Gong Li as Zhang Yimous Muse

By Jowani Juhary (24153014)

World have known that Zhang Yimous muse was none other than Gong Li, one of the
best Asian actress that have gained world recognition. His first collaboration with this stunning
diva was Red Sorghum, which serve as debut film for both of them. They later work together.
Red Sorghum was met with critical acclaim, bringing Zhang to the forefront of the world's art
directors, and winning him a Golden Bear for Best Picture at the 38th Berlin International Film
Festival in 1988.
Codename Cougar (or The Puma Action), a minor experiment in the political thriller
genre, was released in 1989, featuring Gong Li and eminent Chinese actor Ge You. However, it
garnered less-than-positive reviews at home and Zhang himself later dismissed the film as his
worst.
In the same year, Zhang began work on his next project, the period drama Ju Dou.
Starring Gong Li in the eponymous lead role, along with Li Baotian as the male lead, Ju Dou,
garnered as much critical acclaim as had Red Sorghum, and became China's first film to be
nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
After the success of Ju Dou, Zhang began work on Raise the Red Lantern. Based on Su
Tong's novel Wives and Concubines, the film depicted the realities of life in a wealthy family
compound during the 1920s. Gong Li was again featured in the lead role, her fourth
collaboration with Zhang as director.
Raise the Red Lantern received almost unanimous international acclaim. Gong Li's
acting was also praised as starkly contrasting with the roles she played in Zhang's earlier films.
The film was nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 1992 Academy
Awards, becoming the second Chinese film to earn this distinction (after Zhang's Ju Dou).
In his next work, The Story of Qiu Ju, (1992) once again stars Gong Li in the lead role.
The film, which tells the tale of a peasant woman seeking justice for her husband after he was
beaten by a village official, was a hit at film festivals and won the Golden Lion award at the 1992
Venice Film Festival.
Next, Zhang directed To Live, an epic film based on the novel by Yu Hua of the same
name. To Live highlighted the resilience of the ordinary Chinese people, personified by its two
main characters, amidst three generations of upheavals throughout Chinese politics of the 20th
century. It was banned in China, but released at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and won the
Grand Jury Prize, as well as earning a Best Actor prize for Ge You. To Live was banned in China
by the Chinese State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television, due to its critical portrayal of
various policies and campaigns of the Communist government.
Shanghai Triad followed in 1995, featuring Gong Li in her seventh film under Zhang's
direction. The two had developed a romantic as well as a professional relationship, but this
would end during production of Shanghai Triad. Zhang and Gong would not work together
again until 2006's Curse of the Golden Flower.
After breaking up with Gong Li, Zhang Yimou was said to lose his muse. He started to
take different path in directing. After losing Gong Li, he began to search for new cinematic
possibilities. He had also begun to tire of his recurring problems with the Chinese government
over historical and political references in his films.
The authorities have always held against him the fact that his late father had studied at a
pre-communist military academy, and that his father's brother was a general who fought against
the communists and fled to Taiwan.
His more recent subjects - money, its lack, its devastating effect on society - are
humanistic, less political than in the earlier work. Keep Cool, for example, features underworld
figures and a bookworm who pines for a woman interested only in a wealthy man.