---
name: "Zhang Yimou"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/zhang-yimou"
fi1m_id: "zhang-yimou"
imdb_id: "nm0955443"
tmdb_id: 607
wikidata_id: "Q55430"
roles: ["Director","Writer"]
born: "2 April 1950"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 4
average_fi1m_score: 80
average_as: "director"
average_over: 4
updated: "2026-10-05T16:31:13.537595+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Zhang Yimou

## Identity

Zhang Yimou

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/zhang-yimou
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** zhang-yimou
- **IMDb ID:** nm0955443
- **TMDB ID:** 607
- **Wikidata ID:** Q55430
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Yimou, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q55430, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0955443/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/607

Director and writer. Born 2 April 1950 in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China.

## Details

- **Work:** Director, Writer
- **Born:** 2 April 1950, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China
- **Active:** 1988–present
- **Also known as:** Yimou Zhang, Yi-Mou Zhang, Имоу Чжан
- **Frequently works with:** [Gong Li](https://film.one/person/gong-li.md)
- **BAFTA Film Awards:** 2 BAFTAs (2 won)
- **Average Fi1m score:** 80, as director, over 4 titles
- **Fi1m score by decade:** 1980s 82 (1), 1990s 91 (1), 2000s 77 (1), 2020s 68 (1)
- **Score spread:** 2 at 80+, 2 at 60–79, 0 under 60
- **Genres:** Drama 3, History 3, Action 1, Adventure 1, Comedy 1, Mystery 1
- **Screen time:** 8 hours of reviewed films
- **Box office:** $868m across 3 films with figures
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Yimou, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q55430, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0955443/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/607

## Streaming the US now

- **Tubi:** [*Full River Red*](https://film.one/film/full-river-red.md) (68)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Zhang Yimou

> Zhang Yimou can make the daily routine of a household frightening. We value his colour and careful compositions most when they bring us closer to the people, as they do in *Raise the Red Lantern*.

Four wives compete for one man's favour, and the household carries on as though this were a reasonable way to live. In *Raise the Red Lantern* (1991), Zhang Yimou gives the daily arrangements of a wealthy home enough weight to sustain a deeply upsetting drama. Gong Li plays Songlian, a young, educated woman entering this marriage in 1920s China. We were distressed by the ease with which ordinary household routines became a means of cruelty. The film gives us time to understand the rules and then makes living by them seem intolerable, without needing to hurry us towards the next incident.

Zhang came to directing through cinematography, working on *Yellow Earth* (1984) before making his directorial debut with *Red Sorghum* (1988). His early films often put women inside hierarchies they cannot control, and Gong Li became a recurring collaborator. From the 2000s, films such as *Hero* (2002) and *House of Flying Daggers* (2004) took him towards large-scale martial arts. The early dramas had already shown how clearly he could tell a story through colour and composition, with the restrictions on women's lives giving those choices something specific to express. The colour and choreography offer clear reasons to follow that change, though spectacle can leave too little room for the people whose struggles are supposed to matter.

It is worth remembering how much *Raise the Red Lantern* achieves within a single household. Red is one of Zhang's emphatic tools here, and the careful compositions keep us looking at a home we would not want to inhabit. Gong Li makes the cost of its rituals painfully clear, keeping our attention on the woman required to live through them. Zhang does occasionally repeat those rituals past the point where we need convincing. The cruelty has registered; another insistence on it can feel unnecessary.

That reservation matters because Zhang can make his meaning so clear that we have little left to discover for ourselves. Here, Gong Li gives us someone to watch even when we have understood what the household does to its inhabitants. Start with *Raise the Red Lantern*, provided a patient account of people making one another miserable is what the evening can bear.

## Biography

Zhang Yimou is a Chinese film director. He studied at the Beijing Film Academy and is associated with the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers. His directorial debut was *Red Sorghum* (1988).

He directed *Raise the Red Lantern* (1991), *To Live* (1994), *Hero* (2002), *House of Flying Daggers* (2004) and *Curse of the Golden Flower* (2006). Several of his films have received international awards, including the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.

*Sources: imdb.com, en.wikipedia.org, britannica.com.*

## On Fi1m (4)

- *Full River Red* (2023), Fi1m 68, Screenplay, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/full-river-red.md)
- *Hero* (2002), Fi1m 77, Writer, Director, Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/hero.md)
- *Raise the Red Lantern* (1991), Fi1m 91, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/raise-the-red-lantern.md)
- *Red Sorghum* (1988), Fi1m 82, Actor, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/red-sorghum.md)

