Wuershan (''
simplified Chinese
Simplification, Simplify, or Simplified may refer to:
Mathematics
Simplification is the process of replacing a mathematical expression by an equivalent one, that is simpler (usually shorter), for example
* Simplification of algebraic expressions, ...
'': 乌尔善) is a Chinese
film director
A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...
who was born in
Hohhot
Hohhot,; abbreviated zh, c=呼市, p=Hūshì, labels=no formerly known as Kweisui, is the capital of Inner Mongolia in the north of the People's Republic of China, serving as the region's administrative, economic and cultural center.''The Ne ...
,
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...
on June 10, 1972. He is of
Mongol
The Mongols ( mn, Монголчууд, , , ; ; russian: Монголы) are an East Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia, Inner Mongolia in China and the Buryatia Republic of the Russian Federation. The Mongols are the principal member of ...
ethnicity.
Wuershan's first feature film was ''
Soap Opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
'' (2004), for which he was awarded the
FIPRESCI Award
The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for Fédération Internationale de la PRESse CInématographique) is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world fo ...
at the
Pusan International Film Festival
The Busan International Film Festival (BIFF, previously Pusan International Film Festival, PIFF), held annually in Haeundae-gu, Busan (''also'' Pusan), South Korea, is one of the most significant film festivals in Asia. The first festi ...
. He went on to direct blockbusters ''
The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman
''The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman'' () is a 2010 action comedy film directed by Wuershan. The film is made up of three inter-twining stories.
The first about a butcher who takes revenge on a swordsman for humiliation, the second is about a ...
'' (2010), ''
Painted Skin: The Resurrection'' (2012), and ''
Mojin: The Lost Legend'' (2015), for which he was awarded the
Hundred Flowers Award
The Hundred Flowers Awards () are, together with the Golden Rooster Awards, the most prestigious film awards honouring the best in Chinese cinema, as well as Hong Kong cinema and the Cinema of Taiwan, they are classified as the Chinese equivale ...
for
Best Director Best Director is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards. It may refer to:
Film awards
* AACTA Award for Best Direction
* Academy Award for Best Director
* BA ...
at the
33rd Hundred Flowers Awards The 33rd Hundred Flowers Awards
The Hundred Flowers Awards () are, together with the Golden Rooster Awards, the most prestigious film awards honouring the best in Chinese cinema, as well as Hong Kong cinema and the Cinema of Taiwan, they are cl ...
. In 2019, he started on the production of the ''
Fengshen Trilogy''.
Early life
Wuershan was born in
Hohhot
Hohhot,; abbreviated zh, c=呼市, p=Hūshì, labels=no formerly known as Kweisui, is the capital of Inner Mongolia in the north of the People's Republic of China, serving as the region's administrative, economic and cultural center.''The Ne ...
,
Inner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia, officially the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Its border includes most of the length of China's border with the country of Mongolia. Inner Mongolia also accounts for a ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, in 1972.
At 16 he enrolled to a high school affiliated to China's
Central Academy of Fine Arts
The Central Academy of Fine Arts or CAFA is an art academy under the direct charge of the Ministry of Education of China. The Manila Bulletin calls the school "China’s most prestigious and renowned art academy". It is one of the most selectiv ...
, and in 1992 he was admitted to the
oil painting
Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of ...
department of the latter. However, he dropped out the following year, and in 1994 started studying directing at the
Beijing Film Academy
Beijing Film Academy (BFA; ) is a coeducational state-run higher education institution in Beijing, China. The film school is the largest institution specializing in the tertiary education for film and television production in Asia. The academy h ...
, graduating from the latter in 1998.
He started his career by making TV commercials,
becoming successful in the business.
He continued to work as a TV commercials director, video artist and avant-garde artist until his debut in movie industry with the 2004 film ''
Soap Opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
''.
Career
Wuershan film debut came with ''
Soap Opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
'' (2004). For this movie, he won the
FIPRESCI Award
The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for Fédération Internationale de la PRESse CInématographique) is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world fo ...
at the
Pusan International Film Festival
The Busan International Film Festival (BIFF, previously Pusan International Film Festival, PIFF), held annually in Haeundae-gu, Busan (''also'' Pusan), South Korea, is one of the most significant film festivals in Asia. The first festi ...
in 2004.
The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman
On September 16, 2010, Wuershan's second feature film debuted at the
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...
. ''
The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman
''The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman'' () is a 2010 action comedy film directed by Wuershan. The film is made up of three inter-twining stories.
The first about a butcher who takes revenge on a swordsman for humiliation, the second is about a ...
'' premiered on September 16, 2010, at the Toronto International Film Festival in the Midnight Madness section marking the first time a film from China has been shown at this sidebar.
It received mixed reviews from critics. The film was also screened at the
Pusan Film Festival
The Busan International Film Festival (BIFF, previously Pusan International Film Festival, PIFF), held annually in Haeundae-gu, Busan (''also'' Pusan), South Korea, is one of the most significant film festivals in Asia. The first festi ...
. It was presented by
Doug Liman
Douglas Eric Liman (; born July 24, 1965) is an American film director and producer. He is known for directing the films '' Swingers'' (1996), '' Go'' (1999), '' The Bourne Identity'' (2002), '' Mr. & Mrs. Smith'' (2005), ''Jumper'' (2008), ''Edg ...
at the festival. It was released theatrically on 17 March 2011 in Southeast Asia, North America, Australia and New Zealand simultaneously. Described as an avant-garde martial arts comedy,
the film is split into three stories titled "Desire", "Vengeance" and "Greed," and it follows the "journey of a mystical blade as it passes through the hands of three ambitious men."
