Dayyan Eng

Dayyan Eng known as Wu Shixian to audiences in China is a ChineseAmerican filmmaker of Chinese English and Persian ancestry who grew up in three continents He studied film arts at the University of Washington and transferred to the Beijing Film Academy where he finished his undergraduate studies in directing In 2001 he wrote and directed Bus 44 starring Chinese film star Gong Beibi The film premiered and won awards at the 2001 Venice Film Festival and 2002 Sundance Film Festival and was invited to 2002 Cannes Film Festival Directors Fortnight becoming the first Chinese short film to be invited in all three festivals history The film was covered extensively in the Chinese media and was critically acclaimed in both China and Europe and gained TV and theatrical distribution in territories worldwide In 2005 Eng wrote and directed Chinese independent feature film Waiting Alone starring an ensemble cast of Chinese stars including Xia Yu Gong Beibi Li Bingbing and featuring cameos from some of Asias most wellknown actors including Chow Yunfat The film has been called one of 2005 best films by over 50 media Waiting Alone became a hit after its September 2005 domestic China widerelease and went on to receive 3 nominations including Best Picture at the Chinese Academy Awards Golden Rooster Awards the first ever in the history of the awards by a foreign director The film remains the highestrated romantic comedy in China on Douban and other review sites as of 2021 Eng was invited in 2007 to direct the firstever opening short for the Chinese academy awards He got some of Asias biggest stars Ziyi Zhang Liu Ye and Ge You to spoof the actionmovie genre in a humorous sendup on national TV in China In 2011 Eng wrote directed and produced Inseparable starring Oscarwinner Kevin Spacey Daniel Wu Gong Beibi Yan Ni and Peter Stormare The quirky psychological suspensedramedy debuted at the Busan International Film Festival in 2011 to positive reviews and was released in China in May 2012 Inseparable was named as one of The Wall Street Journals Top 10 Most Notable Asian Films of the Year In 2017 Eng directed the indie fantasycomedy Wished cowritten by Justin Malen which beat local box office estimates at the time to gross RMB70 million in two weeks It held the highest audience scores averaging 8010 for liveaction comedies released that summer and gained a total of 100000000 paid views across the top three online movie platforms in just over a fortnight in China Wished starred Xia Yu Yan Ni Kpop star Victoria Song along with cameos from Chinas biggest names including Daniel Wu Wang Baoqiang Bao Beier Wished went on to win a Golden Angel Award at the 2017 Chinese American Film Festival and Best Fantasy Film and Best Director awards in addition to wins in several other major categories including Best ActorActress Best Editing Best VFX at the 2018 Los Angeles Film Awards and New York Film Awards It was an official selection at the 37th Hawaii International Film Festival The film was optioned in 2019 to be remade into a Hollywood film with Eng attached to executive produce Eng divides his time between Beijing and Los Angeles Hes multilingual and reads and writes English Chinese and Farsi