Zhang Lü (Chinese: å¼ å¾‹; Korean: ìž¥ë¥ ; born May 30, 1962) is a
Korean-Chinese filmmaker. Zhang was originally a novelist before
embarking on a career in cinema. His arthouse films have mostly
focused on the disenfranchised, particularly ethnic Koreans living in
China; these include Grain in Ear (2006), Desert Dream (2007), Dooman
River (2011), Scenery (2013), and Gyeongju (2014).Zhang Lü is a
third-generation ethnic Korean born in Yanbian, Jilin, China in 1962.
He first became known in his native land China as a respected author
of novels and short stories, such as Cicada Chirping Afternoon
(1986).Zhang was then a 38-year-old professor of Chinese Literature at
Yanbian University when an argument with a film director friend led
him to take a bet that "anyone can make a film." With no technical
training but with the support of film industry friends such as Lee
Chang-dong, he set out to direct his first short film Eleven (2001), a
fourteen-minute nearly silent vignette of an eleven-year-old boy's
encounter with a group of soccer players his own age set in a
post-industrial wasteland. Eleven was invited to compete at the 58th
Venice International Film Festival and several other international
film festivals, and this unexpected success made Zhang decide to
become a full-time filmmaker. He later said, "Conveying emotion
through text and through images are two very different things. If I
were able to convey my views fully through text, I wouldn't have to
bother with making films, right? I don't like it when I smell some
sort of literature-based narrative in films." [...] "I tell people
that I got divorced from literature and married the cinema."Eleven
paved the way for Zhang's first feature film Tang Poetry, financed
with Korean capital. Shot in 2003 during the SARS epidemic in only
three interior locations to convey the feelings of loneliness and
claustrophobia, it depicts the life of a middle-aged male pickpocket
with a hand tremor. The film's style was influenced by the metrics of
Tang dynasty poetry that prescribe verses of only seven or five
characters.
Korean-Chinese filmmaker. Zhang was originally a novelist before
embarking on a career in cinema. His arthouse films have mostly
focused on the disenfranchised, particularly ethnic Koreans living in
China; these include Grain in Ear (2006), Desert Dream (2007), Dooman
River (2011), Scenery (2013), and Gyeongju (2014).Zhang Lü is a
third-generation ethnic Korean born in Yanbian, Jilin, China in 1962.
He first became known in his native land China as a respected author
of novels and short stories, such as Cicada Chirping Afternoon
(1986).Zhang was then a 38-year-old professor of Chinese Literature at
Yanbian University when an argument with a film director friend led
him to take a bet that "anyone can make a film." With no technical
training but with the support of film industry friends such as Lee
Chang-dong, he set out to direct his first short film Eleven (2001), a
fourteen-minute nearly silent vignette of an eleven-year-old boy's
encounter with a group of soccer players his own age set in a
post-industrial wasteland. Eleven was invited to compete at the 58th
Venice International Film Festival and several other international
film festivals, and this unexpected success made Zhang decide to
become a full-time filmmaker. He later said, "Conveying emotion
through text and through images are two very different things. If I
were able to convey my views fully through text, I wouldn't have to
bother with making films, right? I don't like it when I smell some
sort of literature-based narrative in films." [...] "I tell people
that I got divorced from literature and married the cinema."Eleven
paved the way for Zhang's first feature film Tang Poetry, financed
with Korean capital. Shot in 2003 during the SARS epidemic in only
three interior locations to convey the feelings of loneliness and
claustrophobia, it depicts the life of a middle-aged male pickpocket
with a hand tremor. The film's style was influenced by the metrics of
Tang dynasty poetry that prescribe verses of only seven or five
characters.
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