There are many directors in the show business circle, but the only two top streams must be Zhang Yimou, who is "diligent and sincere", and Feng Xiaogang, who is "brilliant and superb".
It is also interesting to talk about these two directors with different styles and types.
In terms of film style, Zhang Yimou is better at retro literature and art, and Feng Xiaogang is more inclined to commercial comedy;
In terms of the number of works, Zhang Yimou has planned more than 20 films, and Feng Xiaogang is close to 20;
In the blockbuster shooting, Zhang Yimou pays more attention to visual effects, and Feng Xiaogang pursues practical effects more;
Although the number of styles and shooting methods are different, the strength of the two directors can still be matched from the works of daily preparation.
Judging from the works planned, it is clear that Zhang Yimou's directing ability is higher than that of Feng Xiaogang.
In fact, as long as you pay attention to the directorial process of the two people, you can easily find out.
The reason why Feng Xiaogang mixed well on the road of directing is because he has his back to nobles.
Zhang Yimou, on the other hand, relies entirely on talent.
Yes, only in terms of directorial ability, Zhang Yimou is several steps higher than Feng Xiaogang.
Although in the early years, the gap between the two was not large.
Maybe zhang Yimou here exported "The Big Red Lantern Hangs High", and Feng Xiaogang exported "Party A and Party B" over there.
But when the time comes more than a decade, in 2019, it will be easy to find.
When Zhang Yimou was busy preparing for the national project and directing his own masterpiece, Feng Xiaogang was idle at home and panicked.
It is the strength that determines the central point of a person's career journey.
Therefore, in those years, relying on nobles has finally lost to talent!
One
In 1950, Zhang Yimou was born into a well-to-do family in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province.
His father was a soldier who worked at the Agriculture and Forestry Bureau after retiring from the military; his mother was a surgeon and worked at the Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University.
At that time, such Kochi families were rare.
Yes, Zhang Yimou's extraordinary life has long been predictable.
Like the development route of normal children, Zhang Yimou went all the way from kindergarten to middle school.
But just as he was ready to continue his studies and go to the height of his studies.
Suddenly, because of his family, he was sent to the countryside.
Zhang Yimou, who was sent to the countryside, was very unaccustomed to the current environment, because most of his time in the village, he spent alone.
During that lonely time, Zhang Yimou did not get nothing.
In day-to-day village life, he fell in love with painting.
The days of painting in the countryside are beautiful and fulfilling.
But this beautiful and fulfilling day did not last long, and soon, Zhang Yimou was recruited into the textile factory as a worker by virtue of his own excellence.
At that time, Zhang Yimou was still very young.
Although he has become a family and established a business.
But apparently, this teenager who loves far away does not want to spend his life in a dark and heavy factory.
So, in 1879, after the resumption of the college entrance examination.
Decisively, Zhang Yimou ignored the persuasion of his relatives and applied for the photography department of the Beijing Film Academy at the age of 28.
When Zhang Yimou applied for Nortel to pursue his college dream, Feng Xiaogang, who was still confused about life, had just experienced a failed college entrance examination.
Perhaps he did not want his life to stop in front of him, and Feng Xiaogang, who was hopeless in entering the university, changed his path and ran to join the army.
And this ginseng is for many years.
In 1982, after completing four years of university studies, Zhang Yimou was assigned to the Guangxi Film Factory.
There, his talents were put to great use.
When he first entered the Guangxi Film Factory, Zhang Yimou started from photography.
Although in the first two years of entering the film studio, Zhang Yimou did not make any major works.
But in 1984, it was my third year in the studio.
Through the movie "One and Eight", Zhang Yimou showed his photography ability to the fullest.
In this film, Zhang Yimou particularly emphasizes the film's stylistic thinking and conceptual renewal.
Although, the visual feeling brought to the audience by his photography is still very depressing.
But it is clear that in terms of technique alone, he has achieved a breakthrough in his own ability.
Two
In 1983, while Zhang Yimou was busy shooting the movie "One and Eight", Feng Xiaogang had just entered the show business circle.
It turned out that it wasn't long after the conversion track.
Feng Xiaogang relied on his own talent and was transferred to the Beijing Cultural and Labor Troupe.
In the cultural troupe, Feng Xiaogang worked until he retired from the army.
After retiring from the army, he was transferred to the Federation of Trade Unions of Beijing Urban Construction and Development Corporation with extremely high emotional intelligence to engage in cultural propaganda work.
For the average soldier, after retiring from the army, it is natural and satisfying to find such a fragrant feast.
But obviously, Feng Xiaogang is not an ordinary soldier, he is a highly ambitious literary and artistic worker.
