Director's Statement This is a film about love, about family and about the love between the members of a family. A simple village girl falls in love with a primary-school teacher, and their love story unfolds during a particularly difficult period in China's modern history. In the past, artists have tended to deal with this period in a rather serious and analytic way, but I prefer to use more poetic and romantic methods to tell this pure and simple love story. It was just this kind of true love which enabled us to survive such difficult periods in our past. In the film, the elements of history and present-day reality are both grounded in the notion of study. At the same time, the story shows the attitude of country people towards learning - essentially, an attitude of respect and veneration. All of this brings to mind the ways that Chinese people have reacted to 'learning' at two particular moments in our modern history. The first of these was several decades ago. For purely political reasons, learning was cruelly devalued. Intellectuals suffered physical abuse and were made to 'disappear'. The second of these is today. Everyone now understands the principle that knowledge equals power, and yet so many of us are ultra-materialistic and obsessed with money. Learning is once again being devalued. I want to use this film to take a fresh look at these fundamental issues in Chinese society and history. Director Biography Born in Xian, China in 1950, Zhang Yimou was in secondary school when the Cultural Revolution erupted in 1966. His studies were suspended and he was sent to work in the countryside in 1968, first on farms in Shanxi Province for three years, and from 1971 to 1978 as a laborer in a spinning mill. Interested in art and photography from an early age, Zhang pursued a hobby as a still photographer despite the scarcity of books and materials or the chance for his work to be published. When the Beijing Film Academy held a nation-wide examination in 1978, Zhang enrolled and passed with high marks but was rejected because at age 27, he was five years beyond the accepted age limit. After two unsuccessful trips to Beijing to repeal the decision, he wrote directly to the Minister of Culture, pleading his case on the grounds that he had wasted ten years because of the Cultural Revolution. Two months later, he was accepted to study in the Film Academy's Department of Cinematography. After graduating in 1982, he was assigned to work in the Guangxi Film Studio. In 1985 he moved to the Xian Film Studio and worked as a cinematographer on such films as ONE AND THE EIGHT (1982), directed by Zhang Junchao, YELLOW EARTH (1983) and THE BIG PARADE (1985), both directed by Chen Kaige. Zhang made his directorial debut in 1988 with RED SORGHUM; starring Gong Li in her first film role. The film won the Golden Bear Award for Best Picture at the 1989 Berlin Film Festival. He went on to direct several more films with Gong Li including JU DOU (1990) which was nominated for an Oscar in 1991; RAISE THE RED LANTERN (1991) which was awarded the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was also nominated for an Academy Award; THE STORY OF QIU JU (1992) which won the Golden Lion at the 1992 Venice Film Festival; TO LIVE (1994) which won the Grand Jury Prize and Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival; and SHANGHAI TRIAD, which was an Official Selection in Cannes in 1995. KEEP COOL was further premiered in competition in Venice in 1996. In 1997 he directed the Puccini opera TURANDOT in Florence, Italy with Zubin Mehta serving as conductor. In 1998, he and Mehta once again collaborated on a re-staging of the opera in Beijing's Forbidden City. His recent film NOT ONE LESS, the first feature from Sony Pictures Entertainment's Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia venture, was awarded the coveted Golden Lion, the top prize of the Venice Film Festival in 1999.