Mainland cinema

Zhang Yimou

Chen Kaige

Tian Zhuangzhuang

Banned Mainland films

Banned Mainland films

Chen Kaige:

Yellow Earth (1984)

This is a film set in the late 1930s of rural China, and is the portrayal of a girl's reluctance to be part of a traditional arranged marriage. Her character, resolve, independence, and resistance are the film's strong points. The film was criticised by the government for exposing China's old-fashioned ways.
Banned then released.

Life On A String (1991)

Quirky story about a blind musician, who reveals to his young (also blind) apprentice, that within his instrument is a formula to a medicine that could restore lost sight. The secret is that the instrument could only be opened if the apprentice remains devoted to his master until the instrument breaks its thousandth string. Some critics have suggested that the blind father figure is actually a reference to Mao Zedong, but Chen had denied it.
Banned altogether.

Farewell My Concubine (1994)

Farewell was and is the biggest feature length film to have come out of China, and winning international critical acclaim and success. Its story spans forty years as it vividly portrays the lives of two male Beijing opera stars from childhood to adult stardom. Themes include homosexuality (a big taboo subject in China), betrayal, separation, and despair. Chen's graphic depiction of the harrowing abuses suffered by the people during the Cultural Revolution has made officials seething with rage.
Banned, but had to be released due to world pressure, and later censored.

Zhang Yimou:

Ju Dou (1989)

After the political friendly Red Sorghum, Ju Dou was not so lucky to escape the clutches of the government. Ju Dou has Gong Li in the lead as a young woman married to an abusive, impotent shop owner. As she was married against her will, it is understandable that she hates him, and she soon falls in love with her husband's nephew. They later have a child, and they both plot to end her husband's life, so that they can remarry. But their plan go awry and only cause to end up in a more bitter fate.
Zhang's usage of subliminal messages, and allegorical references (especially the one about a cripple tyrant in his flowing crimson garb), were enough proof for the officials to ban the film,
Banned upon release. Re-released two years later.

Raise The Red Lantern (1991)

Gong Li stars once again in Lantern, about yet again, another woman going to her fate as an unwilling wife. Her husband, a rich businessman, has already got three other wives, and she is the forth, and possibly not the last. Every night, one of the wives are called upon to serve her master, by the raising of a red lantern at the house of the lucky one. The arrival of the young, beautiful new wife in the household causes friction among the other three older women, and Li starts to throw her power around. Tensions rise, and the rivalry between the four wives reaches to a climax that ultimately ends in tragedy and despair. The reason for the film's ban is unclear, but the government was adamant that the film contained political overtones.
Banned when completed, released three years later.

To Live (1994)

Zhang's answer to Chen's Farewell my Concubine, is another grand epic covering decades of Chinese history examining the consequences of abusive treatment by the government on individuals. The story revolves around a wealthy citizen who succumbs to his gambling addiction. He then goes through the harrowing decades of the Great Leap Forward, Cultural Revolution etc. giving him many lifetimes of a lifetime of traumatic distress. The government banned the film because it directly depicted China's persecution of its own people, and the government's own incompetence.
Zhang was forbidden to work for five years in China, but the sentence would inevitably be withdrawn due to outside pressure.

Tian Zhuangzhuang:

On The Hunting Ground (1983)

This is Tian's first feature film, and is an exploration of life among the horseclans of the Mongol tribes. It opens with over ten minutes of brutal animal killings, and focuses on an ethnic minority that China would rather disappear of the face of the earth. The film was deemed offensive in both form and content.
The master print was sabotaged, making it impossible to make reprints.

The Horse Thief (1987)

One of the good things about filming in China is usually the stunning scenery on offer. Thief is a depiction of a young, Tibetan tribal family during the 1920s. The father, Norbu, is a good husband and citizen by day, but is a horse thief by night. When his deeds are exposed by the tribe, he and his family are exiled into the plains, where they have to endure hardship day in day out. The film's Achilles Heel is that the subject matter was on the Tibetans, an ethnic group that have suffered under China for many decades.
Released, then withdrawn.

The Blue Kite (1993)

Set during the 50s and 60s of China, the story begins with the wedding of a young librarian and his schoolteacher fiancée in 1953. Their problems arises when they and their son are swept under the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. The government suspended the film after accusing Tian of departing from his original script, but the raw footage was managed to be smuggled out of China, into the hands of a Dutch company, who edited and distributed the film through Tian's instructions.
Banned (also banned Tian from making films, but later withdrawn).