[2] Born in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province, Zhang received a BA in cinematography from the Beijing Film Academy in 1989.

[1] Having initially emerged onto the film scene shortly after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, he is frequently referenced as an exemplar of the pioneers who are grouped into the loosely defined Sixth Generation.

"[4] Aside from some original short subjects he directed as a student filmmaker, the official debut of his career in 1990 is Mama, a semi-documentary account of a mother and her retarded son, which is considered to have a historical spot as one of the first features of the Sixth Generation movement and as China's "first independent film since 1949".

2002–2003 continued to see Zhang approaching more commercially viable works as well as his most prolific period yet, directing three films in the course of a year.

In 2006, he directed Little Red Flowers, based on writer and Chinese cultural icon Wang Shuo's semi-autobiographical novel It Could Be Beautiful.

The late 1990s, meanwhile, saw Zhang indulging again in his interest in documentary form with Demolition and Relocation in 1998, an account of the destruction of Beijing's Hutongs.