Chen Kaige

Chen Kaige
陈凯歌
Chen at the 26th Tokyo International Film Festival
Born	(1952-08-12) 12 August 1952 (age 71) Beijing, People's Republic of China
Nationality	China
Alma mater	Beijing Film Academy
Occupations	Film director screenwriter film producer
Years active	1984–present
Known for	Chinese "Scar Cinema", critique of Cultural Revolution era China
Notable work	Yellow Earth Farewell my Concubine Caught in the Web
Movement	Fifth Generation
Spouses	Sun Jialin ​ ​ (m. 1983; div. 1986)​ Hung Huang ​ ​ (m. 1989; div. 1991)​ Chen Hong ​ (m. 1997)​
Children	2, including Arthur Chen
Parent(s)	Chen Huai'ai (father) Liu Yanchi (mother)
Relatives	Chen He (nephew)
Awards	Full list
Chinese name
Simplified Chinese	陈凯歌
Traditional Chinese	陳凱歌
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin Chén Kǎigē IPA [ʈʂʰə̌n kʰàɪ.kɤ́]

Chen Kaige (Chinese: 陈凯歌; born 12 August 1952) is a Chinese filmmaker and a leading figure of the fifth generation of Chinese cinema.^[1] His films are known for their visual flair and epic storytelling.^[2] Chen won the Palme d'Or at 1993 Cannes Film Festival and the International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI) Award in 1993 for directing Farewell My Concubine.^[3]

In recent years, Chen directed the war film The Battle at Lake Changjin and its sequel with Tsui Hark and Dante Lam, with the two films characterized by his signature storytelling and made in cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party.

Early life[edit]

Chen Kaige was born in Beijing, China into a family of Changle, Fuzhou origin, and grew up with fellow Fifth Generation alumnus Tian Zhuangzhuang as a childhood friend. His father Chen Huai'ai [zh] was a well-known director in his own right.^[1] His mother Liu Yanchi (刘燕驰) was a senior screenwriter. During the Cultural Revolution, Chen joined the Red Guards. As a teenage member of the Red Guards, Chen, like many other youths, denounced his own father, a fateful decision he eventually learned to regret. Indeed, this period of his life continues to influence much of his work today, notably in the unblinking depictions of the Cultural Revolution in Farewell My Concubine, and in the father-son relationship in Together.^[4] In 1969, Chen became a sent-down youth in Xishuangbanna Agricultural Reclamation Bureau for a short while before enlisting in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) next year.^[5] In 1975, Chen was discharged from the army and returned to Beijing, where he worked as a worker in Beijing Film Printing Factory. In 1978 Chen joined the Beijing Film Academy, where he graduated in 1982 as part of the so-called Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers.^[1]

Directorial career[edit]

Upon graduating, Chen was assigned to the Guangxi Film Studio, along with a fellow graduate, Zhang Yimou.^[1] His first movie, Yellow Earth (1984), established itself as one of the most important works of Fifth Generation filmmaking; though simple, its powerful visual imagery (courtesy of cinematography by Zhang) and revolutionary storytelling style marked a sea change in how films were seen and perceived in the People's Republic of China.^[1] The Big Parade (1986) and King of the Children (1987) expanded on his filmic repertoire. In 1987, he was awarded a fellowship by the Asian Cultural Council and served as a visiting scholar at the New York University Film School.^[6] Early in 1989, he did further experimenting in a music video for the song "Do You Believe in Shame?" by Duran Duran.^[7] Later that year, he made Life on a String, a highly esoteric movie which uses mythical allegory and lush scenery to tell the story of a blind sanxian musician and his student. In the same year, he was a member of the jury at the 39th Berlin International Film Festival.^[8]

His most famous film in the West, Farewell My Concubine (1993), nominated for two Academy Awards and winner of the Palme d'Or at 1993 Cannes Film Festival,^[3] follows two Beijing opera stars through decades of change in China during the twentieth century. Chen followed up the unprecedented success of Farewell My Concubine with Temptress Moon (1996), another period drama starring Leslie Cheung and Gong Li. Though it was well received by most critics, it did not achieve the accolades that Concubine did, and many were put off by the film's convoluted plot line. Almost as famous is his The Emperor and the Assassin (1999), an epic involving the legendary King of Qin and the reluctant assassin who aims to kill him.

