One Second review – Zhang Yimou’s censored love letter to cinema reels you in
Grief and pain go to the bone in the Chinese director’s simple, beautifully shot tale about an escaped prisoner and an orphan
February 2022
Winter Olympics: 11 key moments from Beijing 2022 opening ceremony
Spectacular lighting of the Olympic flame follows an understated but beautifully realised opening ceremony
January 2022
China’s go-to English bad guy Kevin Lee: ‘I’m happy to play a villain’
The English actor, who has worked with Chinese directors from Jackie Chan to Zhang Yimou, reveals how a chance meeting at the visa office in Beijing changed his life
April 2020
Film and TV shoots resume in China as corona restrictions ease
Zhang Yimou spy drama and popular TV series among projects reportedly given go-ahead, under strict health guidelines
September 2019
Guy Lodge's streaming and DVDs
Streaming: after the dazzling Shadow, catch up on the best of Zhang Yimou
As the Chinese auteur’s new blockbuster goes online, it’s time to catch up on his greatest hits…
May 2019
My best shot
EC Tong's best photograph: a huge-scale recreation of Chinese harvests past
‘It’s an open-air show about life in Lijiang long ago, using Jade Dragon Snow Mountain as a backdrop’
June 2017
Guy Lodge's streaming and DVDs
Fences; Loving; The Founder; The Student and more – review
Films about the African American experience provide the week’s dramatic highlights
February 2017
The Great Wall review – Zhang Yimou’s damp squib of a gunpowder plot
Matt Damon stars in Zhang Yimou’s laborious fantasy, doing battle with CGI monsters in order to steal gunpowder from Imperial China
December 2016
The Great Wall review – Matt Damon epic delivers spectacle but not soul
Matt Damon on Great Wall whitewashing: 'I didn't take role from Chinese actor'
October 2016
Trailer park
The Great Wall trailer: Matt Damon in the Chinese epic - video
Matt Damon stars the English-language debut from House of the Flying Daggers director Zhang Yimou
August 2016
Zhang Yimou defends controversial casting of Matt Damon in The Great Wall
Director rejects accusations of whitewashing, claiming the fantasy adventure is ‘deeply rooted in Chinese culture’
July 2016
Asian Americans decry 'whitewashed' Great Wall film starring Matt Damon
Matt Damon and The Great Wall: the latest targets of whitewashing on film
October 2015
Meet China's La Peikang, the movie world's most powerful man
The head of China’s biggest film company talks about censorship, increasing artistic quality and box office returns that, he says, will beat America’s by 2017
May 2014
First look review
Cannes 2014 review: Coming Home – 'Sweet but suspect reconciliation romance'
Zhang Yimou's ghost story about a bittersweet homecoming is a metaphor for China's attempts to reconcile itself to the cultural revolution, writes Xan Brooks
February 2014
Chinese director Zhang Yimou set for first western production
The director of Hero, House of Flying Daggers and Raise The Red Lantern is in talks to direct The Parsifal Mosaic, an adaptation of a Robert Ludlum novel
January 2014
Beyond prosperity: the real Chinese dream is reform of the one-child policy
Yuan Ren
Yuan Ren: Film director Zhang Yimou may have been fined for having three children, but he leads where most people in China wish to follow
December 2013
Zhang Yimou could be fined for breaching China's one-child policy
