Zhang Junzhao

Biography

Zhang Junzhao (Chinese: 张军钊; October 1952 – 9 June 2018) was a Chinese film director and screenwriter who was mainly active in the 1980s. A graduate of the Beijing Film Academy and a contemporary of acclaimed directors Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and Tian Zhuangzhuang, Zhang Junzhao was a prominent early member of China's Fifth Generation filmmakers. His 1984 film One and Eight is well known as the film that marked the advent of the Fifth Generation, while The Shining Arc (1988) was selected for competition for the Golden St. George award at the 1989 Moscow International Film Festival. Zhang Junzhao was born in October 1952 in Beijing, with ancestral roots in Henan province. He became involved in propaganda plays put on by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution, both as an actor and a director. In 1978 he entered the newly reopened Beijing Film Academy. After graduating in 1982, he and his classmates Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou were assigned to Guangxi Film Studio in Nanning.