After working for the urban construction company for less than two years, he entered the show business circle and engaged in the profession of art assistant.
The reason why Feng Xiaogang was able to shift from the literary and art industry to the art industry was due to the help of the nobleman Zheng Xiaolong.
When working in the urban construction company, feng Xiaogang met the big brother Zheng Xiaolong by chance.
At that time, Zheng Xiaolong, unlike the fledgling Zhang Yimou and Feng Xiaogang, had already established a firm foothold in the film industry.
So, after leaning on such a big nobleman.
Naturally, Feng Xiaogang's future is not short.
When Feng Xiaogang relied on his eldest brother Zheng Xiaolong to participate in the preparation of the film, Zhang Yimou, who could not stay idle, went to star in the film again in 1986.
In 1986, invited by director Wu Tianming, Zhang Yimou participated in the filming of the movie "Old Well".
This is the first time zhang Yimou has starred in a work as an actor, and the last time.
After filming the work "Old Well", Zhang Yimou did not star in any more works.
However, although Zhang Yimou has not starred in any of the works, it is clear that such a work shot in the 80s has completely proved his acting skills.
With the movie "Old Well", Zhang Yimou won the Three Golden Film Emperors.
The 8th Golden Rooster Awards for Chinese Cinema best actor, the 11th Hundred Flowers Awards for Popular Film for Best Actor, and the 2nd Tokyo International Film Festival for Best Actor.
After winning the three gold medals, according to the fame at that time, Zhang Yimou could completely change from a photographer to an actor and quickly accumulate wealth.
But the filmmaker, who loves to direct works, refused, giving up the high-priced film remuneration he could get at his fingertips, choosing to return to basics and continue to pay behind the scenes.
Three
In 1987, Zhang Yimou joined hands with Gong Li to create a stunning masterpiece "Red Sorghum".
This is the first film work prepared by Zhang Yimou, and it is also the first act of his cooperation with Gong Li.
With this film, Zhang Yimou not only won the Golden Bear Award for Best Film at the 38th Berlin International Film Festival, but also consolidated his position as a talented director.
After the great success of "Red Sorghum", Zhang Yimou continued to work hard and pulled Gong Li to create many classic works.
In the meantime, the movies "The Big Red Lantern Hangs High" and "Qiu Ju Fights the Lawsuit" also truly reflect the face of Rural China in the 1960s.
Here Zhang Yimou is pulling his "Mou Girl" is indulging in retro literary and artistic shooting, and Feng Xiaogang, who relies on high emotional intelligence to climb the magnate, also handed over a satisfactory answer sheet.
In the same year, when Zhang Yimou was busy with his directing career, with the help of his eldest brother Zheng Xiaolong, Feng Xiaogang met his second nobleman, Wang Shuo.
Compared with the eldest brother Zheng Xiaolong, the second brother Wang Shuo has greater use value.
At that time, Wang Shuo was not only a member of the big men in the Beijing circle, but also a talented novelist.
So you can imagine how far the future will be if you climb this noble man.
In order to climb up to this talented and powerful nobleman, Feng Xiaogang did a small job for a long time.
During that time, he not only often photographed Wang Shuo's ass, but also took time to study the works of this big man, hoping to be able to talk at the next party and win the attention of nobles.
Under Feng Xiaogang's blind efforts, Wang Shuo soon noticed him and became friends with him.
At this time, the big brother has it, the friends are also there, and the resources and connections are all owned, and it seems unrealistic not to succeed.
Therefore, in 1991, in Zheng Xiaolong's work "Encounter with Passion", Feng Xiaogang tried to screenwriting for the first time.
Like Zhang Yimou, Feng Xiaogang is also a figure who debuted at the peak.
With this "Encounter with Passion" alone, he won the 11th Golden Rooster Award for Best Screenwriter.
The good brothers won the award, and the strength was recognized.
Wang Shuo, who had the heart to let the good brothers write the work, also exerted his strength, and under his strong recommendation, Feng Xiaogang became one of the editors of the work "The Story of the Editorial Department".
If the movie "Encounter passion" only allows Feng Xiaogang's editing ability to be recognized.
Then the work "The Story of the Editorial Department" can be said to be Feng Xiaogang's popularity all over the country.
After assisting in the filming of the work "Encounter with Passion", Feng Xiaogang continued to mix with his eldest brother and second brother.
During this period, Feng Xiaogang directed and adapted many classic works.
For example, "Never Lose My Love", "A Place of Chicken Feathers", "Party A and Party B".
In the meantime, "Party A and Party B" is the most high-profile film.
Without him, this comedy film completely opened the road of Feng Xiaogang's commercial films, and also allowed him to sit firmly in the position of the originator of the New Year film.
