The After four years of work, a season of Zhang Yimou’s movies will screen for the first time in Europe at The Garden Cinema from July 19th.
London’s newest independent cinema, The Garden Cinema in Holborn, is hosting a season of Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s greatest movies from July 19th to September 2nd.
Zhang Yimou: A season will bring together 11 of his earlier movies, including some never before screened in the UK.
Highlights include the UK restoration premiere of To Live (1994), an adaption of the modern classic book by Yu Hua. Also screening is the entirety of Zhang Yimou’s thematic ‘red trilogy’ Red Sorghum (1987), Judou (1990), and Raise the Red Lantern (1991).
The movies he is perhaps best known for in the West will end the retrospective. His wuxia – historical martial art epics – Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004).
For Dr George Crosthwait, Film Curator at The Garden Cinema, the quality and importance of Zhang Yimou’s work is clear.
“Things like Raise the Red Lantern and To Live should be on the Sight and Sound top 250 list.”
Zhang Yimou is widely seen as one of China’s finest directors. Starting from his directorial debut, Red Sorghum (1987), he has directed a string of critically acclaimed movies. Winning multiple awards and picking up three Oscar nominations for Best Foreign Language Film.
Beyond movies, Zhang Yimou also directed the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics and 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.
However, he doesn’t have the reputation he should have in the West. In George’s opinion, this is partly because of the lack of screening like this one: “It’s as if two decades of Alfred Hitchcock just disappeared. It’s kind of almost like we need to slightly rebuild film history.”
Sitting down with George and his co-curator Millie Zhou in the cinema’s breathtaking art-deco-style basement bar, designed by the cinema’s Michael Chambers himself, their explenation makes clear why a season like this hasn’t been done before.
It began as an idea from Chambers, who holds Zhang Yimou as one of his favourite directors, in late 2019 before The Garden Cinema even opened. George jumped on the chance to do something never before done in Europe. He has been working on the retrospective since then.
However, he quickly hit challenges.
“I don’t think that [a Zhang Yimou retrospective] has been done for a long time, if ever. It turns out it hadn’t, and there was a very good reason why it hadn’t.”
“A lot of the materials haven’t been digitalized and there’s just a very complex rights situation in terms of licensing… just to undertake it is, is a huge commitment”
In some cases, it wasn’t clear who had the rights. Sometimes the company that supposedly had the rights didn’t even exist anymore. The Garden Cinema’s new and independent status made things harder.
Millie joined the team a couple of years later, and according to George was a great help. When first approached about putting together a season on a 5th/6th generation Chinese director like Zhang Yimou she recognised the challenge: “for me that sounds very daunting… I felt quite intimidated by this idea.”
But with time came progress.
“Like George, I kept trying, and it seems like you’re breaking the wall, breaking the ice. Bit by bit.”
Despite the challenges, and detractors telling them that it wasn’t going to work, their hard work paid off. The season is now here. With only a couple of days till opening night, George and Millie are still pragmatic. There are final details that need sorting, zoom Q + A’s that need finalising.
They both agree there will be a sense of relief when the season starts. Millie is particularly looking forward to the August 10th showing of Not One Less. Following the movie there will be a Q and A with the movie’s lead actress Wei Minzhi. She played a 13-year-old substitute teacher in a rural Chinese school.
Thinking about the process of re-watching Zhang Yimou’s movies when putting together the season and getting to see how good they are again, George adds: “I really want, I really hope, that the audiences kind of have this same kind of moment of like, okay, wow… oh my god, this earlier stuff is something else.”
The retrospective will open with a screening of Red Sorgum (1987) at 6pm on Friday 19th July and the season will end on Monday 2nd September. The Garden Cinema is located at 39-41 Parker Street London, between Holborn and Covent Garden underground stations. You can find more information about the season on their website.
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