Liang is a self-taught chinese film director, a native of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. He applied to study film directing at the Beijing Film Academy, but was rejected twice. He was, however, accepted to Tsinghua University to study thermal energy and power engineering. In 2003, he dropped out to pursue his goal of making movies with his friend and creative partner, Zhang Chun.

It took Liang two years and more than 10 rewrites to complete the script of Big Fish and Begonia, an epic fantasy that touches on themes of life, death and rebirth. The movie earned over 74.6 million USD in its opening days, and has been widely praised for its spellbinding animation.