BSA 206 W9 : Zhang Yimou and Ang Lee

This week we looked at two Chinese directors, there is a lot of censorship in the West in regards to film and TV and this also applies in China. Chinese filmmakers have to submit their scripts and documents during development to a Censorship board, they are required edit and modify their work until all changes apply to the censorship rules.

They aren't told what to do, only told what they can't do. Some taboo topics are sex and violence, obscenity, religion, superstition, drinking, drug abuse and criminal activity. Any story element not rooted in scientific fact, like ghosts or time travel, and no criticism of the communist party is tolerated.

Distorting historical truth, tampering with revolutionary leaders, heroes and important historical figures, disparaging the image of the people's army, showing obscene and vulgar content, rape, prostitution, sexual acts, homosexuality, perversion, even dirty or vulgar sound effects, background music and sound effects are all censored.



Zhang Yimou has had trouble getting his films released in China because of all this censorship - his 1994 film To Live was banned in China even after winning awards at Cannes, a lot of his epics are set in the past portraying characters as heroes and respectable figures.



Personally I have only seen Hero and House of Flying Daggers from his catalogue, but doing some more research I have found he's got a much larger output than I had thought. My impression was that all his films were as stylised and action heavy as Hero, but now I find he has many more epic dramas under his belt, which I am itching to check out.



One website also mentioned that Hero and his subsequently similar films were actually heavily influenced by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which surprised me. That film is of course the most famous of our next filmmaker.



Ang Lee famously said that "If you make a movie in Hollywood you have to make sure the audience will be happy and when you make a movie in China you have to make sure the leaders will be happy".

I have seen many more of Lee's films than Yimou's, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hulk and Life of Pi. He has covered a very large variety of genres, in class we watched his period drama adaptation Sense and Sensibility.