Chen Kaige

Dublin Core

Title

Chen Kaige

Contributor Item Type Metadata

First Name

Kaige

Surname or Business Name

Chen

Years Affiliated

2015

Birth Date

1952

Birthplace

China

Occupation

Filmmaker

Biographical Text

The son of a filmmaker from the earlier generation of Chinese socialist realism, Chen Kaige represents the Fifth Generation, filmmakers who attended Beijing Film Institute after the Cultural Revolution. After graduating in 1982, Chen and his classmates began a new wave in Chinese cinema by emphasizing the visual and aural qualities of film rather than traditional dramatic and literary elements. Their films have also been characterized by a strong political commitment which has led to objections from censors and has limited their domestic audience to students and intellectuals. Outside China, however, Chen Kaige and the other Fifth Generation filmmakers have drawn attention from an increasingly wide circle of film sophisticates who have hailed their efforts as the next most important New Wave. Chen has been awarded top festival prizes in Tokyo, Cannes and Berlin.

He is a known for Farewell My Concubine (1993), Yellow Earth (1984) and Together with You(2002). 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 propagandistic storytelling and made in cooperation with the Chinese Communist Party.