Wu Tianming (; December 5, 1939 – March 4, 2014) was a Chinese film director and producer who was considered one of the leading "Fourth Generation" directors. Biography Wu was born in Sanyuan County, Shaanxi Province, China on December 5, 1939. In 1960, aged twenty, he was accepted into a training class for film acting run by the Xi’an Film Studio. There were sixteen state-run studios in China at that time, and this was the closest to his home in Sanyuan, Shaanxi Province. He was put on the studio's payroll and had some bit-parts in the studio's productions of the early 1960s. In 1966, Mao's Cultural Revolution stopped productions in the studios. In 1974–1976, the last three years of the Cultural Revolution, Wu studied at the partly re-opened Beijing Film Academy, majoring in Film Directing. In 1982, Wu co-directed two features at Xi’an with his friend Teng Wenji. Afterwards Wu made his debut as a solo director with River Without Buoys, whose commercial success led to Wu Tianming's appointment as head of the Xi'an Film Studio in 1983. Wu was the youngest studio head in the PRC at 45 years old In 1984, Wu directed his movie Life (1984), attacking what he defined as the three main problems in Chinese society: having to accept assigned posts rather than choose one's own employment, the practices of nepotism and favoritism, and “unhealthy tendencies in the Party.” With his film "Life", Wu began a policy of producing movies with deep roots in the regions around Xi’an. Wu insisted on producing a number of experimental films, called "tansuo pian" to raise aesthetic and conceptual standards in China without regard to their commercial performance. Among these films were Tian Zhuangzhuang's The Horse Thief (Daoma Zei, 1986), shot in Tibet and Gansu, and Chen Kaige's King of the Children (Haizi Wang, 1987), shot in Yunnan. By employing what became known as “Fifth Generation” directors like Tian and Chen and allowing them to make non-commercial films, Wu found himself in conflict with Wu Yigong at the Shanghai Film Studio, who regularly spoke out against “elitist” films which the mass audience couldn't understand or relate to. Wu Tianming prevailed due to his commercial success and the international acclaim the tansuo pian films garnered at international film festivals. In 1987, Wu made a deal with the cinematographer of his film, Zhang Yimou. Wu would give Zhang his directorial debut