China

From the founding of the People’s Republic of China to the cultural revolution, most filmmakers made films from a political perspective. The film industry entered a long depressed period due to political issues.

Film production began to recover in the 1980s, when China opened up to the outside world and the political atmosphere was relaxed. At that time, Kaige Chen, Yimou Zhang, Xiaogang Feng, Zhuangzhuang Tian, and other so-called fifth generation directors used new film language to express their relationship with the society. Their strong personal style and bold artistic pursuit became the symbol of Chinese films in the 1980s.

Then a group of young people make films with different styles. Besides, their film themes mostly involve in humanity care and social issues. They have won awards repeatedly in international film festivals. People also call the films they make “underground films” or “indie films”. Representatives are Zhangke Jia, Xiaoshuai Wang, Yang Zhang, etc.. They are also known as the sixth generation directors.

Then, the economic grows rapidly and the censorship system is still strict. Most Chinese films thus put more emphasis on entertainment and the so-called blockbuster era comes. Many of these blockbusters have achieved huge box office success on the mainland, but not all of them are popular among overseas audiences.

Orient Indie Films is still exploring the taste of overseas audiences. We will try to let you watch the kind of Chinese documentaries & indie movies you would enjoy online. We also welcome your feedback.

Note: There may be other kinds of Chinese content such as TV series or web series in this attribute.

Watch Chinese documentaries and indie movies online with English subtitles: