Tai Chi, Weight-bearing Film

The name of director Zhang Yimou has being one of the hottest points in the filed of film and cultural critics for many years. No matter being praised or criticized, Zhang's works and its creation, with their continuous effects over Chinese people, become an interesting cultural phenomenon for the researchers.Instead of previous theoretic supposition, the article tries to analysis Zhang Yimou's film making from the perspective of culture under the setting of China's contemporary society. Through reviewing the development of China's contemporary film making, the article sees both Zhang's contribution to China's film industry, and the limitations of his works, which make him critical position in the field and a hot topic for years. It is Zhang's changing styles, suspicious foreign awards, the special cultural implication in his films, and his creation principle of"market-above-all" that raises people's disputations.The first part of the article checks the dominant characters of "Zhang Yimou Phenomenon" as the basis of the latter parts. The second part analyzes Zhang's works according to the inner law of film industry, emphasizing his contribution to the modernization of China's film industry. The third and fourth parts discusses the outer elements the film-making by introducing the features of domestic and foreign audiences, and explore the way he gets profits by catering to his audience.From the beginning, Zhang yimou insists his individual film expression, which is enlightening at first, later becoming his strategy to earn box office. From an artist to a cultural businessman, Zhang keeps adjusting his strategies up to the changes of cultural context, from which we can follow the track of contemporary China's growth. Nevertheless, changing always accompanies with pains and disputations, even reproaches, which at the same time become a perfect starting point for our research.