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Chen Kaige 陈凯歌
Born	August 12, 1952 (1952-08-12) (age 55) Beijing, China
Spouse(s)	Chen Hong
Awards BAFTA Awards Best Foreign Film 1993 Farewell My Concubine

Chen Kaige (simplified Chinese: 陈凯歌; traditional Chinese: 陳凱歌; pinyin: Chén Kǎigē; Wade-Giles: Ch'en K'ai-ko) (born August 12, 1952) is a Chinese film director.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Directorial career 3 Personal life 4 Filmography 4.1 As director 4.2 As actor 4.3 As writer 4.4 As producer 5 Notes 6 See also 7 External links

Chen Kaige was born in Beijing, and grew up with fellow Fifth Generation alumnus Tian Zhuangzhuang as a childhood friend. During the Cultural Revolution, Chen joined the Red Guards. As a teenage member of the Red Guards, Chen, like many other youths, denounced his own father, a fateful decision he eventually learned to regret. Indeed, this period of his life continues to influence much of his work today, notably in the unblinking depictions of the Cultural Revolution in Farewell My Concubine, and in the father-son relationship in Together.^[1] With the end of the Cultural Revolution, Chen, in 1978 joined the Beijing Film Academy, where he graduated from in 1982 as part of the so-called Fifth Generation of Chinese filmmakers.

His films are known for their visual flair and epic storytelling. His first movie, Yellow Earth (1984), is one of his most famous and important works. Together with Zhang Yimou as cinematographer, the film established itself as one of the most important works of Fifth Generation filmmaking; though simple, its powerful visual imagery and elliptical storytelling style strongly influenced contemporary Chinese filmmaking. The Big Parade (1986) and King of Children (1987) expanded on his filmic vocabulary and are often seen together with Yellow Earth as an early informal trilogy.^{[citation needed]} Early in 1989, he did further experimenting in a music video for the song "Do You Believe In Shame" by Duran Duran. Later that year, he made Life on a String, a highly esoteric movie which uses mythical allegory and lush scenery to tell the story of a blind er-hu musician and his student.

His most famous film in the West, Farewell My Concubine (1993), nominated for two Academy Awards and winner of the Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival, follows two Beijing opera stars through decades of change in China during the twentieth century. Chen followed up the unprecedented success of Farewell My Concubine with Temptress Moon (1996), another period drama starring Gong Li. Though it was well received by most critics, it did not achieve the accolades that Concubine did, and many were put off by the film's convoluted plot line. Almost as famous is his The Emperor and the Assassin (1999), an epic involving the legendary King of Qin and the reluctant assassin who aims to kill him. But Kaige doesn't limit himself to epics, in 2002, Chen made his first, and to-date only English-language film, Killing Me Softly, a thriller starring Heather Graham and Joseph Fiennes, though it proved to be both a critical and popular disappointment. His more recent Together (2002) is an intimate film about a young violinist and his father. In 2005, he directed The Promise, which sees him returning to the historical epic.

Chen has also acted in several films, including Bertolucci's The Last Emperor (1987) and his own The Emperor and the Assassin and Together.

In 1996, he married actress Chen Hong.

Year	English Title	Chinese Title	Notes
1984	Yellow Earth	黃土地
1986	The Big Parade	大阅兵
1987	King of Children	孩子王
1991	Life on a String	边走边唱
1993	Farewell My Concubine	霸王别姬	1993 Palme d'Or winner at the Cannes Film Festival
1996	Temptress Moon	风月
1999	The Emperor and the Assassin	荊柯刺秦王
2002	Killing Me Softly
2002	Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet		Segment 100 Flowers Hidden Deep
2002	Together	和你在一起	2002 Silver Seashell for Best Director at the San Sebastián International Film Festival
2005	The Promise	无极
2008	Mei Lanfang	梅兰芳	In production

Year	English Title	Chinese Title	Role	Notes
1987	The Last Emperor		Captain of Imperial Guard
1999	The Emperor and the Assassin	荊柯刺秦王	Lü Buwei
2002	Together	和你在一起	Yu Shifeng

Year	English Title	Chinese Title	Notes
1984	Yellow Earth	黃土地
1991	Life on a String	边走边唱
1996	Temptress Moon	风月
1999	The Emperor and the Assassin	荊柯刺秦王
2002	Together	和你在一起
2005	The Promise	无极

Year	English Title	Chinese Title	Notes
2002	Together	和你在一起

• Cinema of China
• Zhang Yimou
• Tian Zhuangzhuang

• They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?
• Chen Kaige at the Internet Movie Database
• Chen Kaige: "Freedom Above All Else"
• Chen Kaige -- Star of Chinese Fifth-Generation Cinema Directors

v • d • e Films directed by Chen Kaige
Yellow Earth (1984) • The Big Parade (1986) • King of Children (1987) • Life on a String (1991) • Farewell My Concubine (1992) • Temptress Moon (1996) • The Emperor and the Assassin (1999) • Killing Me Softly (2002) • Together (2002) • The Promise (2005) • Mei Lanfang (2008)

v • d • e Cinema of China
	Films A-Z • Films by year • Festivals • Studios Actors • Animation • Directors • Cinematographers • Producers • Screenwriters