Early career

In 1978, after three years at the studio, Tian applied for entrance in the Beijing Film Academy and was accepted.^[9] However, he was forced to apply to the directing department rather than the cinematography department due to his age.^[9]

While enrolled in the Beijing Film Academy, Tian directed a short student film, Our Corner (1980), based on a short story by Shi Tiesheng. Technically, Our Corner stands as the first film made by Fifth Generation directors.^[10] Years later, Our Corner would continue to be screened by professors at the BFA, introducing Tian to new generations of actors and filmmakers.^[10] As a result of his role in the making of Our Corner, as well as his experience in film before entering school, Tian became a de facto leader among the students of the BFA. They admired not only his natural talent, but also his natural eye for talent and loyalty to his friends, most notably with Hou Yong, who would go on to serve as his cinematographer in many of Tian's early works.^[11]

Upon his graduation in 1982, Tian was assigned to the Beijing Film Studio, though his early career was spent making films for other studios.^[7] These included works for television, as well as the children's film Red Elephant (1982, co-directed with Zhang Jianya and Xie Xiaojing).^[7]

International success

Tian reached international prominence with a pair of experimental films in the mid-1980s, On the Hunting Ground (1985) and The Horse Thief (1986), both about ethnic minorities in China.^[7] Though On the Hunting Ground and The Horse Thief were warmly received abroad — American director Martin Scorsese named The Horse Thief as his favorite film of the 1990s (when The Horse Thief was finally released in the United States)^[12] — neither film succeeded domestically, and both were considered commercial flops.^[5] On the Hunting Ground, for example, sold a meager four prints.^[7] Moreover, both films were criticized by the state and by traditionalists as elitist,^[5] and as pandering to foreign audiences, a charge that Tian vigorously and defiantly accepted, arguing that films were for the sophisticated.^[7] Nevertheless, stung by the rebukes, Tian followed up The Horse Thief with a string of commercially viable films, including Street Players (1987) (his first with the Beijing Film Studio), Rock 'n' Roll Kids (1988), and the historical costume film Li Lianying: The Imperial Eunuch (1991). Tian has since tried to distance himself from these films, often noting that they were part of a journeyman period of his career, where he would sign on to direct existing projects with funding and screenplays already in place.^[13]

In 1998 Tian was honoured with a Prince Claus Award from the Prince Claus Fund, an international culture and development organisation based in Amsterdam.

Domestic criticism

Many of Tian's earlier works had drawn criticism from the Chinese government. For example, television producers refused to screen his short film Our Corner,^[14] and his first major film, September (1984), suffered censor interference with several major scenes left on the cutting room floor.^[15] But Tian would not face serious consequences as a result of his work until his masterpiece, The Blue Kite (1993), a film about the adverse effects of Communist rule from the Hundred Flowers Movement, through the Great Leap Forward, and especially the Cultural Revolution. The film's quiet criticism of Communist policies in the 1950s and 1960s quickly made it a pariah in the Beijing Film Studio, who refused to submit the film for central approval to be sent abroad for post-production.^[16] The Blue Kite reportedly had to be smuggled out of the country by Tian's friends, where it would proceed to screen at foreign film festivals (including the 1993 Cannes Film Festival) without approval. Due to the controversy, Tian resigned from his position in the Beijing Film Studio in March 1994.^[16] A month later, he became one of six filmmakers blacklisted by the government in April 1994, along with Sixth Generation helmers Wang Xiaoshuai, He Jianjun, Zhang Yuan, Zhang's wife, screenwriter Ning Dai, and the documentary filmmaker Wu Wenguang.^[17]

The ban would last officially until 1996,^[18] though Tian would not make another film for several more years. In the interim, he focused on producing, and helped shepherd some of China's new generation of directors with their projects, including his former art director Huo Jianqi (1995's The Winner) and the Sixth Generation mainstays, Lu Xuechang (1996's The Making of Steel in which Tian also acted) and Wang Xiaoshuai (1998's So Close to Paradise, a film that would see its own share of controversy).^[19] Tian's role as mentor for new filmmakers has continued into the 21st century and has seen Tian taking young talent such as Ma Liwen and Ning Hao under his wing.^[20]

Career revival

After a hiatus from directing of some nine years where Tian mainly focused on producing other directors' works, he returned with a critically acclaimed remake of Fei Mu's masterpiece, Spring in a Small Town (1948), entitled Springtime in a Small Town.^[21] As Tian's first film after his ban for The Blue Kite, Springtime was a small, intimate chamber piece with only five roles. To some critics, it reflected Tian's attempt to "play it safe,"^[22] though the film's lack of political message did not dull its critical reception.^[23]

In 2004, Tian returned to his favorite subject of China's ethnic minorities with Delamu, a HD-filmed documentary about peoples in Yunnan and Tibet. Delamu was followed by The Go Master (2006), a biopic of the legendary Chinese Go player, Go Seigen.

The latest work by Tian is a historical epic, The Warrior and the Wolf, filmed in China's remote Xinjiang Autonomous Region. The film was originally to star Tang Wei of Lust, Caution, but Tang was replaced by actress Maggie Q after the former was banned by Chinese authorities.^[24]

As director

As producer and executive producer

As actor