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Tian Zhuangzhuang's earlier films, including The Horse Thief (盗马贼), On Hunting Ground (猎场札撒) were well received and put him in the category of "ethnic minority" film directors. However, after making The Blue Kite (蓝风筝), which dealt with the Cultural Revolution era, he was forced to stop making films for ten years. He headed back to the Beijing Film Academy, his Alma mater, where he remains a professor.

Tian's new film, The Warrior and the Wolf (狼灾记) is based on a short story by Japanese writer Yasushi Inoue (井上靖), part of the collection Tunhuang, named after China's western region.

Yasushi Inoue wrote from a deep interest in China and its ancient history, creating fiction that stemmed from his knowledge of the country. He also participated in national level Sino-Japanese events. Taiwanese filmmaker Hou Hsiao-Hsien (侯孝贤) suggested The Warrior and the Wolf to Tian Zhuangzhuang, but it took ten years to complete his thought processes on the film; it wasn't political like The Blue Kite, but it was erotic. The protagonists, a war general of the Warring States period, and an ethnic minority widow, engage in seven days of sexual passion until they turn into wolves.

Time Weekly interviewed Tian and wrote about the film before its release last month and ran an interview with Tian, in which he talked about the commercial aspect of film in China and the film industry as a kind of mafia.

Not only was The Warrior and the Wolf discussed, but so was Tian's position as one of the least commercial directors in China and whether this was undermined by his new film.

The interview is translated below.

Time Weekly: You have constantly talked about your “changing directions” but the actors and the storyline of The Warrior and The Wolf feels a little like a commercial film, how do you see this drop between the production and the audience?
Tian Zhuangzhuang: The ideas of the person making the films and those watching the films are different, the former is about making films in a very professional way. Filmmakers have to keep their individuality as much as possible within the confines of the profession, examples are Zhang Yimou’s Hero and Jia Zhangke’s Still Life, these two films are completely different, but both directors were very professional, so investors will approve, and the market will also approve. If Jia Zhangke used the budget for House of Flying Daggers to make Still Life then it’s obvious that the money is dirty money, but if Zhang Yimou used the money for Still Life to make House of Flying Daggers, I think he'd only be able to make a knock-off version. The profession of an investor is to find the best combination for attracting an audience, complete the film within the budget and then realize anticipations in the market. So Old Jiang (Jiang Zhiqiang 江志强) set out the team and actors for The Warrior and the Wolf from the position of an investor; he has his own ideas.

TW: You once said that “whatever the subject matter, if I do it I can't make it commercial.” Won’t investors get nervous?
Tian: Actually I was too simple in my discussions about commercialism, I was simplifying too much. Commercialism is something that can be professionalized, and this
kind of “professionalization” can have many, many forms. If you dissected Hollywood's commercial films, it depicts emotions, history, and inspiration. If we analyzed carefully it’s easy to see that there aren’t too many commercial factors there, and there isn’t a lot of technical skill, for example, in The Bridges of Madison Country, Pulp Fiction: how could they be counted as commercial films? They’re so against the norm! There aren’t any huge stars, or a structure, but why did so many people watch it? Why did it sell so well?