His first movie, "Difficult Husband, Difficult Wife", was shot in 1913, and was considered as the first narrative short film in China. Zhang directed all kind of films, but from 1922 he focused on dramas about women. In the mid-20s he added knight-errants and ghosts stories to his personal themes. His first hit was "The Burning of Red Lotus Temple", a film series (1928-31) which consisted of 18 movies, followed by "New Journey to the West" (1929-30) which consisted of 3 movies. During the Sino-Japanese War, Zhang made many left wing movies against Japan until 1942, when he was promoted to take charge of a directive post in the Chinese Union Film Company, and later in the Hong Kong China Film Company and finally the Shanghai Datong Film Company. During this time he only directed two films in 1948-49. In total, he made nearly 150 films.
