| | Zhao Fei is one of the key cinematographers of the Chinese film renaissance of the past 15 years. His spectacular work on such films as director Zhang Yimou's Raise the Red Lantern and Tian Zhuangzhuang's The Horse Thief have put him in demand worldwide. Zhao was also the director of photography on three Woody Allen films, Curse of the Jade Scorpion, Small Time Crooks, and Sweet and Lowdown.
Zhao was born in the city of Xian in 1961. He graduated from the department of cinematography of the Beijing Film Academy in 1982 where he studied alongside Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige. Evidence of his unique stylistic achievements can also be found in such Chinese films as Li Lianying: The Imperial Eunuch (1990, directed by Huang Jianxin and starring Jiang Wen), and Chen Kaige's The Emperor and the Assassin (1999). In 1992, the National Society of Film Critics (U.S.), the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association all honored Zhao with awards for best cinematography for Raise the Red Lantern. In 2003, Zhao shot Feng Xiaogang's latest film, Cell Phone, also a Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia film.
Zhao Fei, director of Basement is not the famous cameraman, but the young co-director of Yeshi of Distant Land that premiered at the Shanghai festival in 2009. (FBA) |
