " Cell Phone". It just reflects modern Chinese contradictory lives.

Many foreigners think Zhang's movies of acient times are good because of the pictures, the scale of the production and maybe even all those boobs. But they don't know Chinese cultures anyway so they wouldn't feel disgusted with the plots of affectation and all those kung fu staff like everyone in the movie is good at kong fu.

[skylee]

Many foreigners think Zhang's movies of acient times are good because of the pictures, the scale of the production and maybe even all those boobs. But they don't know Chinese cultures anyway so they wouldn't feel disgusted with the plots of affectation and all those kung fu staff like everyone in the movie is good at kong fu.

What a remark. it hurts. it's like saying that all those who do not dislike Zhang's movies of ancient times know nothing about chinese culture. 好傷心.

I don't claim "As a Chinese" when I express my views. Perhaps this shows that I don't know chinese culture anyway. 好傷心.

[roddy]

Chichi, you're not making yourself look any cleverer. Lets try again . . .

Zhang Yimou's Hero: raked in 250 million yuan in 2002 [in China] setting a record for a Chinese-made movie.

House of Flying Daggers: Zhang Yimou's "House of Flying Daggers" topped Chinese box office records this year, grossing 153 million yuan (18.5 million US dollars)

and now, as quoted above, twice, his new movie is on course to become the highest earning film in China of all time. Beating Titanic. Titanic.

You want to tell me that foreigners like his film because of silly inconsequential things like 'the picture' - ok, I'll accept that. Sometimes I even like books because of 'the plot', I'm kind of dumb. But please enlighten us - why do all those Chinese people like his films too?

Links for the above numbers

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061219/ennew_afp/afpentertainmentchinafilmzhang_061219110100

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-12/23/content_402756.htm

Incidentally any significant comment specific to particular movies would probably be better off in the relevant movie-discussion topic, if there is one. If we wind up just discussing Curse we might as well merge it with the current discussion on that movie.

[chichi]

1. High Box office record doesn't mean that there are so many people actually going to the cinema. After the production of a big commercial film, many corporations buy tickets and give them out to their clients, employees. This is a typical Chinese phenoma. Have you been to the cinema to acutally see how many people there are in the cinema to watch the movie? How many of them buy the tickets by themselves? The tickets bought by companies and organization can be far more than you imangine. Companies and organizations buy the tickets bec it's produced by a famous director. If you give out tickets of a film produced by an unkown director, it indicates that you are penny pinching because generally the tickets of big commercial films are more expensive.

2. Some people buy the tickets themselves bec after all it's produced by a famous director. And the large dissemination of the film make people feel like finding how it looks like. Besides, with all the cinemas densly playing the film again and again, you don't have many choices.

3. Going to movie doesn't mean that you like the movie. You may just be curious about how is the famous director's product this time. You can't judge whether the film is popular according to the box office record. Instead you should go to various forums to check out people's comments. After you do that, you will find out what I say is true.

[wushijiao]

But still there are good movies having been made, such as Crazy Stone. It also shows how poor people are here and how backward it is. But it's movie supported by the story itself, not the scale of the production, not the colors.

I agree. I think the backbone of any movie is the script and the story. I haven't seen the Curse yet, and so I am not talking about that film so much in particular, and skylee and Roddy have pointed out that the film has been very popular here in China, so it's not quite fair to say that the film is solely produced for foreigners.

Also, films don't need to be overtly political in order to get banned. There are other taboo areas under a wide blanket of issues, including the mafia, sex, superstition, religion, things deemed to be “anti-social”, if I am not mistaken. For example, Temptress Moon (a decent movie) by Chen Kaige was banned for sex and drugs, although there was really no anti-CCP feeling as far as I could tell.

http://www.answers.com/topic/temptress-moon

That is until you start to enunciate ancient conflicts between different ethnic groups. 蒙古鞑奴 censored, 满清鞑子 censored。Oddly, it's ok to use 南蛮子 or 鸟语花香。Who's in power, 一目了然。

Very true. (What movie uses南蛮子, by the way?) But I don't think you really even need ethnic conflict. The "Emperor's Shadow" (秦颂）was banned. Clearly, in this case, Qin Shihuang represented Mao, and in a arguably negative light, and was therefore off limits. I have read that this movie seriously distorts history, but nonetheless, I thought it was a great movie.

http://www.answers.com/topic/the-emperor-s-shadow

I guess my point is, if you make an ancient movie that is historical that involves military conflict, you run a risk of modern people trying interpret it through modern political or social lenses. After all, as the German military historian Clausewitz said, “war is a continuation of politics by other means”. So if you can’t make things that are overtly political, then you have to create some hypothetical states that have hypothetical enemies set in a hypothetical time. Then you end up making a movie about the theoretical desire for power, war, love, lust…etc. And whether for foreign audiences or to avoid the censors, you emphasize the universal nature of emotions and conflict. As far as I can tell, this is the road that Chen Kaige and Feng Xiaogang went on in their most recent movies.

Anyway, I would still defend Zhang Yimou. He gets criticized in China from all angles, many times unfairly. Many people on the Mainland also seem to have the impression that his films are seen by everyone in the West. At least in America, I think it is safe to say that very, very few mainstream people are familiar with his movies.

I personally think that his good or great movies still far outweigh his bad movies.