Chinese director Chen Kaige delivered a speech at the College of Image Arts and Sciences at the Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan, on Tuesday.

Seven hundred people attended the first lecture Chen Kaige delivered to the newly established college as a visiting professor.

According to the contact he signed last December, Chen Kaige will teach a film directing course from November, as well as a special course on film analysis.

Chen graduated from the Beijing Film Academy in 1982. His most influential works include Yellow Earth (1984), Farewell My Concubine (1993), The Emperor and the Assassin (1999), Together (2002) and The Promise (2005).

He was invited to lecture on Chinese and Asian films at New York University between 1987 and 1989.

The Chinese director is currently preparing to work on a new film about the late Peking Opera legend Mei Lanfang.

(CRI.cn April 27, 2007)