Wen Shu Sairen
The last time the female directors who chopped the waves in the domestic market, they still remember Zhao Wei ("To the Youth We Will Eventually Pass Away") and Xue Xiaolu ("Beijing Meets Seattle").
From a numerical point of view, the first two, compared with Jia Ling, who is a cross-talk actor, is a small witch. According to Jia Ling's master, Feng Gong, women did not hold up half of the sky, but more than half of the sky.
This is first of all a time when it belongs to Jia Ling, but it also gives us another detailed outlet for the female community among Chinese directors.
Director Jiang Wen's "One Step Away" is the best film in China with a high degree of fan color. It is itself based on China's first feature film, Yan Ruisheng. Wu Liu, played by Zhou Yun, is a heavy fan.
Speculate, that may be the first generation of female directors in Jiang Wen's heart, she must have money and leisure, can effortlessly catch up with all the fashion, has an extremely strong interest in foreign things, and has a certain male style.
One Step Away (2014)
It was futile to really put Takeroku in the seat with the director. According to the loose examination, China's first female director was Wu Jinxia, who was born in San Francisco, and her family did not need to say, her father opened a film company for her, making her a director at the age of 21. She never married, and legend has it that she never even had a boyfriend. Usually loves men's clothing, with short hair, insiders call her "Brother Xia".
Wu Jinxia
In the impression of many people, Xia Ge, who is cool and compelling, is a woman who is more feminine than a man. She directed nearly 11 films, the most interesting of which was "Women's World", which also had a name called "Thirty-Six Female Tiangang", that is, it was starred by 36 female stars at that time, and there was no male included, all female protagonists.
Woman's World (1939)
This also attracted the attention of Wu Jinxia to the radical feminist groups at the time, but the gender politics revealed in her films appeared in a joking posture, and even brought out a slightly brutal taste, but it was also a unique youthful atmosphere for exclusive women.
The focus of Wu Jinxia's work is in Hong Kong, and she has a personal relationship with Li Haiquan, a famous uglier in Cantonese opera. When directing "Golden Gate Girl", li Haiquan's baby boy who was just three months old was used as a baby girl.
When the baby boy grew up, he was called Bruce Lee, which was supposed to be the first movie the kung fu superstar starred in.
The Golden Gate Girl (1941)
Perhaps because of the emergence of Wu Jinxia, in Hong Kong, some female filmmakers have also joined the ranks of directors, such as Yin Hailing, Chen Juanjuan, Gao Baoshu, and Arbitrary (his father is Ren Pengnian, the director of "Yan Ruisheng"). These people have all had acting experience, and the works they directed should be said to be less significant in the history of film.
Wang Ping, known as the first female director in New China, has left a glorious page in the history of Chinese cinema. Wang Ping was also the most important director in China from 1949 to 1966. In that era when he did not love red clothes and loved arms, Wang Ping was in the Bayi Film Studio, which paid the most attention to ideological output, but he could always offer the jade veil that people were more eager to see in addition to the collision of soldiers.
Wang Ping
Wang Ping's "The Story of LiuBao" almost became a banned film, which was a rare love in the war in that era. At that time, there was no war film, as peaceful and peaceful as this film, like prose poetry spreading the fragrance of people's hearts, and now there is no. The girl looked at the handsome male soldier through the window, and the reunion of the two was a water and sky, and the song was rippling.
The Story of Fort Willow (1958)
And "The Eternal Wave" is still a spy film that has not yet been surpassed. It directly influenced the later popular spy drama "Latent". The focus of the whole film is not the avoidance of suspicion after the usual spy war films, but the parents between the cups of water to make the dance on the tip of the knife extraordinarily everyday. Fan the wind, wipe the sweat, hand over the water, the day is over. Day after day, such a machine seems to have vitality because of the sudden dangers that have arrived. The love treatment of these two films, Wang Ping is written in the way of white drawing, a few strokes, it will refresh people's hearts, this is really rare.
The Eternal Wave (1958)
Chinese female directors, like male directors, have to tell how individuals have been reshaped in the course of history. And Wang Ping can't help but show that human nature stretches in the clear light, and flickers under the oil lamp in the bucket room. This is done even better by the pioneer of the fourth generation of directors, Zhang Nunxin.
Zhang Nunxin (right)
Zhang Nunxin is a very comprehensive film talent, who understands both teaching and acting (the stern female coach in "Sand Gull"), and understands theory. She co-authored "On the Modernization of Film Language" with her husband Li Tuo, which shook the entire film industry and made extremely important conceptual preparations for the comprehensive rise of the fourth generation.
