Arena — Season 1, Episode 444: Zhang Yimou
Documentary • 90 min • 3 seasons, 689 episodes • ★ 7.2/10
Episode synopsis
One of China's most successful film directors, Zhang Yimou , talks about his life, his work, and his views on China. The stunning photography and quintessential "Chineseness" of his films - from Red Sorghum, Judou and Raise the Red Lantern to the forthcoming The Story of QiuJu - have won him enormous acclaim in the west, and yet have been met with harsh censorship in China.
About Arena
Arena is a British television documentary series, made and broadcast by the BBC. Voted by leading TV executives in Broadcast as one of the top 50 most influential programmes of all time, it has run since 1 October 1975 with over five hundred episodes made, directed by the likes of Martin Scorsese, Alan Yentob, Roly Keating, Frederick Baker, Volker Schlondorff and Vikram Jayanti. Arena's subjects are a roll-call of the world's best known cultural figures from the 20th and 21st centuries, from singers Bob Dylan and Amy Winehouse to academics Edward Said and Eric Hobsbawm, from writers Jean Genet and V S Naipaul to artists Francis Bacon and Louise Bourgeois. The current series editor is Anthony Wall.