In eternally youth-obsessed and -targeting Hollywood, directors have long complained of being “aged out” of the business, judged too old to serve modern audiences’ (or perhaps just studio executives’) tastes despite all willingness to work. Yet outside the commercial mainstream, this seems to be a pretty good era to be a veteran filmmaker. While it used to be that the octogenarian or even septuagenarian behind the camera was a rarity, these days there’s an increasingly large field of talents around the globe who aren’t calling it quits despite advancing well past standard retirement age.
It doesn’t seem so long ago that Zhang Yimou created an unprecedented international splash for mainstream Chinese cinema with his early films