The youth trilogy she directed, "Sand Gull", "Youth Festival", "Beijing, You Early" all have their own wonderful, each with its own fragrance, each embracing its own god. The protagonists are all women, all trying to keep up with the beat of the times, but they all consciously or unconsciously embark on a more enticing rhythm outside the times.
"Sand Gull" is tragic, "Youth Festival" is light, and "Beijing, You Are Early" is rambling. A master is more able than a protagonist to obtain a self-determination that has nothing to do with rewards, and more and more to find a place to wander.
Festival of Youth (1985)
Personally, Zhang Nunxin is the best director in the fourth generation and the best female director in China. Her films can give me a glimpse of those slow changes, and let me appreciate those constant, unmoved winds and people.
It's like the ruins of the Yuanmingyuan, like the aphrodisiac whistle of Xishuangbanna, and like the bus that is ready to leave in the early morning. And an active woman is in the middle of this, looking at this world that has to be fresh, and also longing for this world to settle down and look at her well.
There are very few directors who look at the noise of people's hearts like Zhang Nunxin, which is a kind of vitality when they are awakened, but they are still ready to sleep, which is not enough for the outside world, a small dilemma.
She also does not depict the fall of the ideal, but to show the realization of the ideal, no one congratulates you, this person includes yourself. But a new force grows in you, so that you can't come and go, and you trot all the way to an unknowable tomorrow.
Beijing, You're Early (1990)
There are two other female directors in the fourth generation, and they are also very good. First of all, Huang Shuqin, whose father is the famous theater and film director Huang Zuolin.
Yellow Shuqin
Huang Shuqin's films do not have a fixed style and do not adhere to the genre. She is best known for two TV series, "Siege of the City" and "Debt", the former with a very digestible humanistic style, and the latter being a realistic legacy of history. Both will forever be recorded in the history of Chinese television dramas.
The Debt of Iniquity (1994)
Her best-known work is "Man, Ghost, Love", which was praised by Dai Jinhua as the only film with female consciousness in China, and I have seen Teacher Dai's relevant papers, but I still can't get the gist of it. This film can refer to "Overlord Farewell", one is a male and female phase, and the other is a female male phase. Just by turning the stage into a soul wandering, "Man, Ghost, Love" has a more silent sense of tearing.
Man, Ghost, Love (1981)
My personal favorite is Childhood Friends, one of the best of all the films depicting Yan'an during the revolutionary period (the other is Zhang Side). The film is through the eyes of a child to see a love triangle that has neither time nor courage, but is exceptionally timeless, and then stop by to see those humble "sacrifices".
Lu Liping died silently one winter. When a female soldier was about to give birth, she met a male soldier who had boldly shown love, and the male soldier laboriously carried her all the way to the boat. I've never seen a foggy Yellow River ferry like that, it's beautiful. Some things are in obscurity, while some things are more clear.
Childhood Friends (1984)
The other is Wang Haowei, who was born in Chongqing but is one of the most proficient directors in Beijing.
Wang Haowei (right)
I've met her, who is often serious, but has repeatedly made one of the best comedy films in China, such as "Look at This Family" and "Xizhao Street".
She is also the director who is the most able to use Liu Xiaoqing, who is like a small beast in her films, but does not make people wary. She surprised you, and after a while, you realized that it was a joy.
Wang Haowei prefers women who have large nerves and no one around. Liu Xiaoqing is the best at playing such a role. Wang Haowei wants to use delicate techniques to show their unpolished side, that is, refuse to be shaped.
The most fascinating thing about Wang Haowei's movie is the fireworks full of fireworks. She also asked Yoji Yamada for advice on this. She humbly accepted Yoji Yamada's suggestion, so the Kyo-yun that accompanied the pigeon whistle was particularly long.
Look at The Family (1979)
These three female directors of the fourth generation all have extremely charming moments of silence. Of course, the fourth generation of male directors also has this characteristic, but the feminine word will still do a little. The women in their films are very tough and chaotic. At first, I felt that I had a goal in life, but then I didn't achieve it, and I could put it aside. They are often looking and probing. As if full of curiosity, really got some secrets, and some interest.
It is these ordinary women, such as our female tablemates, female neighbors, female colleagues, let us be willing to breathe with them, go to the scars and forget the pain, and listen to the next call of fate. The men in their films are also very interesting, inevitably to have some wood, see women will blush, never know how to express, but this is exactly the best expression.
Sunset Street (1983)
When the fifth generation of female directors go to show men, it is a different flavor, it is different, and they must deceive themselves before deceiving people. It's sinister and it's pathetic. This is quite concentrated in the films of Li Shaohong and Liu Miaomiao. In short, not as cute or reliable as the men in the fourth generation of directors.
Dangerous and helpless men may also be a reflection of the symptoms of the times. Men have a lot of complaints about the times, so the requirements of the times for men have become more and more intense. They have self-doubts at every turn, so it is difficult for them to be patient and attentive to women, and if they are, it is only a strategy, or courtesy. I would say that the fifth generation of female directors is actually more interested in showing men than the fourth generation of female directors.
From this point of view, Ning Ying, who served as an assistant director for Bertolucci, has achieved the most outstanding results.
Ning Ying
"Finding Fun" outside the system and "Police Story" inside the system are absolute man dramas. It is a group of men in irritable emotions, trying to shake hands with reality and make peace, and in the end, they will not be able to. Ning Ying photographed them like a group of social animals, observing the most primitive ups and downs of their lives without the slightest emotion, and embodying the closeness between them and public order and good customs with an alienated attitude.
The fifth generation of female directors actually have their own coldness, but none of them are as expressionless as Ning Ying, so their hearts are like water.
The Find (1993)
The male narrative of the fifth generation of female directors sometimes uses the presence of women as a cover, which is also very interesting. Taking Li Shaohong's "Red Pink" as an example, the protagonist is definitely not the two prostitutes who are not interested in Congliang, but their benefactors, Lao Pu, played by Wang Zhiwen. The woman forced him to live an unbearable life, and even embarked on the road of crime.
Red Pink (1995)
Another film directed by Li Shaohong, "Forty Not Confused", the man who only wants to wash photos in the basement, can manage his own light and shadow, but he can't clean up his own time.
Forty Not Confused (1992)
Liu Miaomiao's "Family Affairs" and "Family Ugly", there is no difference between family affairs and family ugly, men are fierce, they are dragging the skin bag of vice decay, squeezing the last bits of their lives in the name of killing.
The Ugly Family (1994)
Throughout the entire fifth generation of directors, most of the iconic films are murderous, all close relatives can kill, one is not forgiven, including themselves. The fifth generation of female directors have opened their eyes to the black hole of history and the darkness of human nature, and with their unique courage and talent.
Peng Xiaolian seems to be an exception, she seems not to want to join this chorus, she loves to shake off the chicken feathers about Shanghai, happy to tell the old Wang Xie Tang Qianyan, flying into the home of ordinary people on the sea legend.
Peng Xiaolian
However, the men in her films are also humble enough, in short, they are not likable, especially the role played by Sun Haiying in "Pretend No Feelings" is the most prominent, with a bad temper, a small heart, and obvious self-centered and self-aware. It was Peng Xiaolian's best movie, a song about the physical drift of women. When you are in a bad mood, Shanghai seems to be very small; when you are no longer in a good mood and toss and turn, you come to the Bund, and when the river breeze blows, you will feel that Shanghai is really big.
Pretending not to feel (2002)
Forget, they are also particularly good at filming children, Huang Shuqin's "I Also Have a Father", Wang Junzheng's "Reply to Heaven", Peng Xiaolian's "Me and My Classmates", and the children's scenes in the aforementioned "Forty Not Confused" are all very good.
I Have a Dad Too (1996)
But the best is Liu Miaomiao's "Miscellaneous Mouths", which I see as the best children's film in China, which is about a less likable child, who prefers to drill into the pile of people, and always does not know what to say and what not to say.
But he remembers to eat or not to fight, to eat a trench, not to grow a wisdom. He unknowingly established his own independent kingdom, and then God bid farewell to his imperfect childhood. What the film ultimately wants to express is that when you learn to speak, it is also when your right to speak begins to fall.
After the fifth generation, there are fewer good directors in China, and there are naturally not many good female directors. A more interesting phenomenon is that female directors after 2000 are more enthusiastic about women's issues themselves than their predecessors. Among them, Li Yu is more significant, her films emphasize the trapping of women, but the reason for the trapping has been unclear.
Guanyin Mountain (2010)
In recent years, Teng Congcong and Yang Li Na have also set their sights on women themselves, and they can also have their own strengths, which is particularly gratifying, and they can be more secretive inside the true body. Yin Lichuan, who is a writer by birth, does not have so many worries when expressing the plight of women. Her "Cowherd Weaver Girl" borrows the quasi-3P picture of two women serving a man together, but instead tells the pride of women who do not want to be exposed to people. In a witty way, she not only gives us a glimpse of the possibilities of life, but also very naughtily dissolves them one by one.
The Cowherd Weaver Girl (2008)
The latest female director to emerge, I am more optimistic about Li Dongmei.
Her "Mom and Seven Days" has an unusual composure, which also shows that women are trapped, but they bring out a biological-like doom. Detached from the criticism of pan-social forms, and with a desolate and majestic manner, to recognize the unexpected arrival of gender tragedies. The death shown in the film has a very strong sense of oppression, but it is also like the silent mountain wilderness, plain and empty.
Mom and Seven Days (2020)
When I turned my attention to Taiwanese films, I found that there did not seem to be a single female general in the Taiwan New Film Movement. Wang Xiaodi, as one of the most important screenwriters of Taiwan's new films, only picked up the guide tube after the vigorous film movement and basically stopped, but the results were not outstanding. Others include Zhou Meiling, who focuses on women's relations, Chen Yushan, who adheres to the tradition of idol dramas, Zheng Fenfen, who trespasses on small and fresh themes, as well as Chen Xinyi and Chen Yingrong.
The first Taiwanese female director I knew was Liu Lili, who mainly filmed Qiong Yao dramas, but I was really young at the time, and I was not cold to all the love scenes. The female director we are most familiar with is naturally Zhang Aijia, who is an actor. Her films look full of literature and art, and the entertainment that she actually has to pay is not weak. Of course, her most proud disciple, Rene Liu, who also debuted as a singer and actor, is also like this.
Her "Later Us" made her the most appealing female director in Taiwan (Ang Lee's status in the United States, it is not easy to make a more counterpoint comparison). Both of them love to talk about floating women, and they are better at empathy, but sometimes, they will lose a piece of authenticity.
The Later Us (2018)
Acting and directing is one of the most distinctive professional inertias in the film industry. On our side are Zhao Wei, Xu Jinglei, Yu Feihong, Jiang Wenli, Zhang Xinyi, including jia ling now. I've always heard that Hao Lei also has plans for this. People like Yang Caini, Wu Jiali and Wu Junru in Hong Kong have all been directors, but they have not brought about a lasting impact.
When it comes to female directors in Hong Kong, the first person to blurt out is definitely Hui Anhua.
Personally, I think her films with big historical feelings are general, and "Running to the Fury Sea" is slightly better. And her daily scans can be carved and decorated naturally, spreading out the afterglow in the afterglow, and harvesting the vicissitudes in the indifference.
Her "Woman, Forty" is full of earthly hilarity, but the coolness that life will eventually come to the shore will always come uninvited. But as soon as the line "Life is really enjoyable" came out, it actually cast a layer of illusory color on the whole film. After Qiao Hong said this, he boasted that his selfish and old daughter was a beauty. It was like smoke dissipated. He was feeding invisible pigeons before he died, and after his death, the pigeons flew across the sky. Returning to the light is so comfortable, washing away the disobedience of this life and not wanting to obey, so that the living can spend the rest of their time safely.
Woman, Forty (1995)
Although Luo Zhuoyao and Zhang Wanting do not fully belong to the array of hong Kong's new wave. But the former's cool and cunning, the latter's dilution and peace, still with a full humanistic style and a slightly modern concept first, so that their films are also self-contained. Like Xu Anhua, Zhang Aijia, and Rene Liu. They all love to tell the story of the woman in the drift, the heart is like a wood that is not gray, and the body is like a boat that is not tied. Whether a man is a moored harbor is less important than a more vast life.
I especially want to mention Lin Aihua, who is now one of Chen Kexin's important screenwriters. Her two most recent works, "In Search of Jay Chou" and "Plastic Surgery Diary", are both extensive. But her first work" "12 Nights" made my eyes shine, in short, she used a very honest attitude, but also quite subtle, to explore the uncontrollable mistakes and confusion of women in love.
12 Nights (2000)
Love in that movie, like a gorgeous spiritual package, Lin Aihua tore it off little by little. After everything is exposed, it is even more foggy and lost. Love comes from doubt and returns to the puzzle. Some people also regard this film as a political film, suggesting that Hong Kong people are confused about the current situation, not only the old does not go, the new does not come, it is as simple as that.
Quite hastily taking stock of China's female directors in the past hundred years, rough places, hanging a leak, is certainly inevitable. What I want to say most is that Chinese female directors are rare in the world film industry in terms of quantity and quality.
When Chinese female directors are at their best, they do not use gender attributes to seduce people, nor do they rely on people with gender disadvantages, and they do not shout the slogan of only women.
They know that women will have a day when flowers will float freely, and they know that men will do the same. The world treats everyone equally.