In 2002, Chen made his first, and to-date only, English-language film, Killing Me Softly, a thriller starring Heather Graham and Joseph Fiennes, though it proved to be both a critical and popular disappointment. His more recent Together (2002) is an intimate film about a young violinist and his father. In 2005, he directed The Promise, a fantasy wuxia picture. The Promise saw Chen shifting to a more commercial mindset, a shift regarded by some as a "radical stylistic turn" from his previous works.^[7]

In 2006, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 28th Moscow International Film Festival.^[9]

In 2008, Chen directed the semi-biography Forever Enthralled, which is a return for him in the sense of directing a film based on Chinese opera. He later went on to direct Sacrifice (2010), which is a re-imagining of the famous play The Orphan of Zhao.^[10] The film was a box-office hit and many critics saw it as his "return to form".

Chen has also acted in several films, including Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor (1987) and his own The Emperor and the Assassin and Together.

His 2012 film Caught in the Web was selected as the Chinese entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards, but it did not make the final shortlist.^[11]

Personal life[edit]

Chen's first wife was Sun Jialin (孙加林), whom he met while working at the Beijing Film Factory, between 1975 and 1978; they married in 1983. That union ended and he later remarried, to Hong Huang, the daughter of Zhang Hanzhi, a diplomat who had worked as an English translator for Mao Zedong. She graduated from Vassar College in New York and is the current CEO of China Interactive Media Group. In the early 1990s, after their divorce, Chen lived with Ni Ping, a female television personality.^[12][13] In 1996, Chen married actress Chen Hong.^[14]

Chen Kaige is the holder of a green card to the United States.^[15]

Filmography[edit]

Year	Title	Chinese Title	Director	Writer	Producer	Notes
1984	Yellow Earth	黃土地
1986	The Big Parade	大閱兵
1987	King of the Children	孩子王				[16]
1991	Life on a String	邊走邊唱
1993	Farewell My Concubine	霸王別姬				Palme d'Or winner at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival
1996	Temptress Moon	風月
1998	The Emperor and the Assassin	荊柯刺秦王
2002	Killing Me Softly	温柔地杀我
2002	100 Flowers Hidden Deep					Segment in the anthology film Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet
2002	Together	和你在一起				2002 Silver Seashell for Best Director at the San Sebastián International Film Festival
2005	The Promise	無極
2007	Zhanxiou Village					Vignette in the anthology film To Each His Cinema
2008	Forever Enthralled	梅兰芳
2010	Sacrifice	趙氏孤兒				[17]
2012	Caught in the Web	搜索				Fictional treatment of the human flesh search engine.[18]
2015	Monk Comes Down the Mountain	道士下山				[19]
2017	Legend of the Demon Cat	妖猫传				[20]
2019	My People, My Country	我和我的祖国				[21]
2021	The Battle at Lake Changjin	长津湖				[22][23]
2022	The Battle at Lake Changjin II	长津湖之水门桥
2023	Flowers Bloom in the Ashes	尘埃里开花				[24]
	The Volunteers: To the War	志愿军：雄兵出击				[25][26]
TBA	Swan Song					[27]

Television (as director)[edit]

Executive producer[edit]

Actor[edit]

Awards and nominations[edit]

International[edit]

Domestic[edit]

See also[edit]

• Zhang Yimou
• Tian Zhuangzhuang

Notes[edit]

External links[edit]

• Chen Kaige at They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?
• Chen Kaige at IMDb
• Chen Kaige at AllMovie
• Chen Kaige: "Freedom Above All Else"
• Chen Kaige – Star of Chinese Fifth-Generation Cinema Directors
• Chen Kaige at the Hong Kong Movie Database