TSPDT - Chen Kaige

Chen Kaige

See Also

Bernardo Bertolucci

King Hu

Akira Kurosawa

Kenji Mizoguchi

Tian Zhuangzhuang

Zhang Yimou

Director / Screenwriter

1952 -

Born August 12, Beijing, China

Key Production Country: China

Key Genres: Drama, Rural Drama, Period Film

Key Collaborators: Pei Xiaonan (Editor), Gu Changwei (Cinematographer), Zhao Jiping (Composer)

Recommended: Yellow Earth (1984)

Worth a Look: King of the Children (1987), Farewell, My Concubine (1993)

DVD's: [ Amazon ]

1,000 Greatest Films: Yellow Earth (1984), Farewell, My Concubine (1993)


	"Ever since first attracting attention as a leading light of the Film Academy's 'Fifth Generation', he has consistently shown himself to be an imaginative and intelligent stylist; even as he has moved from political parable to more conventional accounts of human desire and despair, his work has remained notable for its visual bravura." - Geoff Andrew (The Director's Vision, 1999)

	"The majority of his films constitute an intelligent and powerfully felt meditation on recent Chinese history, within which, for him, the Cultural Revolution remains a defining moment. "It made," he has said, "cultural hooligans of us." He has a reputation within China as a philosophical director, and his style is indeed marked by a laconic handling of narrative and a classical reticence. This is largely deceptive: underneath is an unyielding anger and unflinching integrity." - Verina Glaessner (The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia, 1998)

	"One of the most prominent and accomplished of the post-"Cultural Revolution" Chinesse directors...Chen's films are renowned both for their emotional delicacy and their lavish spectacle, using an extensive palette of color and state-of-the-art film technology." - (The MacMillan International Film Encyclopedia, 1994)