Hu Jintao denounced during the Cultural Revolution, an event that (together with his relatively humble origins) apparently had a deep effect upon Hu, who diligently tried to clear his father's name. He joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in April 1964 and began to work as an engineer in July 1965 after he graduated from the Water Conservancy Engineering Department at Tsinghua University, where he majored in the study of hub hydropower stations. During his time at Tsinghua, he met his wife Liu Yongqing. In 1968, Hu volunteered for his service in Gansu and worked on the construction of Liujiaxia Hydroelectric
King Hu heroine as the central protagonist. Leaving the Shaw Brothers Studio in 1966, Hu travelled to Taiwan, where he made another "wuxia" movie, "Dragon Inn". "Dragon Inn" broke box office records and became a phenomenal hit and cult classic, especially in Southeast Asia. This tense tale of highly skilled martial artists hidden in an inn was said to be the inspiration for Ang Lee's "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000) and Zhang Yimou's "House of Flying Daggers" (2004). In 2003, the award-winning Malaysian-born Taiwanese auteur Tsai Ming-liang made "Goodbye, Dragon Inn", a tribute to Hu, in which all the action takes place