Chen Kaige is a Chinese film director and a leading figure of the fifth generation of Chinese cinema.
17 Facts About Chen Kaige
2.
Chen Kaige's films are known for their visual flair and epic storytelling.
3.
In recent years, Chen Kaige 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.
4.
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.
5.
Chen Kaige's father Chen Huai'ai was a well-known director in his own right.
6.
Chen Kaige's mother Liu Yanchi was a senior screenwriter.
7.
In 1969, Chen Kaige became a sent-down youth in Xishuangbanna Agricultural Reclamation Bureau for a short while before enlisting the People's Liberation Army next year.
8.
In 1975, Chen Kaige was discharged from the army and returned to Beijing, where he worked as a worker in Beijing Film Printing Factory.
9.
Chen Kaige followed up the unprecedented success of Farewell My Concubine with Temptress Moon, another period drama starring Leslie Cheung and Gong Li.
10.
In 2002, Chen Kaige 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.
11.
Chen Kaige's more recent Together is an intimate film about a young violinist and his father.
12.
The Promise saw Chen Kaige shifting to a more commercial mindset, a shift regarded by some as a "radical stylistic turn" from his previous works.
13.
In 2008, Chen Kaige directed the semi-biography Forever Enthralled, which is a return for him in the sense of directing a film based on Chinese opera.
14.
Chen Kaige later went on to direct Sacrifice, which is a re-imagining of the famous play The Orphan of Zhao.
15.
Chen Kaige has acted in several films, including Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor and his own The Emperor and the Assassin and Together.
16.
Chen Kaige graduated from Vassar College in New York and is the current CEO of China Interactive Media Group.
17.
Chen Kaige is the holder of a green card to the United States.