Edward Yang

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Edward Yang (Chinese: 楊德昌, pinyin: Yáng Déchāng; born November 6, 1947), along with Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Tsai Ming Liang, is one of the leading filmmakers and artists of the Taiwanese New Wave and Taiwanese Cinema. He has won the Best Director Award at Cannes for his 2000 film Yi yi ("A One and a Two"), and has also been honored with many other accolades from other prominent international film festivals.

Edward Yang was born in Shanghai in 1947, he grew up in Taipei, Taiwan, and later studying Electrical Engineering in Taiwan, enrolling in the graduate program at the University of Florida, where he received his Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering / Computer Science in 1974. During this time and briefly afterwards, Yang worked at the Center for Informatics Research. Yang always had a great interest in film ever since he was a child, but put away his aspirations in order to pursue a career in the high-tech industry. Also, a brief enrollment at USC Film School after graduating with his M.S.E.E. convinced him that the world of film was not for him - he thought it was too commercial. Hence, he went to Seattle to work in microcomputers and defense software.

While working in Seattle, Yang came across a piece by Werner Herzog entitled Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972). This encounter rekindled Yang's passion for film and introduced him to a wide range of classics in world and European cinema. Yang was particularly inspired by the films of Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni (Antonioni's influence has shown up in some of Yang's later works). Yang eventually returned to Taiwan to write the script for and serve as a production aide on a Hong Kong TV Movie, The Winter of 1905 (1981). After directing a series of television shows, Yang's break came in 1982 when he was asked to direct and write a short, "Desires" (also known as "Expectation") in the seminar Taiwanese New Wave collection In Our Time (1982). The short film is a rather poignant portrayal of a young girl's experiences through puberty.

Yang then followed that short with several of his major works. Although his contemporary Hou Hsiao-Hsien focused more on the countryside, Yang is a poet of the city, analyzing the environment and relationships of urban Taiwan in nearly all his films. His first piece, That Day on the Beach (1983), was a fractured modernist narrative reflecting on couples and families that spliced time-lines. He followed with Taipei Story (1984), where he cast fellow auteur Hou Hsiao-Hsien as the lead, a former Little-League baseball star trying to find his way in Taipei, and The Terrorizers (1986), a complex multi-narrrative urban thriller that reflected on city life and that contained the crime elements and alientation themes of an Antonioni film.

Yang then followed with A Brighter Summer Day (1991), a sprawling examination of youth-teen gangs, 1949 Taiwanese societal developments, and American pop-culture (the title is taken from an Elvis refrain); the film was considered by many critics to be a masterpiece. Yang then followed with the satires A Confucian Confusion (1995) (a multi-character comedy set in urban Taiwan), and Mahjong (1996) (a sharp, incisive reflection of modern urban-Taiwan seen through foreign eyes, which also starred several foreign actors). However, Yang is most likely known for his film, Yi yi (2000) - it is for this film he received the Best Director at Cannes in 2000, among other notable film awards. Yi Yi an epic story about the Jian family seen through three different perspectives: the father NJ (Nien-Jen Wu), the son Yang-Yang (Jonathan Chang), and the daughter, Ting-Ting (Kelly Lee). The three-hour piece starts with a wedding, concludes with a funeral, and contemplates all areas of human life in-between with profound humour, beauty and tragedy.

Yang attempts to examine the struggle between the modern and the traditional in his films, as well as the relationship between business and art, and how greed may corrupt, influence, or effect art. For that reason, many of his films (other than Yi Yi) are extremely difficult to find, since Yang does not consider selling films for money his primary purpose as an artist. He has also collaborated with many of his fellow Taiwanese filmmakers in his films: for instance, in Yi Yi he cast as the lead well-known auteur, novelist, and screenwriter Nien-Jen Wu, director of the award-winning Duo Song, or A Borrowed Life, which Martin Scorsese has cited as one of his favorite works and one of the most influential films of the 90s. He also cast fellow filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien as the lead in his 1984 film, Taipei Story. Yang has also taught Theatre and Film classes at the Taipei National University of the Arts. Several of his students show up in his films as actors/actresses.

Yang's filmmaking style looks at the uncertain future of modernizing Taiwan in an enlightening manner, and his vision is one of the most original operating in world cinema today. His next project, although contrary to his usual style, is the big-budget animated feature The Wind (2007) - which is a collaboration he plans to do with Jackie Chan. The Wind is budgeted at $25 million (U.S.) and co-produced by Jackie Chan as well: the lead character is a young hero with spectacular kung-fu skills, which is modeled on Jackie Chan himself. All the characters will be created by Edward Yang and his team of animators, while the martial arts and action in the film will be supervised by Jackie Chan and his crew.