Poster of Dying to Survive.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Recalling those days, Zhang remembers an encounter with a man who had a VCD store, and boasted a large collection of foreign films.

"When he led me to his second-floor collection room, I was wowed as it looked exactly like the scene in the film Kill Bill, when the Japanese swordsmith Hattori Hanzo shows off his collection of katanas."

That man had almost every film Zhang had heard of, and he encouraged Zhang to follow his dream of making films.

Then, before his national college entrance exam, Zhang asked his parents, who both teach at Northeast Petroleum University at Qinhuangdao, for permission to take the entrance exams for the Beijing Film Academy and the Central Academy of Drama.

To his delight he was chosen and recruited by the Central Academy of Drama to study the film-production major.

"My first choice was directing, because I didn't know much about any other kind of job in the industry then," says Zhang.