The Next Reel Film Podcast
Shadow
Zhang Yimou’s ink-wash wuxia epic Shadow features a secret double, bladed umbrellas, and one of the most visually committed films of his career.
June 11, 2026
Discover the remarkable film directors featured on TruStory FM’s entertainment podcasts. Learn about their creative journeys and lasting contributions to cinema through each of these archive episodes.
Zhang Yimou’s ink-wash wuxia epic Shadow features a secret double, bladed umbrellas, and one of the most visually committed films of his career.
Zhang Yimou trades empire for intimacy in this wuxia companion to Hero—two officers fall for the same woman, loyalties collapse, and the visuals are almost too gorgeous to look away from.
Zhang Yimou trades his visual spectacle for raw naturalism—and Pete Wright and Andy Nelson dig into why that restraint is the whole argument.
Zhang Yimou’s monster-movie blockbuster The Great Wall surprised Pete and Andy—more visually distinctive and more entertaining than its terrible trailers suggested.
Zhang Yimou’s stunning wuxia epic Hero brings his visual mastery to a Rashomon-style assassination story—Pete and Andy dig into the politics, the craft, and the lake shoots.
Andy loves it, Pete finds it gorgeous and unbearably slow—Zhang Yimou’s Raise the Red Lantern is a 1920s period tragedy that divides hosts and devastates viewers.
Zhang Yimou’s stunning 1990 tragedy Ju Dou—shot in three-strip Technicolor—layers forbidden desire and political allegory inside a story that helped launch Chinese cinema to the world. Pete and Andy dig in.