2025 · The 7th HIIFF · Masterclass
Huang Wen-ying, Art Director, Costume Designer, Director
In the Chinese-language film industry, Huang Wen-ying is renowned for her delicate and unique visual aesthetics. Her work spans martial arts epics, the cultural ethos of the jianghu, and the world of contemporary consciousness. From The Assassin, The Weary Poet, to Bi Gan's latest work The Wild Age, every world is redefined by her visual creations.
As one of the most representative art directors and costume designers, she has collaborated with internationally acclaimed directors such as Hou Hsiao-hsien, Xu Haofeng, Martin Scorsese, Luc Besson, and Bi Gan, and won recognition at the Asian Film Awards for Flowers of Shanghai and The Assassin. Her visual language is both classical and modern, rigorous yet poetic, making her a key aesthetic driving force for Chinese-language cinema on the world stage.
In recent years, she has stepped into the role of director with the film The God on the Car Roof / Only Love You in mainland China, officially embarking on her own cinematic journey. This Masterclass, titled "Between Three Worlds, Towards One's Own Cinema," will share her creative journey from art direction and costume design to directing. Through behind-the-scenes stories of three films, she will discuss how to reflect characters, eras, and the soul through the interplay of light and shadow.
Through her sharing, the audience will step into the poetic realm behind the scenes of filmmaking, seeing how images are sculpted by time, space, and emotion, and how a creator, after a thirty-year journey, finds her own cinematic language.
Restoring the texture of life in the late Tang Dynasty for The Assassin, utilizing the collection of the National Palace Museum in Taipei for long-term research, and conducting multiple on-site inspections in Uzbekistan and other places to recreate the details of incense art, floral art, and textiles.
“Cultural Purification”
The Yuan Dynasty martial arts film The Weary Poet, directed by Xu Haofeng, had only half a month from receiving the assignment to the start of filming; the costume design broke through traditional period drama conventions.
Serving as the costume designer for The Wild Age, directed by Bi Gan, the film spans a century of Chinese history and is divided into five sensory chapters.
Her directorial debut feature Only Love You stems from family history; she believes her experience as an art director is very helpful to her work as a director.
The core of creating across different styles and eras lies in the persistence in details; she enjoys collaborating with young directors, prioritizing the quality of the script as her primary selection criterion.
