Fifth Generation

The Fifth Generation is a group of Chinese filmmakers who graduated from the Beijing Film Academy after the Cultural Revolution and reshaped Chinese cinema from the 1980s.

Chen Kaige: A Chinese film director whose works include Yellow Earth and Farewell My Concubine. His Yellow Earth helped establish the group’s visual style and international reputation.
Yellow Earth: A 1984 Chinese film directed by Chen Kaige and photographed by Zhang Yimou. Its austere landscapes and unconventional framing became emblematic of the group’s early cinema.
Beijing Film Academy: China’s leading film school, which resumed regular admissions in 1978 after the Cultural Revolution. Its first post-disruption cohorts included the directors who became the Fifth Generation.
Fourth Generation: A cohort of Chinese filmmakers trained before or during the Cultural Revolution who resumed careers afterward. Their return to filmmaking preceded the Fifth Generation’s emergence from the reopened academy.
Zhang Yimou: A Chinese film director and cinematographer known for films including Red Sorghum and Raise the Red Lantern. His cinematography and later directing brought the group’s saturated imagery to wide attention.
One and Eight: A 1983 Chinese film directed by Zhang Junzhao about a soldier imprisoned with criminals during wartime. Its formal experimentation helped introduce the generation’s departure from established studio conventions.
Cultural Revolution: A political campaign in China from 1966 to 1976 that disrupted education, culture, and public life. Its interruption of schooling shaped the cohort’s delayed entry into professional filmmaking.
Sixth Generation: A group of Chinese filmmakers who emerged in the 1990s with independent, often urban-focused films. Their production conditions and contemporary subject matter differ from the Fifth Generation’s studio-based historical cinema.
Tian Zhuangzhuang: A Chinese film director whose films include The Horse Thief and The Blue Kite. His work offered a more ethnographic and politically charged strand of the movement.
The Horse Thief: A 1986 film by Tian Zhuangzhuang about a Tibetan horse thief and his community. Its sparse dialogue and ritual imagery show the group’s turn toward culturally specific settings.

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