## Complete filmography (70)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *The Lead* (2026), series, Executive Producer, Creator
- *Scare Out* (2026), Director, Writer
- *The First Shot* (2024), series, Producer
- *Article 20* (2024), Writer, Director
- *Under the Light* (2023), Director
- *Beijing 2022* (2023), Executive Producer
- *Full River Red* (2023), Director, Screenplay — Fi1m 68, [page](https://film.one/film/full-river-red.md)
- *Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympics Opening Ceremony* (2022), Director
- *Beijing 2022 Olympics Closing Ceremony* (2022), Director
- *Beijing 2022 Olympic Opening Ceremony* (2022), Director
- *Snipers* (2022), Director
- *My Country, My Parents* (2021), as TV Station Director (segment "Duck Prophet")
- *极：《悬崖之上》电影纪录片* (2021), series, Actor
- *Cliff Walkers* (2021), Director, Screenplay
- *One Second* (2020), Director, Screenplay
- *My People, My Homeland* (2020), Producer
- *庆祝中华人民共和国成立70周年联欢活动* (2019), Director
- *Shadow* (2018), Director, Screenplay
- *The Great Wall* (2016), Director
- *Suddenly Seventeen* (2016), Producer
- *最忆是杭州* (2016), Director
- *Lady of the Dynasty* (2015), Co-Director
- *Stories Through 180 Lenses* (2014), Director
- *Coming Home* (2014), Director
- *The Flowers of War* (2011), Director
- *Making of "The Flowers of War"* (2011), series, Actor
- *Under the Hawthorn Tree* (2010), Director
- *A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop* (2009), Director
- *60th Anniversary Of Founding Of The People's Republic Of China* (2009), Director
- *Zhang Yimou's 2008* (2009), series, Actor
- *激荡·1978-2008* (2008), series, Actor
- *Beijing 2008 Olympic Closing Ceremony* (2008), Director
- *Beijing 2008 Olympic Opening Ceremony* (2008), Director
- *To Each His Own Cinema* (2007), Director, Writer
- *Curse of the Golden Flower* (2006), Director, Screenplay
- *Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles* (2005), Director
- *图兰朵：法兰西体育场* (2005), Director
- *Turandot* (2005), Director
- *Making of House of Flying Daggers* (2004), Writer, Producer
- *House of Flying Daggers* (2004), Director, Producer, Writer
- *Beauty and Pureness* (2004), Actor
- *Hero* (2002), Director, Producer, Writer — Fi1m 77, [page](https://film.one/film/hero.md)
- *The Grand Mansion Gate* (2001), series, as 李莲英
- *Happy Times* (2000), Director
- *Not One Less* (1999), Director
- *The Road Home* (1999), Director
- *Puccini: Turandot at the Forbidden City of Beijing* (1999), Director
- *知识改变命运* (1999), Actor
- *Dragon Town Story* (1997), Producer
- *Keep Cool* (1997), as Junk Peddler · Director
- *Lumière & Company* (1995), Director
- *Shanghai Triad* (1995), Director
- *The Great Conqueror's Concubine: Part I* (1994), Producer
- *To Live* (1994), Director
- *The Story of Qiu Ju* (1992), Director
- *Raise the Red Lantern* (1991), Director — Fi1m 91, [page](https://film.one/film/raise-the-red-lantern.md)
- *Ju Dou* (1990), Director
- *A Terra-Cotta Warrior* (1989), as General Meng Tianfang
- *Codename Cougar* (1989), Director
- *New Chinese Cinema* (1989), Actor
- *Red Sorghum* (1988), Director — Fi1m 82, [page](https://film.one/film/red-sorghum.md)
- *The Big Parade* (1986), as Military Official · Director of Photography
- *Old Well* (1986), as 孙旺泉 · Director of Photography
- *Forced Take-off* (1984), Cinematography
- *Yellow Earth* (1984), Director of Photography
- *One And Eight* (1983), Director of Photography
- *The Red Elephant* (1982), Director of Photography
- *Sunshine Thief*, Executive Producer
- *The Three-Body Problem*, Director
- *Cliff Walkers 2*, Director

