There were sixteen state-run studios in China at that time, and this was the closest to his home in Sanyuan, Shaanxi Province.

Wu insisted on producing a number of experimental films, called "tansuo pian" to raise aesthetic and conceptual standards in China without regard to their commercial performance.

When the head of Shaanxi Propaganda Bureau criticized Wu Tianming's policies, he fought back by publicly denouncing him as “a bureaucrat who doesn’t understand films but wants to control filmmaking.” At Xi'an Studio he nurtured prominent "Fifth Generation" directors Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige.

[1] Wu came to the United States in 1989 as a visiting scholar at NYU and decided not to return to China in the wake of the events at Tiananmen Square.

After several years of operating a video rental store in California, Wu returned to China in 1994 to direct the Shaw Brothers produced film The King of Masks[1] in 1995, which was internationally acclaimed.