Camera

Zhao Fei

Born May 1, 1961 · Xi'an，Shanxi Province，China (age 65)

Zhao Fei (simplified Chinese: 赵非; traditional Chinese: 趙非, Mandarin pronunciation: [ʈʂɑ̂u̯ féi̯]; born 1961) is a Chinese cinematographer and frequent collaborator to many directors of China's so-called "fifth generation" film movement. Zhao also served as Woody Allen's director of photography for three films between 1998 and 2001.

Known For

Let the Bullets Fly

Let the Bullets Fly · 2010

Let the Bullets Fly

MovieActionComedy

When circumstances force an outlaw to impersonate a county governor and clean up a corrupt town, the Robin Hood figure finds himself in a showdown with the local godfather.

Raise the Red Lantern

Raise the Red Lantern · 1991

Raise the Red Lantern

In 1920s China, 19-year-old Songlian becomes a concubine of a powerful lord and is forced to compete with his three wives for the privileges gained.

Sweet and Lowdown

Sweet and Lowdown · 1999

Sweet and Lowdown

MovieComedyDrama

In the 1930s, jazz guitarist Emmet Ray idolizes Django Reinhardt, faces gangsters and falls in love with a mute woman.

Small Time Crooks

Small Time Crooks · 2000

Small Time Crooks

MovieComedyCrime

A loser of a crook and his wife strike it rich when a botched bank job's cover business becomes a spectacular success.

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion · 2001

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion

MovieComedyCrime

CW Briggs is a veteran insurance investigator, with many successes. Betty Ann Fitzgerald is a new employee in the company he works for, with the task of reorganizing the office. They don't like each other - or at least that's what they think. During a night out with the rest of the office employees, they go to watch Voltan, a magician who secretly hypnotizes both of them.

Warriors of Heaven and Earth

Warriors of Heaven and Earth · 2003

Warriors of Heaven and Earth

MovieDramaAction

A Chinese emissary is sent to the Gobi desert to execute a renegade soldier. When a caravan transporting a Buddhist monk and a valuable treasure is threatened by thieves, however, the two warriors might unite to protect the travelers.

The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death

The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death · 2024

The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death

The movie focuses on the battle of Cheolwon, where the 63rd Army of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (CPVA) was ordered to enter the battlefield of Cheolwon in May 1951, just after a month-long battle, to fight against four divisions of the United Nations Army (UNA). The volunteers fought with bloodshed and finally brought the enemy to the negotiation table.

The Crossing I

The Crossing I · 2014

At the end of the World War II and the middle of the Chinese Revolution, three couples from different backgrounds with different nationalities flee from China to the island of Taiwan.

Filmography

Sort

Let the Bullets Fly

Let the Bullets Fly · 2010

Let the Bullets Fly

MovieActionComedy

When circumstances force an outlaw to impersonate a county governor and clean up a corrupt town, the Robin Hood figure finds himself in a showdown with the local godfather.

Director of Photography

Raise the Red Lantern

Raise the Red Lantern · 1991

Raise the Red Lantern

In 1920s China, 19-year-old Songlian becomes a concubine of a powerful lord and is forced to compete with his three wives for the privileges gained.

Director of Photography

Sweet and Lowdown

Sweet and Lowdown · 1999

Sweet and Lowdown

MovieComedyDrama

In the 1930s, jazz guitarist Emmet Ray idolizes Django Reinhardt, faces gangsters and falls in love with a mute woman.

Director of Photography

Small Time Crooks

Small Time Crooks · 2000

Small Time Crooks

MovieComedyCrime

A loser of a crook and his wife strike it rich when a botched bank job's cover business becomes a spectacular success.

Director of Photography

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion · 2001

The Curse of the Jade Scorpion

MovieComedyCrime

CW Briggs is a veteran insurance investigator, with many successes. Betty Ann Fitzgerald is a new employee in the company he works for, with the task of reorganizing the office. They don't like each other - or at least that's what they think. During a night out with the rest of the office employees, they go to watch Voltan, a magician who secretly hypnotizes both of them.

Director of Photography

Warriors of Heaven and Earth

Warriors of Heaven and Earth · 2003

Warriors of Heaven and Earth

MovieDramaAction

A Chinese emissary is sent to the Gobi desert to execute a renegade soldier. When a caravan transporting a Buddhist monk and a valuable treasure is threatened by thieves, however, the two warriors might unite to protect the travelers.

Director of Photography

The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death

The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death · 2024

The Volunteers: The Battle of Life and Death

The movie focuses on the battle of Cheolwon, where the 63rd Army of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army (CPVA) was ordered to enter the battlefield of Cheolwon in May 1951, just after a month-long battle, to fight against four divisions of the United Nations Army (UNA). The volunteers fought with bloodshed and finally brought the enemy to the negotiation table.

Director of Photography

The Crossing I

The Crossing I · 2014

At the end of the World War II and the middle of the Chinese Revolution, three couples from different backgrounds with different nationalities flee from China to the island of Taiwan.