## Gallery

- ![Zhang Yimou](https://film.one/media/person/78881/gallery-8cc8d68abe93.jpg) Zhang Yimou — Dick Thomas Johnson from Tokyo, Japan, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/Zhang_Yimou_from_%22Full_River_Red%22_at_Red_Carpet_of_the_Tokyo_International_Film_Festival_2023_%2853347207442%29_%28cropped%29.jpg/1280px-Zhang_Yimou_from_%22Full_River_Red%22_at_Red_Carpet_of_the_Tokyo_International_Film_Festival_2023_%2853347207442%29_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![PHOTO CREDIT: ANDERS KRUSBERG / PEABODY AWARDS Dick Ebersol 69th Annual Peabody Awards Luncheon Waldorf=Astoria Hotel New York, NY USA May 17, 2010 (2009)](https://film.one/media/person/78881/gallery-833f5b378865.jpg) PHOTO CREDIT: ANDERS KRUSBERG / PEABODY AWARDS Dick Ebersol 69th Annual Peabody Awards Luncheon Waldorf=Astoria Hotel New York, NY USA May 17, 2010 (2009) — The Peabody Awards, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Dick_Ebersol_at_the_68th_Annual_Peabody_Awards_for_the_Beijing_Olympics_Ceremeony_and_Zhang_Yimou.jpg/1280px-Dick_Ebersol_at_the_68th_Annual_Peabody_Awards_for_the_Beijing_Olympics_Ceremeony_and_Zhang_Yimou.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Film Crew of The Great Wall presenting the movie in St. Petersburg (Russia) (2015)](https://film.one/media/person/78881/gallery-df78de34b538.jpg) Film Crew of The Great Wall presenting the movie in St. Petersburg (Russia) (2015) — deepskyobject, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/The_Great_Wall_-_Zhang_Yimou_and_Cast_%282015%29.jpg/1280px-The_Great_Wall_-_Zhang_Yimou_and_Cast_%282015%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Yangshuo - Zhang Yimou Impressions (2010)](https://film.one/media/person/78881/gallery-6d44883ec83d.jpg) Yangshuo - Zhang Yimou Impressions (2010) — Vanvelthem Cédric, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0c/Yangshuo_06_-_Zhang_Yimou_Impressions_2.jpg/1280px-Yangshuo_06_-_Zhang_Yimou_Impressions_2.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Zhang Yimou](https://film.one/media/person/78881/gallery-1026078f7958.jpg) Zhang Yimou — Image via TMDB
- ![Zhang Yimou](https://film.one/media/person/78881/gallery-9e8bd4a2a532.jpg) Zhang Yimou — Image via TMDB
- ![Zhang Yimou](https://film.one/media/person/78881/gallery-31c43a1e30e8.jpg) Zhang Yimou — Image via TMDB
- ![Yangshuo - Zhang Yimou Impressions (2010)](https://film.one/media/person/78881/gallery-d78a71892e87.jpg) Yangshuo - Zhang Yimou Impressions (2010) — Vanvelthem Cédric, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Yangshuo_07_-_Zhang_Yimou_Impressions.jpg/1280px-Yangshuo_07_-_Zhang_Yimou_Impressions.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Yangshuo - Zhang Yimou Impressions (2010)](https://film.one/media/person/78881/gallery-c92b908446fb.jpg) Yangshuo - Zhang Yimou Impressions (2010) — Vanvelthem Cédric, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Yangshuo_08_-_Zhang_Yimou_Impressions_3.jpg/1280px-Yangshuo_08_-_Zhang_Yimou_Impressions_3.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Zhang Yimou](https://film.one/media/person/78881/gallery-531d115b40fb.jpg) Zhang Yimou — Image via TMDB
- ![Zhang Yimou](https://film.one/media/person/78881/gallery-c306ea4567bb.jpg) Zhang Yimou — Image via TMDB
- ![Zhang Yimou](https://film.one/media/person/78881/gallery-0d14f203e696.jpg) Zhang Yimou — Image via TMDB

## Awards

### BAFTA Film Awards — 2 won

- 1995: Best Film Not in the English Language (won), for *To Live*
- 1993: Best Film Not in the English Language (won), for *Raise the Red Lantern*

### Cannes Film Festival — 1 won

- 1994: Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix (won), for *To Live*

### Venice Film Festival — 2 won

- 1999: Golden Lion (won), for *Not One Less*
- 1992: Golden Lion (won), for *The Story of Qiu Ju*

### Berlin International Film Festival — 2 won

- 2000: Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize (won), for *The Road Home*
- 1988: Golden Bear (won), for *Red Sorghum*

### Other awards — 8 won, 4 nominated

- Asian Film Award for Lifetime Achievement 2010: Asian Film Award for Lifetime Achievement (won)
- honorary doctor of Yale University 2010: honorary doctor of Yale University (won)
- European Film Award for Best Non-European Film 2004: European Film Award for Best Non-European Film (nominated), for *House of Flying Daggers*
- Golden Rooster Award for Best Director 2004: Golden Rooster Award for Best Director (nominated)
- Golden Rooster Award for Best Director 2003: Golden Rooster Award for Best Director (won), for *Hero*
- Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize 2002: Fukuoka Asian Culture Prize (won)
- Golden Rooster Award for Best Director 2000: Golden Rooster Award for Best Director (won), for *The Road Home*
- European Film Award for Best Non-European Film 1999: European Film Award for Best Non-European Film (nominated), for *Not One Less*
- Golden Rooster Award for Best Director 1999: Golden Rooster Award for Best Director (won), for *Not One Less*
- Golden Rooster Award for Best Director 1993: Golden Rooster Award for Best Director (nominated)
- Silver Lion 1991: Silver Lion (won), for *Raise the Red Lantern*
- Golden Rooster Award for Best Actor 1988: Golden Rooster Award for Best Actor (won), for *Old Well*

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/zhang-yimou