Tian Zhuangzhuang
Hou began his career after graduating from the Beijing Film Academy in 1982 in the same class as Fifth Generation directors Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, and Tian Zhuangzhuang. Hou's early career was spent mainly on Fifth Generation projects, notably those of Tian, and Wu Ziniu. By the late 1990s, Hou began collaborating with Zhang Yimou for a series of films during Zhang's realist period.