Zhang Lu

Biography

Zhang Lü (Chinese: 张律; pinyin: Zhāng Lǜ; Korean: 장률; born May 30, 1962; Yanbian, Jilin) is a Korean-Chinese filmmaker. Zhang was originally a novelist before embarking on a career in cinema. His arthouse films have mostly focused on the disenfranchised, particularly ethnic Koreans living in China; these include Grain in Ear (2006), Desert Dream (2007), Dooman River (2011), Scenery (2013), and Gyeongju (2014). Zhang Lü is a third-generation ethnic Korean born in Yanbian, Jilin, China in 1962. He first became known in his native land China as a respected author of novels and short stories, such as Cicada Chirping Afternoon (1986). Zhang moved to South Korea in 2012, and began teaching at Yonsei University. Zhang was then a 38-year-old professor of Chinese Literature at Yanbian University when an argument with a film director friend led him to take a bet that "anyone can make a film." With no technical training but with the support of film industry friends such as Lee Chang-dong, he set out to direct his first short film Eleven (2001), a fourteen-minute nearly silent vignette of an eleven-year-old boy's encounter with a group of soccer players his own age set in a post-industrial wa…

Directed

1. A Quiet Dream (2016) — Director
2. Gyeongju (2014) — Director
3. Ode to the Goose (2018) — Director
4. Fukuoka (2020) — Director
5. The Shadowless Tower (2023) — Director
6. Love and... (2015) — Director
7. Dooman River (2010) — Director
8. Yanagawa (2022) — Director
9. Desert Dream (2007) — Director
10. Iri (2008) — Director
11. Grain in Ear (2005) — Director
12. Chongqing (2008) — Director
13. Scenery (2013) — Director
14. Tang Poetry (2003) — Director
15. Eleven (2000) — Director
16. Mothertongue (2025) — Director
17. Strangers (2013) — Director
18. Over There (2013) — Director
19. Gloaming in Luomu (2025) — Director