Movies by Zhou Dongyu

Better Days
A bullied teenage girl forms an unlikely friendship with a mysterious young man who protects her from her assailants, while she copes with the pressures of her final examinations.

Born to Fly
A talented trainee pilot is given the opportunity to virtually test the latest fighter jet, which pushes him to his limits.

The Breaking Ice
In cold wintry Yanji, a city on China's northern border, young urbanite Haofeng, visiting from Shanghai, feels lost and adrift. By chance, he goes on a tour led by Nana, a charming tour guide who instantly fascinates him. She introduces him to Xiao, a personable but frustrated restaurant worker. The three bond quickly over a drunken weekend. Confronting their individual traumas, their frozen desires slowly thaw as they seek to liberate themselves from an icy world.

Embrace Again
A series of interconnected stories, set against the backdrop of the early days of the pandemic. Here, individual souls realize the world is changing, sometimes yielding heartbreak, sometimes yielding happiness, always leading to a deeper understanding of their fellow human beings. From finding love, to connecting through music, heroes emerge, each contributing in small ways to a very new world around them, however dangerous.

Us and Them
Ten years ago, on a train home during the busy Spring Festival travel period, fate brings Xiaoxiao and Jianqing together. Like many young couples, they meet, fall in love, and strive to make it work, but eventually, the harsh realities of life make them drift apart. Ten years later, they run into each other again. Will they make the most of this second chance and rekindle what they once lost?

Youth China hits headlines

The Year of the Everlasting Storm
Featuring seven stories from seven auteurs from around the world, the film chronicles this unprecedented moment in time, and is a true love letter to the power of cinema and its storytellers.

SoulMate
The films spans two decades as the story unfolds in a series of flashbacks that begin when Qiyue and Ansheng were just thirteen. The two became inseparable until they met a boy who ended up tearing their lives apart.

Never Said Goodbye
Junhao declares to go to Sicily to learn opera and ends the relationship with his fiancée, Xiaoyou. In disbelief, she determines to learn the truth behind his sudden decision. Lee Joon-gi has teamed up with Lin for his first Chinese film.

Run for Love
A romantic anthology with five episodes featuring five love stories in Japan, United States, Norway, the Island of Saipan, and the one in Rjukan Norway, where the sun is brought down where the can't shine by large mirrors.

Everybody's Fine
When all four of his children cancel their yearly visits, a widower travels to the far corners of the country to see them and discovers the hidden sides of their lives.

Tainted Love
Following a woman’s search for truth after being cheated in a romance scam.

The Palace
In Qing Dynasty, Chen Xiang and Liuli became maids and friends in the imperial palace. Liuli wanted to be famous whereas Chen Xiang just wanted to live a normal life. Liuli attempted to change her life by knowing the prince, even at the cost of betraying Chen Xiang.

Shanghai Noir
Fan Ruyi, a detective, finds himself framed after getting a top secret mission. Along the way he meets a blind performer and a powerful warlord's daughter that further complicates his quest to clear his name.

Kung Fu Monster
In the waning years of the Ming Dynasty, the Bruneian Empire offers a rare creature to the nation as a gift. Ocean, a member of the Imperial Secret Police, has been tasked to tame the beast. Though the furry beast appears ferocious on the outside, Ocean discovers that it is kind by nature. Not wanting to turn the beast into a killing machine on the battlefield, Ocean secretly releases the beast into the wild and elopes with Frigid, the daughter of a man executed on false charges.

Ode to the Spring
This film tells five independent and intertwined stories, presenting the anti-epidemic life with laughter and tears from the point of view of doctors, patients, volunteers in Hubei, grassroots staff and ordinary people. They pay tribute to the "ordinary heroes" in the epidemic and pass on the endless force of "spring".

Animal World
Backed into a corner by mounting debts, a youth agrees to submit himself to a high stakes game of chance in international waters aboard a disused warship.

Breakup Buddies
Recently cuckolded and reeling from a messy divorce, a hapless former singer hits the road - and the bar - with his all-too-helpful best bud, in this hilarious romantic comedy.

Art College 1994
In the 1990s, a group of students on the campus of the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts are pursuing their studies and preparing to face the world. China is opening up to the West and the students’ lives are a tangle of love stories and friendships, artistic research, ideals and ambitions brought about by new influences. Caught between tradition and modernity, they have to decide who they want to become.