As a cinematographer and director, Zhang Yimou is known for breaking conventions of film making, shooting from obscure angles

and focusing on fundamentals of light and sound (Yuankai, 2005, paragraph). Yimou concentrates on the aesthetic properties of the projected images in the interests of undiluted realism, totally rejecting the didacticism and stereotyping that had dominated Chinese film of the previous decade (Yuankai). Chinese films were traditionally very rigid, reflecting doctrinal ideas of filmic expression (Ye, 1999, p. 155 citation?). The Chinese film artist today feels compelled to hold onto some uncontaminated authentic national culture, to search for the wellsprings of local tradition, but on the other hand, while the logic of global entertainment forces the artist to produce homogenous, prepackaged cultural fastfood to be effortlessly consumed by audiences from all over the world (Lu, DATE, p. 232).
There has been a transnational trend in Chinese cinema, emerging as a mode of filmmaking that implies the trespassing of national borders in the processes of investment, production, circulation, and consumption p. 222 Commercial transnational cinema for global entertainment Partakes in mechanisms of Hollywood p. 223 Asian culture becomes a depthless postmodern pastiche p.231 Sheldo Lu Crouching Tiger. Hidden Dragon, Bouncing Angels

Todays china is unlike the west, which is post-industrial and postmodern. People in the west are lonely and disappointed. Todays china is boiling everywhere. Society is filled with instability and demands. P. 161

From the Fifth to the Sixth Generation: An Interview with Zhang Yimou: Tan Ye, 1999

Careful planning went into New Beijing, Great Olympics to ensure that China presented itself to the IOC in a manner suitable for a predominantly Western audience; namely the IOC. For example, the score that accompanied film was composed to be compatible with the heptatonic (seven pitches within the structure of the scale) scale of Western major and minor scales, as opposed to the pentatonic (five pitches within a scale) traditionally associated with Chinese music (Justus& Hustler, 2005; Bo, 2004). The seven of the twelve chromatic tones are often perceived as more stable to the Western ear.
Justus & Hustler, 2005
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/jeffrey.hutsler/files/justus_hutsler_preprint.pdf.