2025 | Historic Berlinale Debuts
Hong gaoliang (Red Sorghum) - Zhang Yimou

43th Berlinale, 1993: Danny DeVito, whose film Hoffa is selected for the Competition, in conversation with Zhang Yimou, who is a member of the International Jury at the Berlinale this year. In the middle, actress Gong Li, the leading actress in Hong gaoliang and numerous other films by Zhang Yimou
The surprise is like a thunderclap in the Zoo Palast when, on February 23, 1988, the International Jury awards the Golden Bear to a debut film from China: Hong gaoliang (Red Sorghum) by Zhang Yimou. The director, who was considered only to have an outside chance, previously worked as a cinematographer for Chen Kaige. Now here he is, captivating the jury as a first-time director with a bloody and merciless ballad, set in China in the late 1920s. With Hong gaoliang, Zhang Yimou conjures an expressive and beguiling colour palette on screen in a film that combines impressive cinematography with the energy of an iconoclast determined to tell stories from a new perspective.

Star portrait of Zhang Yimou at the Berlinale 2000, where Wo de fu qin mu qin is selected for the Competition
The 18-year-old Jiu’er (Gong Li) is to be forcibly married to the 50-year-old Li, owner of a liquor distillery. As she is being carried to her groom in a sedan chair past a field of red sorghum, she is attacked, and saved by Yu, one of the bearers. Jiu’er falls in love with her rescuer, and from then on the two meet secretly in the same field of red sorghum. Shortly before the wedding, the bridegroom Li disappears without a trace. Jiu’er takes over his distillery and marries Yu. Nine years later, the two are raising a son together when the Japanese army suddenly appears in the area ...
The triumph of Hong gaoliang at the Berlinale sends a clear signal: Chinese cinema is stepping into the spotlight. This is the first time a Chinese filmmaker wins the main award at a European A-festival – and with a story in which a young woman rebels against tradition and authority. Zhang Yimou himself was compelled into forced labour in the provinces when he was young. Now, China is in a phase of awakening, yet this award is controversial in Zhang Yimou’s homeland which is in the midst of an economic boom but also riven by political tensions.
With Hong gaoliang, Zhang Yimou catapults himself into being the most influential member of the “Fifth Generation”. Strongly shaped by the Cultural Revolution (1966 to 1976), this generation begins to have a lasting impact on Chinese cinema from the mid-1980s onwards: both in form (inspired by Italian Neorealism) and content – and numerous awards at international festivals follow. Until the mid-1990s, Zhang Yimou’s major works such as Ju Dou (1990), Dà hóng dēnglóng gāogāo guà (Raise the Red Lantern, 1991) and Huozhe (To Live, 1994) are censored in China. This changes in 1998 when he is granted permission to stage Puccini’s opera “Turandot” in the Forbidden City. Zhang Yimou also demonstrates an ability to change himself as he develops from being an arthouse director into becoming a master of large-scale, opulent historical epics, and kung fu films like Ying xiong (Hero, 2009).

Christian Bale and Zhang at the Photo Call for Jin líng Shi San Chai at the Berlinale 2012
After Hong Gaoliang, Zhang Yimou regularly returns to Berlin. His films are selected for the Competition four times and four more are presented there out of competition, with others featuring in the Generation and Retrospective sections. His Competition films are: Wo de fu qin mu qin (The Road Home, 1999), for which he wins the Jury Grand Prix – Silver Bear; Xingfu Shiguang (Happy Times, 2000); Ying xiong (Hero, 2002); and Jin líng Shi San Chai (The Flowers of War, 2011), starring Christian Bale.