Soon after Zhang Yuan's first film, Mama, was released in 1990 the State-owned Film Distribution Corporation pulled all prints without explanation. After independently financing, filming and exhibiting Beijing Bastards, Zhang was officially banned from feature production in 1994 by the Chinese government. Other artists were directed not to work with him; companies were ordered not to rent equipment to him. Zhang was branded a disseminator of “spiritual pollution.”1

As the first film since the nationalization of the industry in 1951 to be made entirely outside of the State system, Zhang's Beijing Bastards marks a new movement in Chinese film. Even before the first shot, the audience is warned that a new form of filmmaking has emerged. At the beginning of each Chinese film produced since 1951, two standard