Zhang Jizhong

Besides producing wuxia television series, Zhang has also produced dramas including Farmer Labourer, which exposed the reality of farmer labourer problems at the time and Days of Passion and Spirit, which depicted military life. In 2008, Zhang and Huayi Brothers produced Bing Sheng, a historical television series based on the life of Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War.

Zhang has also built large filming sets and villages in coordination with the development of the local tourism market, and has built 11 "film cities" in Jiangsu, Hebei, Hubei, Guangxi, Guangdong, Zhejiang and Yunnan provinces in China. By negotiating with the local governments, Zhang is able to get local governments to invest in the film cities, which after filming are used to attract revenue from tourists and develop the area. During the filming of Laughing in the Wind and The Legend of the Condor Heroes, 40 million yuan was exempted with 28 million yuan going towards the development of Peach Blossom Island, The investment by the local Zhoushan government was used for the construction of the Peach Blossom Island Arching City, roads, bridges, accommodation, and marketing. The Legend of the Condor Heroes provided promotion for the attraction and tourism for the Peach Blossom Island increased tenfold the year the show was released. In 2008, Peach Blossom Island boasted 900,000 visitors. From negotiating and attracting investment from the local government in Zhejiang, CCTV only invested 30 million yuan in Laughing in the Wind, while enjoying over 70 million yuan in revenue from advertisement and overseas distribution. The Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils film city in Dali was also a success, and cost 110 million yuan to construct, with the park covers an area of 4,500 m².

Zhang was nominated as a candidate for the 2007 Green Chinese Awards, an award ceremony run by the China Environment Culture Promotion Association (CECPA).

Zhang has produced several television series based on Louis Cha's wuxia novels from 2000 to 2006. Laughing in the Wind was the first mainland Chinese adaptation of Cha's The Smiling, Proud Wanderer. The series received mixed reviews because of Zhang's changes to the original story but it still received a very high 19% audience rating. Zhang's second production, The Legend of the Condor Heroes, broadcast in 2003, has been broadcast in Japan since 2005. Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils was broadcast in 2003. The series helped propel Hu Jun and Liu Yifei to fame, who moved on to star in films such as Red Cliff and The Forbidden Kingdom. Backed by Louis Cha, Liu Yifei returned to star in Return of the Condor Heroes. The series also starred and launched the career of Huang Xiaoming. The series received record high ratings when it was first broadcast on the Japanese NECO television station.

After the success of Romance of the Three Kingdoms and The Water Margin, Zhang was appointed a permanent position at CCTV. In 1999, Hong Kong writer Louis Cha told a mainland Chinese newspaper that if CCTV treated an adaptation of one of his novels as seriously as with Romance of the Three Kingdoms and The Water Margin, he would only charge one yuan for the rights. Zhang faxed Cha a reply and the next day, Cha gave me Zhang the permission to choose one from his 14 novels. Zhang bought a frame, carved some patterns on it, inserted a one yuan note and gave it to Cha, who was pleased by the gift and the two have collaborated since then.

After the collapse of the Gang of Four and at the time of the post-1978 economic reform in China, Zhang entered Shanxi's modern drama theatre to become a stage actor. In 1979, a friend took him to a film set at the Shanghai Film Group Corporation, where he was discovered and later cast for the main role One Day When We Were Young, a television drama. In 1983, Zhang met Zhang Shaolin on set, who would become his long-term working partner. Zhang Jizhong and Zhang Shaolin's first television production as producer and director respectively, One Hundred Years of Suffering, won the Five One Award. Some of their other works, including Vice Squad General, The People's Policeman, and Good Man Yan Juqian, all won Flying Goddess awards, one of China's awards for television production.

In Zhang's early life, he and his seven siblings endured many hardships because his father served as a county head for the Kuomintang. In the sixth grade, with the encouragement of one of his school teachers, he applied for the PLA School of Fine Arts, but was rejected after a background check on his father's political status, even though he passed the exams. Before 1972, he also applied to China's Central Academy of Drama and other schools, but his application was still rejected after a political check, despite passing the entrance requirements. During the Cultural Revolution, Zhang was sent to work in the countryside as part of the Down to the Countryside Movement, where he worked in a coal mining town in Shanxi for six years. In 1974, Zhang became a teacher in a coal mining town in Shanxi and taught history, Chinese and biology. He also led a literature and art performing troupe that consisted of coal workers and assumed the roles of director, screenwriter and composer.

Zhang Jizhong (born May 23, 1951) is a Chinese film producer, director, teacher, and writer. He is known as one of the more prominent television producers in China. His best known productions include the CCTV adaptations of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, namely Romance of the Three Kingdoms and The Water Margin, as well as adaptations of Louis Cha's wuxia novels. He is also known for building large film cities with the support of local government authorities, sets that have later been developed into tourist attractions.