China Daily profiles filmmaker Zhang Yuan, whose work has often been banned inside China:
After shooting the first music video for Chinese rock ‘n’ roll godfather Cui Jian, he made Beijing Bastards in 1994, which was shown at the Sundance Film Festival. His next film, Son, also blurred the line between fiction and documentary, winning prizes at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 1996. Later, Zhang went on to do his most controversial work so far, China’s first homosexual-themed movie, East Palace, West Palace. Banned from filmmaking in the mainland for years, Zhang finally proved his international success with 1999’s Seventeen Years at the Venice Film Festival, before returning to the Chinese film scene.
[…] He receded from public view after being detained in a drug scandal in January last year.
Now, with Dada’s Dance, telling the story of a young woman who takes to the road after she is falsely told that her mother is not her birth mother, Zhang has returned. The movie, like Zhang’s usual take on sensitive social issues, explores the rebellious girl’s feelings of love, depression and hatred in her complicated life. The director captures all the emotional tensions knotted up inside the girl, Dada.
The film was screened at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and opens at cinemas citywide tomorrow.
Read more about Zhang’s latest movie, Dada’s Dance, via the Sundance Film Festival website.
Watch one of Cui Jian’s video directed by Zhang, A Piece of Red Cloth (一块红布):
And a trailer for Zhang’s movie Green Tea:
