Ranked: the 10 best films of Chinese director Zhang Yimou, from One Second and Hero to Raise the Red Lantern and Red Sorghum

But how do these recent commercial successes compare to the rest of the director’s filmography? Below are our picks of the 10 best films from Zhang’s illustrious career.

10. One Second (2019)

9. Not One Less (1999)

After Not One Less was rejected for the Cannes Film Festival’s official competition, Zhang withdrew the film from the festival completely, and international critics remain divided on whether it is for or against China’s chaotic national education system.

Regardless, Not One Less remains a stirring, documentary-style drama that features a raft of unknown actors. The film is anchored by teenager Wei Minzhi, utterly compelling as an impossibly young substitute teacher who heads to the big city when one of her students goes missing.

8. Shadow (2017)

Deng Chao is brilliant in the dual roles of an ailing military commander and his secret double, or “shadow”, who has unwittingly been volunteered to participate in a duel to the death he can’t possibly win that will determine the fate of the entire kingdom.

7. Keep Cool (1997)

After producing half a dozen stately period dramas with Gong Li, Zhang refreshingly changes pace with Keep Cool, employing handheld cameras and a contemporary rock soundtrack for this high-energy urban comedy.

Even with its state-mandated, tacked-on happy ending, the film excels as a savage satire of China’s new-found capitalist spirit.

6. To Live (1994)

Spanning three tumultuous decades during the mid-20th century, To Live chronicles the changing fortunes of an ordinary family through the Chinese civil war, Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution.

Gong Li and Ge You (who won the best actor prize at Cannes for his performance) play the long-suffering couple who must weather the storm of personal conflicts and seismic changes within the country itself that led to numerous hardships and personal tragedies.

Zhang’s fastidious attention to historical detail has seen the film adopted as a teaching aid overseas.

5. Red Sorghum (1988)

Zhang’s Golden Bear-winning debut delivers a scorched-earth snapshot of China’s rural Shandong province during the Second Sino-Japanese war, awash with the deep reds that would become his visual signature.

Gong Li is utterly bewitching in her first leading role, as a young bride who, after being escorted across the desert by a troop of shaven-headed labourers, takes one (Jiang Wen) as her lover and becomes their de facto boss, after taking charge of her husband’s distillery.

4. Hero (2002)

3. Ju Dou (1990)

In collaboration with co-director Yang Fengliang, Zhang scored China its first Academy Award nomination with this richly detailed, erotically charged drama about a young trophy wife, Ju Dou (Gong Li), who escapes the brutality of her ageing husband in the arms of his adopted nephew (Li Baotian).

Set in a rural silk-dyeing mill, the visual metaphors come thick and fast, as unspooling crimson fabrics signify first the loss of Ju Dou’s virginity, and later the violence that befalls the household.

Originally banned in China, the authorities back-pedalled after its enthusiastic reception overseas.

2. The Story of Qiu Ju (1992)

Gong Li plays a heavily pregnant woman in China’s present-day Shaanxi province, who goes in search of justice after her husband is kicked in the groin by the village chief. Stonewalled by endless bureaucracy, she takes her grievance to increasingly higher tiers of officialdom.

Shot documentary-style on the streets using hidden cameras, Zhang’s comedy drama chronicles the daily life of ordinary citizens under Deng Xiaoping, something rarely seen outside China.

The 5 best films of Gong Li, Chinese actress and Zhang Yimou’s muse

The film won the Golden Lion and Volpi Cup for best actress for Li at Venice.

1. Raise the Red Lantern (1991)

Zhang’s crowning achievement once again stars Gong Li as a young beauty forced into marriage against her will. As the university-educated Songlian, she becomes fourth mistress to a wealthy household in 1920s Pingyao.

Confined to a foreboding walled compound, she must contend with fierce rivalries between the other wives and servants, the only light coming from the red lanterns signifying the imminent attentions of her husband.