Four
From 1987 to 1999, Zhang Yimou and Feng Xiaogang each had their own glory in the history of Chinese cinema.
Zhang Yimou is brilliant, and his literary and artistic works are really outstanding.
Although the style is more serious, there is no doubt that in the history of the splendid film, such works can give people a kind of spiritual washing.
Feng Xiaogang is brilliant, and his comedy works have high commercial value.
As long as it is the work he is planning, there is rarely a loss of money.
Although compared to Zhang Yimou's works, his films are not very impressive.
1999 was a turning point in the film careers of the two directors.
This year, Zhang Yimou and Gong Li, who had worked together for 12 years, parted ways, and Feng Xiaogang and his second brother Wang Shuo became farther and farther away.
Perhaps the object of cooperation has changed greatly, and the film style of the two has also undergone earth-shaking changes.
Zhang Yimou is no longer entangled in retro literary films, and has changed tracks to chase commercial films.
Feng Xiaogang gave up the previous theatrical commercial films and began to challenge the literary and artistic films that Zhang Yimou was good at.
Five
In 2002, Zhang Yimou made his first commercial film "Hero".
In this work, the strongest and most famous actors in the current showbiz circle are gathered.
For example, Liang Chaowei, such as Jet Li, such as Maggie Cheung, and then such as Chen Daoming and Zhang Ziyi.
The excellent cast and wonderful plot successfully made this commercial film a big fire, winning 250 million yuan in the mainland and US$177 million worldwide.
After the success of the first commercial film "Hero", in 2004, Zhang Yimou was eager to prepare for the film "Ten Faces Ambush".
This film, which integrates the Chinese martial arts style, directly praises Nortel student Zhang Ziyi as an "international chapter"
It also included nine nominations, including nominations for best foreign film at the 62nd American Film Golden Globe Awards and best cinematography at the 77th Academy Awards.
When Zhang Yimou and the new girl Zhang Ziyi cooperated seamlessly, Feng Xiaogang also cooperated with Fan Bingbing, Andy Lau and Rene Zhang on the hit films "Mobile Phone" and "No Thief in the World".
Leaving aside the slightly speechless plot of "Mobile Phone", Feng Xiaogang's work "No Thief in the World" is really outstanding.
It was not only evaluated by many business newspapers as "the most refreshing work of 2004", but also won the Best Adapted Screenplay Award at the 42nd Taiwan Film Golden Horse Awards.
While Zhang Yimou and Feng Xiaogang's transformation path was smooth, in 2006, twists and turns and fences came.
In 2006, Zhang Yimou invited Zhang Yimou, Jay Chou and Gong Li, who had not cooperated for a long time, to star in a work called "The Golden Armor in the City".
A so-called ancient court version of "Thunderstorm".
It is reasonable to say that the director's strength is here, and the actor's strength is not bad.
Not surprisingly, this movie only has the possibility of a big hit.
But who would have thought, because the plot was crossed, and the plot was not connected properly. Very suddenly, the work collapsed.
For the first time, Zhang Yimou tasted being scolded by the audience.
In addition to being angrily scolded by the audience for "making bad movies for making money", the various classic works he has produced in the past seem to be ignored by the public because of the collapse of a play.
Fortunately, Zhang Yimou is powerful in the end.
After the collapse of the movie "Full of Golden Armor", Zhang Yimou quickly won back the reputation with the movies "Jinling Thirteen Chao", "The Love of hawthorn trees", "Return", and "Lu Gang Yan Zhi".
Generally speaking, it is difficult to pull back the wind review by relying on the works in hand.
As long as it is a director who wants to be famous in history, he will no longer dig his own grave to shoot scenes that he is not sure of!
But Zhang Yimou is a special case.
After filming the classic work "Lu Gang Zhi Yan", he went to direct the commercial film "The Great Wall" that he was not familiar with.
For this commercial film, Zhang Yimou has paid more effort.
Not only did it spend 1 billion to prepare for this masterpiece, but it also put foreign movie star Matt. Damon Pull came over and slipped away from the hook.
But even if the cast is so strong, Zhang Yimou's film has not exploded anywhere.
Invest a billion, only earn eleven billion.
Directly laughed at Feng Xiaogang next door to the point of losing his teeth, while schadenfreude and mocking other people's movies, while giving self-respect:
"It seems that I am not far behind!" I make a billion with a billion, and some people make a billion with a billion. ”
When Feng Xiaogang was busy mocking Zhang Yimou's commercial films, his literary and art films were not very good.
Although, when he left his second brother Wang Shuo and mixed with his new friend Huayi Brothers, he spent such a shining time.
