Film history cannot be discussed without the context of the history of society. The Fifth Generation of Chinese Filmmakers emerged in the in the 1980s and 1990s after the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is a ten-year social and political movement from 1966 to 1976 in China that emphasizes the importance of communism ideology and this movement has greatly impacted China’s economic and cultural growth negatively. After the reform in 1978, the Beijing Film Academy welcomed its first class of students in decades. Having opened up to the western society, these students not only were learning the essence of Chinese filmmaking but also were presented with the western cinematography and techniques. They would soon graduate to be the new generation of Chinese directors and deeply reshape the culture and format of Chinese filmmaking.
As the Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers came of age under the influence of the Cultural Revolution and the oppression of literatures and arts, they had the experience of something that only confined to that period of time. This results in their passion and creativity toward revealing the struggle of lower-class people and addressing the exploration of Chinese Culture when they first graduate from the Academy. However, the time for the Fifth Generation Filmmakers is coming to an end as the time goes on. Since they lived a major part of lives going through the 70s and 80s, those are the times that they arguably resemble the most and that is why they can make movies about that time endlessly. However, as the prosperity and culture flourish in China more and more, it has become hard for them to keep up with the development and especially commercial films.
Going into details, one of the most representative figure of the Fifth Generation is Zhang Yimo. Zhang Yimo is a typical “Educated Youth” (ZhiQing) born in the 50s— their teenage and early adulthood were spent not in the classroom but in the countryside, working in farms with the peasants. Originally interested in painting and photography, Zhang Yimo entered Beijing Film Academy in directing as the fifth graduating class. After he graduation in 1982, he was assigned to a rural Guangxi Studio in south-east China. Though this seemed like an unfortunate assignment, Zhang Yimo actually found it helpful since he could step away from political overwatch from Beijing and be creative with his own work.
Zhang Yimo’s early works included film “Ju Dou” (1990) which told a story of a woman named Ju Dou being sold to an cruel, old cloth dyer Yang Jinshan. Yang Jinshan tortures Ju Dou for his own incapability and therefore Ju Dou seeks comfort in Jinshan’s adoptive nephew, Yang Tianqing and raised a son with him. However, the tragic eventually ends with Ju Dou’s son Tianbai killing his biological father Tianqing and the grieving Ju Dou sets fire on the entire dye mill, destroying everything. Although this film was banned by the Chinese government for a few years, it is still highly praised among one of Zhang Yimo’s best works. Its use of color is very aesthetically satisfying with bright colors like yellow, orange and red. And Zhang Yimo’s decision of shooting the film with Three-Strip Technicolor, which was widely used in Hollywood of musicals in the 1950s, saturated the colors and the bright colors contrasted with the dark plot and characters in the movie.
However, fast forward to Zhang Yimo’s recent movies, one of the most well known but controversial is the “Curse of the Golden Flower” (2006) which tells a story sets in the Qing Dynasty about the emperor returns home with his son Prince Jai to find the empress has taken a lover, their stepson from the emperor’s first marriage Crown Prince Wan. However, the Crown Prince Wan is in fact, secretly in love with the Imperial Doctor’s daughter Chan. These love triangles and affairs eventually become violence and retribution to these characters.
Although “Curse of the Golden Flower” continues to show Zhang Yimo’s signature color usage like gold and bright yellow, it receives a lot of critiques as well. The most wide-received critique is the over reveling of flesh in this film in terms that all women in this movies wear low-cut costumes that are totally unnecessary and very distracting. Another critique is that this is a film that is over commercialized, with the visual feast and a top actors cast, it is lack of heart or a normalcy that all the audience can somewhat relate to or a plot-line that truly makes the audience engaged and excited.
Another famous director from the Fifth Generation Director is Chen Kaige. Similar to Zhang Yimo, he also experienced the Cultural Revolution. Having joined the Red Guards, a fanatic student group mobilized by Mao Zedong, he denounced his own father Chen Huaikai who was a director during the Revolution and this is still a decision he regrets until this day. In 1978, Chen Kaige was accepted by the Beijing Film Academy and there he also met his dear friend and associate in the later days, Zhang Yimou. In his early career, Chen Kaige made films that truly impacted the foundations of Chinese cinema.
One of the most notable and groundbreaking film is “Yellow Earth” (1984), directed by Chen Kaige and photographed by Zhang Yimou. It is a story sets back in 1939, a soldier named Gu Qing came to a village to compile folk songs and met the peasant family of Cuiqiao, who had been arranged into a marriage by her father. Cuiqiao was deeply moved by Gu Qing’s stories and ideas and wanted to go to Yanan with him so he promised Cuiqiao that she could join the Eight Route Army when he returned next time. But Cuiqiao was determined to seek a new life and rode on a boat across the dangerous Yellow River, possibly died from that incident.
Since the New Chinese Government was built on 1949, Chinese Cinemas are always used as a propaganda tool to spread communism and Maoist ideology. But Chen Kaige’s “Yellow Earth” is ambiguous about it and it poses itself as a very self-reflexive film about the the society. This film did not directly criticize the Communist party, but through the plot and the characters, it inferred how sometimes people are misplacing their faith on the political party and how political parties could fail to fight against the power of the Yellow Earth. This film was a great success among Chinese audiences and on Hong Kong Film Festival in 1985, building Chen’s reputation.
Almost having the same fate as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige’s recent films have received countless backlashes from the audiences and critiques. Chen’s most recent film “Monk Comes Down the Mountain” (2015) tells a story about a young lost Taoist Monk He Anxia, who was forced to leave the monastery and had to survive in the 1930 Chinese city using his Martial Skill. During his time in the cities, he came across a Kung Fu Master who has the Book Of Secrets, containing the secret of a deadly Kung Fu. And he had to protect the book and its master from an evil brother and son.
This movie also has a star line-up cast of Aaron Kwok, Wang Baoqiang, Chang Chen etc. which definitely attracts a lot of audiences but it is the lack of building full and round characters that really hurts the plot and the movie as a whole. Since the monk He Anxia came down from the monastery, he met a lot of people and each of them has impact on him, but after watching the movie, it is filled with actions and visual wonders but it almost emphasizes too much on the visual part so that the traits of each characters are not focused. Another drawback of the film is its narration, it almost sort of comes out of no where and being inserted all along the movie without context and this is very distracting for audiences to see.
“Monk Comes Down the Mountain” is a film based on a wildly-read martial arts novel by a famous novelist Xu Haofeng, but when Chen Kaige commercialized it and made it into a film, it lost its charm and spectacle written in the original novel. In fact, none of Chen Kaige’s commercial films is truly successful that it is almost like Chen doesn’t know how to produce a good commercial film.
The Fifth Generation of Filmmakers in China went through times that are unique that their time and those times are the truly impactful memories to them. Famous French artist Berthe Morisot once said that “It is important to express oneself…provided the feelings are real and are taken from you own experience.” These filmmakers spent most of their life living under the turbulence times making films about life, about struggles and about people. They are not familiar with the modern life and the commercialized filmmaking process and that is why their recent movies can not be compared to their older ones. But does this mean that they are bad filmmakers? Not at all. What we need to ask ourselves is that why are these directors who devoted their lives at exploring our nation’s fate and finding the nature of our people being forced in this day to produce something they are not familiar with? Should the filmmakers cater to the general public’s taste or proceed with something that truly intrigued them?
Times have changed, and the aesthetics of audiences also changed. This world needs the impact of self-reflexivity, but also the advance of entertainment.