Painted Skin: The Resurrection
Wuershan's third feature film, ''
Painted Skin: The Resurrection'', was released on June 28, 2012. The film, which has an 83% approval rating on aggregate site
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, and is described as a "deliciously nutty love story,"
tells about Xiaowei, a malevolent fox spirit, who consumes men's hearts to preserve her beauty and is looking for a heart that must be freely given to her in order to become human, while lovesick Princess Jing, who wears a mask to conceal her scarred face, looks for true love. She winds up deciding to exchange her pure heart for the fox daemon's beauty.
With a total box office gross of $115.07 million, the film became the highest grossing domestic film in China beating the previous record holder ''
Let the Bullets Fly
''Let the Bullets Fly'' is a 2010 Chinese action comedy film written and directed by Jiang Wen, based on a story by Ma Shitu. The film is set in Sichuan during the 1920s when the bandit Zhang (Jiang Wen) descends upon a town posing as its new gove ...
''.
Mojin: The Lost Legend
His fourth feature film was ''
Mojin: The Lost Legend'', an
action
Action may refer to:
* Action (narrative), a literary mode
* Action fiction, a type of genre fiction
* Action game, a genre of video game
Film
* Action film, a genre of film
* ''Action'' (1921 film), a film by John Ford
* ''Action'' (1980 fil ...
adventure
An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...
thriller film
Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...
based on the novel ''
Ghost Blows Out the Light
''Gui Chui Deng (Ghost Blows Out the Light)'' (), also referred to as ''Candle in the Tomb'', is a fantasy novel series written by (天下霸唱) about a team of grave robbers seeking hidden treasure, with the first book published online in March ...
''. It was released on December 18, 2015.
The film won several awards, including Best Visual Effects at the
Beijing College Student Film Festival
Beijing College Student Film Festival, first held in 1993, is an annual event organized by Beijing Normal University and Beijing Municipal Bureau of Radio, Film and Television. It is held in April or May, and is one of the biggest film festivals i ...
and the
Golden Horse Awards
The Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards () is a film festival and awards ceremony held annually in Taiwan. It was founded in 1962 by the Government Information Office of the Republic of China (ROC) in Taiwan. The awards ceremony is us ...
, and Wuershan was named
Best Director Best Director is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards. It may refer to:
Film awards
* AACTA Award for Best Direction
* Academy Award for Best Director
* BA ...
at the
33rd Hundred Flowers Awards The 33rd Hundred Flowers Awards
The Hundred Flowers Awards () are, together with the Golden Rooster Awards, the most prestigious film awards honouring the best in Chinese cinema, as well as Hong Kong cinema and the Cinema of Taiwan, they are cl ...
. The movie however received mixed reviews from western critics.
The film was a huge box-office success, grossing over US$278 million from a budget of 37.
Fengshen Trilogy
In 2019, he began on the production on the ''
Fengshen Trilogy''. Sometimes dubbed as "China’s ‘
Lord of the Rings
''The Lord of the Rings'' is an epic high-fantasy novel by English author and scholar J. R. R. Tolkien. Set in Middle-earth, intended to be Earth at some time in the distant past, the story began as a sequel to Tolkien's 1937 children's b ...
’",
it is the "most ambitious and expensive production in Chinese history."
The production has a crew of over two thousands employees, and a budget of $445 million over three films.
The movie is a retelling of ''
Investiture of the Gods
''The Investiture of the Gods'', also known by its Chinese names () and is a 16th-century Chinese novel and one of the major vernacular Chinese works in the gods and demons (''shenmo'') genre written during the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Cons ...
'', a 16th-century Chinese novel and one of the major
vernacular Chinese
Written vernacular Chinese, also known as Baihua () or Huawen (), is the forms of written Chinese based on the varieties of Chinese spoken throughout China, in contrast to Classical Chinese, the written standard used during imperial China up to ...
works in the
gods-and-demons (''shenmo'') genre written during the
Ming dynasty
The Ming dynasty (), officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties in Chinese history, imperial dynasty of China, ruling from 1368 to 1644 following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming dynasty was the last ort ...
(1368–1644).
The novel combines elements of history, folklore, mythology, legends and fantasy, with a story set in the era of the decline of the
Shang dynasty
The Shang dynasty (), also known as the Yin dynasty (), was a Chinese royal dynasty founded by Tang of Shang (Cheng Tang) that ruled in the Yellow River valley in the second millennium BC, traditionally succeeding the Xia dynasty and ...
(1600–1046 BC) and the rise of the
Zhou dynasty
The Zhou dynasty ( ; Old Chinese ( B&S): *''tiw'') was a royal dynasty of China that followed the Shang dynasty. Having lasted 789 years, the Zhou dynasty was the longest dynastic regime in Chinese history. The military control of China by th ...
(1046–256 BC). It tells about the downfall of King Zhou, the Shang Dynasty's last ruler. He becomes a tyrant after having been "bewitched by a fox spirit posing as his concubine." An epic battle "rages to defeat him, involving gods, demons and other supernatural beings."
Barrie M. Osborne, producer of ''
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King'', was involved in the production.
Filmography
* ''
Soap Opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
'' (肥皂剧), 2004
* ''
The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman
''The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman'' () is a 2010 action comedy film directed by Wuershan. The film is made up of three inter-twining stories.
The first about a butcher who takes revenge on a swordsman for humiliation, the second is about a ...
'' (刀见笑), 2010
* ''
Painted Skin: The Resurrection'' (画皮II), 2012
* ''
Mojin: The Lost Legend'' (寻龙诀), 2015
Awards and nominations
References
External links
*
{{authority control
1972 births
Chinese film directors
Living people
People from Hohhot
Chinese people of Mongolian descent