He also studied under Joseph Papp at New York's Public Theater, and began his professional career directing theatre, including productions of Rashomon, Constant Prince, and The Chairman's Wife.
Hu created The Legend of Prince Lanling, a lavish stage production set in ancient China; this received an honorable mention from the Kennedy Arts Center.
Lani Loa - The Passage was a Hawaiian ghost story/cop movie/spiritual love story, shot in Shanghai and Hawaii, and starred Angus Macfadyen, Ray Bumatai, and Chris Tashima.
He returned to epic costume period film work with Prince of the Himalayas (2007), his own adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, set in ancient Tibet, performed entirely in the Tibetan language.
Recently, he directed a new Beijing opera, “New Dragon Inn,” which is based on a film of the same name; when the production opened at the Shanghai Grand Theater it was called “an instant classic”.
Hu founded the Film and Television School at Shanghai Theater Academy in 2012, and served as its dean and professor supervising graduate students.