Director's rocky road to fame paved with blood, sweat and tears

Thirty years ago, when Zhang Yimou left his textile factory job in western Shaanxi and applied to the Beijing Film Academy, his chances of getting in were slim. If it were not for an impressive collection of his photos, he would almost certainly have been turned down because of his age - 27.

Now an acclaimed director, Zhang is frequently invited back to the academy to speak to students who dream of emulating his success. During one speech, he said filmmaking was 'a process of overcoming difficulties, a process of compromise, as well as a process of persistence'.

What he said may well reflect his artistic career - the constant struggle between compromise and persistence under the autocratic mainland political system.

One of the 'fifth generation' of directors, Zhang's experience was quite different from that of contemporaries such as Chen Kaige and Tian Zhuangzhuang. Chen and Tian were both children of artistic families, while Zhang had to endure discrimination and tough spells in the countryside.

Born in Xian, Zhang suffered prejudice in his childhood because of his questionable family background - his father served in the Kuomintang army. During the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, Zhang was among the 30 million youngsters who were sent to the countryside. Between 1968 and 1978, he was first a peasant and then a textile factory worker in Xianyang city.

At the factory, he developed an interest in photography and sold his own blood to buy his first made-in-China Seagull camera. Still, at this stage his dream remained being a publicity official instead of a factory labourer.

For many young people, whose lives and education were so badly interrupted, 1978 was an important year as the college entrance exam was restored. Zhang, then 27, took a bold step to change his fate. After the academy rejected him due to an age limit, he wrote to the head of the Ministry of Culture for an exception.