But this flash of time did not last long, and soon, it was pulled off the altar by the movies "Private Customization" and "Old Cannon".
When the movie "Private Customization" was just pulled off the altar, the angry Feng Xiaogang also complained about the audience.
Said: "Film critics don't understand movies at all, don't force Lai Lai, shame on people." ”
Perhaps it was this counterattack that gave Feng Xiaogang confidence.
After that, as long as there is a film critic who scares Feng Xiaogang's film, he will always give words to fight back.
Even in one public occasion, he said in public:
"There are so many junk movies on the market now, is it because there are a lot of junk audiences?"
I have to say that Feng Xiaogang is really "gang"!
No one expected that he would dare to scare his parents.
In addition to eating and drinking parents, in 2019, when the movie "I Am Not Pan Jinlian" was released.
Feng Xiaogang also stirred up Wanda Pictures and quarreled with his brother Wang Sicong.
Looking at Feng Xiaogang's appearance of pulling around, he sincerely said that netizens were a little confused.
Generally speaking, if a director wants to prove his creative strength, shouldn't he produce his own excellent work?
So Feng Xiaogang, why do you have to use words to fight back to prove your creative ability!
Six
After diss mocking the film critics of his own work, Feng Xiaogang was also angry.
He vowed to produce a classic literary film.
So, in 2017, with the efforts of him and actor Miao Miao, the work "Fanghua" was born.
At the beginning of the release of "Fanghua", it collided with the new work "The Legend of the Demon Cat" by the big director Chen Kaige.
For these two completely different film and television works, netizens have their own joys.
However, most people still support Feng Xiaogang's "Fanghua".
After the explosive drama "Fanghua" became popular, Feng Xiaogang and actors Yang Caiyu and Huang Xuan cooperated to star in the work "Only Yun Knows".
From the perspective of film genre, "Only Yun Knows" is a typical literary film.
Word-of-mouth box office were a mess, and finally Huayi stock fell sharply, and the bet failed.
Feng Xiaogang compensated Huayi for 168 million yuan,
"Mobile Phone 2" could not be released because of the starring reasons.
Huayi Brothers, which was already losing money, directly doubled its net loss in 2019 by 3 times.
Wang Zhongjun Wang Zhonglei could only rely on selling industries to repay debts.
Huayi's losses are getting bigger and bigger, and it is impossible to invest in making movies for Feng Xiaogang, because of the previous compensation problem, the two parties have also been estranged.
Unlike Feng Xiaogang's retirement, in 2019, Zhang Yimou is still going farther and farther on the road of directing.
Originally, after filming the bad movie "The Great Wall".
Zhang Yimou set aside a period of time for himself to reflect.
During that time, perhaps I realized that I was still suitable for serious literature.
Therefore, after the commercial film, Zhang Yimou ran back to the gift to shoot a literary film.
From 2017 to 2018, Zhang Yimou appointed Two consecutive Xiaohua Guan Xiaotong and Liu Haocun to star in the works "Shadow" and "One Second".
In the meantime, the film and television evaluation of the movie "One Second" is very high.
After pulling back his wind reviews with "One Second", from 2019 to 2021, Zhang Yimou directed the works "On the Cliff" and "Sniper" consecutively.
While busy with his own big movies, Zhang Yimou also took over the responsibility of serving as the general director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and the opening and closing ceremonies of the Winter Paralympic Games, and the official film director of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
It can be said that at the same time that Feng Xiaogang was idle and panicked, Zhang Yimou was busy.
Of course, this busyness is positive and positive.
I believe that if you have a choice, Feng Xiaogang is also willing to be so busy!
But at the end of the day, not everyone is qualified to be so busy.
Only a director who is recognized by the state, recognized by the directors' association, and recognized by the audience can be so busy.
Seven
Looking at the gap between Zhang Yimou and Feng Xiaogang on the road of directing now, you will find that the difference between the two is particularly large.
Before that, there would be a gap between the two.
But this gap is not very large.
But after that, the difference is incredible.
While Feng Xiaogang was idle traveling around, Zhang Yimou was working on national projects.
When Feng Xiaogang was bored because of his idle life, Zhang Yimou was being called "Guoshi" by the audience. ”
When Feng Xiaogang could only lie at home and watch his past works, Zhang Yimou was energetically preparing to shoot his big works in the hope of making a splash.
Therefore, Feng Xiaogang is envious of Zhang Yimou!
Of course, this envy is not shameful.
After all, in terms of strength, Feng Xiaogang should envy Zhang Yimou.
You know, the reason why Feng Xiaogang can mix in the director's class is because of the nobles.
Zhang Yimou, on the other hand, is all based on talent.