Series Archive

Zhang Yimou

From the saturated melodramas of Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern to the monochromatic precision of Shadow, Zhang Yimou’s films refuse to stay in one place. The Next Reel covered seven of them across two seasons.
The Next Reel Film Podcast

The Great Wall

Zhang Yimou has done serious dramas. He’s done big wuxia action films, but he hasn’t had a success in a while and perhaps it should come as no surprise that his newest film is designed to be a big fantasy action blockbuster – a legend about the Great Wall of China and the dragons they people were trying to thwart. While it’s been a success in China and the rest of the world, though, it opened third at the US box office, likely due to its terrible trailers that sold it poorly. But is the film any good? Join us – Pete Wright and Andy Nelson – as we wrap up our Zhang Yimou series with his 2016 film The Great Wall.

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March 2, 2017
The Next Reel Film Podcast

Hero

Zhang Yimou had always wanted to direct an action film, and after years of working on the script, he finally had his chance with his ambitious visual feast, 2002’s Hero. Shot all over China starring some of the hottest Chinese stars telling a story about the assassination attempt on the King of Qin several thousand years ago, the film was the most expensive project in China’s history. Luckily, it also became the highest-grossing up to that point. Considering the last two films we talked about on the show were banned for years, it’s great to see Zhang and China finding a common ground with this film. Join us – Pete Wright and Andy Nelson – as we continue our Zhang Yimou series with 2002’s Hero.

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February 23, 2017
The Next Reel Film Podcast

Raise the Red Lantern

Despite the bans on some of his earlier films like Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern in his home country of China, Zhang Yimou had exploded onto the world stage with these visually sumptuous films and had become a filmmaker worth talking about. Perhaps it was exactly this international presence that kept the Chinese government from suppressing his storytelling further – it gave him the popularity Zhang needed to keep making films. Whether that’s true or not, these early films of his certainly do feel like he has a few things to say about modern China, and it’s perhaps understandable that they’d take offense. Join us – Pete Wright and Andy Nelson – as we continue our Zhang Yimou series with his fourth film, 1991’s Raise the Red Lantern.

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February 16, 2017
The Next Reel Film Podcast

Ju Dou

The eighties were a period of turmoil and transition for the Chinese film industry. Other forms of entertainment were more popular and the authorities were concerned that films that had been popular, like martial arts films, were on the out. But a group of Chinese filmmakers, collectively known loosely as the Fifth Generation – with a push from the new Ministry of Radio, Cinema and Television – were about to change all that, helping Chinese cinema break onto the world stage. And Zhang Yimou was one of the ones leading the charge. But did the Chinese government expect the types of films they would be getting? Join us – Pete Wright and Andy Nelson – as we dig into Chinese cinema and kick off our Zhang Yimou series with his third film, Ju Dou.

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February 9, 2017

About the Series

Zhang Yimou creates cinema that burns itself into your memory. The Next Reel began building a portrait of his work in 2017. Season 6 covered four films: Ju Dou (1990), Raise the Red Lantern (1991), Hero (2002), and The Great Wall (2016). Season 15 returned to add To Live (1994), House of Flying Daggers (2004), and Shadow (2018).

The early collaborations with Gong Li—Ju Dou and Raise the Red Lantern—are intimate, politically charged melodramas painted in vibrant, suffocating color. Their roots in Chinese history were provocative enough to get them banned on the mainland. Hero and House of Flying Daggers move into wuxia territory, pushing the boundaries of action choreography and color theory into something operatic and mythic. To Live is quieter, spanning decades of one family's endurance through upheaval. Shadow strips the palette down to black, white, and ink-wash painting, finding new formal territory in the process. The Great Wall is the outlier—a Hollywood production with a complicated reception—and the series doesn't look away from that.

What Pete and Andy track across the full run is the signature that holds even as the scale and genre change. Yimou's masterful eye. His deep emotional resonance. His ability to use color, movement, and space to say something about power and individual longing.

If Yimou is new to you, this series is an excellent starting point. If you already love one of his films, the conversation will deepen it.

Frequently Asked Questions
Is The Next Reel's Zhang Yimou series complete?
The Season 15 run brought the total to seven films—but a series is only ever as complete as we decide it is. Yimou has one of cinema's most distinctive bodies of work, and Pete and Andy may well return to it in a future season.

Which Zhang Yimou films did The Next Reel cover?
Seven films across two seasons: Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern, Hero, and The Great Wall in Season 6 (2017); and To Live, House of Flying Daggers, and Shadow in Season 15 (2026).

Where should I start if I'm new to The Next Reel?
Raise the Red Lantern is a strong entry point—it's among Yimou's most celebrated films and the episode captures both the visual power and the political charge that runs through the whole series. Each episode works as a standalone.

Become a Supporting Member
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Related Listening
If the Zhang Yimou series brought you here, you might also want to explore the Foreign Language Best Picture Nominees series—The Next Reel's look at films from around the world that earned Oscar nominations in the Best Picture category.