Population control in China is a serious thing. It's too crowded there. So that's why they have their infamous one child policy. It looks like director Zhang Yimou didn't stick to that memo.

He has to pay more than $1.2 million in fines for having three children in violation of China's strict family planning rules.

China limits most urban couples to one child and rural families to two if the first born is a girl. Zhang, who has a daughter with his first wife, could legally have one with wife Chen Ting, but the two were not married when their first child was born. She did not have a birth permit.

The government of Wuxi's Binhu district said they earned a total of about $580,000 in the years before each of the children was born.

Zhang and Chen have 30 days to pay the fines.