Director of Photography

The Emperor and the Assassin

The Emperor and the Assassin · 1998

The Emperor and the Assassin

MovieHistoryDrama

In pre-unified China, the King of Qin sends his concubine to a rival kingdom to produce an assassin for a political plot, but as the king's cruelty mounts she finds her loyalty faltering.

Director of Photography

The Volunteers: To the War

The Volunteers: To the War · 2023

The Volunteers: To the War

In the early days of the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, New China was faced with "internal and external troubles". Since the outbreak of the Korean Civil War, the U.S. military has repeatedly provoked the border between China and North Korea, and civilians have been brutally bombed. In order to maintain the hard-won peace and long-term stability for generations, in October 1950, the Chinese People's Volunteers entered North Korea, and the "Resist US Aid Korea" war kicked off.

Director of Photography

The Crossing II

The Crossing II · 2015

The Crossing II

MovieDramaHistory

A story of three couples and their intertwining love stories set in 1940s Taiwan and Shanghai, centered around the 1949 sinking of Taiping.

Director of Photography

The Sun Also Rises

The Sun Also Rises · 2007

The Sun Also Rises

MovieFantasyDrama

A polyptych of interconnected stories in different time-zones, shifting between a Yunnan village, a campus, and the Gobi Desert.

Director of Photography

The Assassin

The Assassin · 1993

MovieActionFantasy

A poor farmer who loves a woman he is forbidden to associate with becomes a hardened mercenary, and is hired by a local warlord as a professional assassin. Years later, he runs into his old love and begins to question his violent past

Director of Photography

Cell Phone

Cell Phone · 2003

MovieDramaComedy

Follows the story of a television host who's hidden so much personal and secret information on his phone, that when it gets out, catastrophe strikes.

Director of Photography

The Left Ear

The Left Ear · 2015

MovieDramaRomance

Li Er, a 17 year old girl who has great difficulty hearing out of her left ear, is rejected after confessing her love to a boy, Xu yi. Instead the boy is in love with Li Bala, a girl who is in fact in love with Zhang Yang. Li Er befriends Li Bala, who dies due to an accident. As the movie progresses, Li Er overcomes her hatred of Zhang Yang, whom she blamed for Li Bala's death.

Director of Photography

Be There or Be Square

Be There or Be Square · 1998

Be There or Be Square

MovieComedyRomance

The story of two Chinese immigrants' struggles in America. Yuan Liu has lived in LA for years. He has no stable job, no family and lives in a wagon. He seems content with his life until the day he meets Qing Li, a woman with the big "American dream".

Director of Photography

Guns and Roses

Guns and Roses · 2012

The film tells the story of a group of Chinese youths who robbed a bank of the “Manchuguo”, a puppet regime formed in China’s northeastern provinces by Japanese invaders in the 1930s and ’40s.

Director of Photography

Dragon Town Story

Dragon Town Story · 1997

Dragon Town Story

MovieDramaRomance

A woman works with an assassin to get revenge upon the man who murdered her family nine years earlier.

Director of Photography

Li Lianying, the Imperial Eunuch

Li Lianying, the Imperial Eunuch · 1991

Li Lianying, the Imperial Eunuch

MovieDramaHistory

Set against the backdrop of the Boxer Rebellion and the takeover of the Forbidden City by foreign powers, the empress-dowager Cixi and her notorious chief eunuch fight a losing battle to preserve their corrupt and autocratic regime.

Director of Photography

Samsara

Samsara · 1988

After Shi Ba -- a privileged youth turned con artist -- meets a fetching dancer named Yu Jing, he decides to go straight and leave his life of crime behind him. But his checkered past will come back to haunt Shi Ba when a blackmailer comes calling.

Director of Photography

The Horse Thief

The Horse Thief · 1986

The Horse Thief

Devout Buddhists, Norbu and Dolma live with their young son Tashi in a clan in Tibet. Norbu is a highwayman. After Norbu is charged with stealing from the temple, he and his family are banished. Impoverished and marginalized, they can do little when their beloved son becomes ill. Tashi dies of a fever. After a second son is born, Norbu focuses his every action on keeping this child alive, seeking re-admission to the clan for his wife and child, then risking all to save them from isolation and starvation in winter.

Director of Photography

The Sun Has Ears

The Sun Has Ears · 1996

The Sun Has Ears

When impoverished young bride Youyou (Zhang) collapses from hunger at the door of handsome buccaneer Pan Hao (You Yong), he immediately decides to have her, much to the chagrin of his current squeeze, Widow Ma (Jiang Yanqiang).

Director of Photography

Driverless

Driverless · 2010

MovieDramaRomance

Driverless is about three love stories that are intertwined by a car accident. It deals with several relationship issues, including the infamous seven year itch, reuniting with a first love, one night stands, an old husband with a young wife, and extramarital affairs.

Director of Photography

A Dead Man Visits the Living

A Dead Man Visits the Living · 1988

A Dead Man Visits the Living

MovieRomanceDrama

A man is murdered on a bus for trying to stop a pickpocket; no one lifts a finger to help him. He returns as a ghost and questions the empathy of the onlookers.

Director of Photography