THOMAS PODVIN’S FREELANCE WORK
Freelance writer - translator - Editor

More powerful than a locomotive, Superman Returns’ producer Chris Lee is surprisingly mild-mannered

As soon as Chris Lee knew he’d be joining the Superman Returns' production team, he rushed to his local comic book store and invested nearly USD 400 in back issues. Though not a great fan of the superhero from Krypton (he prefers The Batman), the 50-year-old Hawaii-born film producer needed to do his homework. Which is to say he had to study the 70-decade long evolution of the Man of Steel. Clearly, the man’s a professional.

A Hollywood executive and former president of motion picture production at both Tri-Star Pictures and Columbia Pictures, Lee’s supervised many Academy Award-winning films and box office hits. A large number of which featured A-list actors (Jerry Maguire with Tom Cruise; Philadelphia with Tom Hanks; My Best Friend’s Wedding with Julia Roberts; Legends of the Fall with Brad Pitt, etc.,). Along the way, he’s not only mastered the production of large, big budget films, but the technical requirements of computer generated imagery (CGI) on projects such as Final Fantasy, Starship Troopers, and Godzilla.

What sets him apart from his producing peers in Tinseltown is his passion for the art itself, and his willingness to share his filmmaking experiences with film students and fellow cineastes alike. In addition, there’s something about Lee that one might call unique, at least in the film industry. Despite his obvious success, he remains true to his roots, and his friends.

In 2002, Lee left the Hollywood fast lane to return to Hawaii, where he founded the Academy for Creative Media (ACM). In cooperation with ten campuses affiliated with the University of Hawaii, ACM offers a platform for indigenous voices to tell their stories, via films and video games, to the broadest possible audience. In the four years since the academy was established, it now offers a total of 27 courses to 200 students.

Lee has also lent a helping hand to numerous mainstream projects wherever they may be. He was creative producer on Bryan Singer’s (X-Men) Superman Returns, released this summer in China, and co-producer of Chen Daming’s (Manhole) comedy One Foot off the Ground (OFOTG).

Superman Returns, the fifth episode in the franchise, is Lee’s second collaboration with long-time friend, Singer. One of the most eagerly anticipated films of this summer, the film cost USD 200 million and doubled its money in worldwide gross profits.

In contrast, Chinese actor-director Chen Daming’s second directorial effort, OFOTG is a character-driven, small budget film, with no SFX and, of course, lower financial expectations. Regardless, while putting the last spin on Superman Returns in Australia in 2005, Lee assisted in the pre- and the post-production of Chen’s bittersweet tale shot in local dialect in Kaifeng (Henan province). OFOTG concerns the vanishing glory of traditional opera. Lee’s expertise in customizing films for multiple markets has already helped Chen achieve international notice, not an easy task for a zany, if quaint, comedy. The film was screened this autumn at several prestigious European film festivals (Spain’s San Sebastian; Greece’s Thessaloniki) to much acclaim, and will open in the Chinese mainland next month.

In our interview with Chris Lee, he offers insights into the filmmaking process, both Hollywood style and in China.

that’s: You graduated from Yale University with a degree in political science. How does that apply to the entertainment industry?
Chris Lee: I think one of the great advantages of a school like Yale is that your major need not determine your future. That said, I did plan to become a lawyer or political consultant, but my first job ended up being in television – for ABC’s Good Morning America [a morning news talk show first broadcast in 1976].
When I decided television wasn’t for me, I tried film, working with [Hong Kong-born, US-based] director Wayne Wang on his second movie, Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart (1985), which featured an 18-year-old Joan Chen. I worked as assistant director (AD), apprentice editor and various other jobs that come with low budget filmmaking. I decided being an AD and an editor weren’t for me, so I headed for Hollywood proper and got a job as a script analyst for Tri-Star Pictures which eventually led to my position of president of production for that studio.

that’s: What’s your advice to Chinese filmmakers eager to break into Hollywood?
CL: What a broad question! And at the same time, what a specific one, because I don’t think anyone coming to Hollywood is going to have the same experience as anyone else.
What often separates the success stories [from the failures] is the individual’s ability to market themselves and their tenacity; Hollywood is a very tough town that revels in rejection and failure. You need a very thick skin if you want to survive and prosper. You also have to learn from the inevitable failures and not get too discouraged.
My suggestion is to remember the maxim that it’s important to get your foot in the door any way you can; be an intern, be an assistant, go to parties and meet as many people as you can. And know that you need to both make as many friends as possible and be as wary as you can. Also, agents and managers do have the ability to be enormously helpful. Always try to find a mentor and listen to others’ experiences.

that’s: You were a creative producer on Superman Returns. Can you explain that title?
CL: Good question. Everyone knows what a director does, or an editor, cinematographer, etc. But producers play many roles and have many titles: producer; executive producer; co-producer; etc. In my case, I was the creative producer for both the studio [Warner Bros.] and Bryan Singer, and served as the chief liaison between the two. I was with Bryan all the time, involved in everything from script, casting, to second-unit work, marketing and publicity. I wasn’t a ‘line’ producer which is to say, I didn’t come up through the ranks of the talented people who know how to physically ‘run’ a picture. But I was responsible for making sure Bryan had smooth sailing every day.

that’s: Superman is an icon. What challenges were there working on a film with such a well-known character?
CL: There are 70 years of history connected to Superman, so you really want to make sure you get it right. That means honoring the legacy and roots of the characters, but it also means, after an absence of 20 years on the big screen, re-establishing the franchise for an entirely new generation. The fans are, of course, quite vocal on their likes and dislikes and while we of course listen to them, Bryan wanted to try some things that had never been done before – but always with tremendous respect and love for what made Superman great in the first place.

that’s: You also produced OFOTG. Was it difficult moving from a Hollywood blockbuster to a low budget Chinese comedy?
CL: Well, they [the two projects] actually happened simultaneously. Chen Daming is an old friend of mine, but I’ve always known him as an actor. He has been my host in China on several occasions, even translating for me when I guest lectured at the Beijing Film Academy. I was pleasantly surprised when he wrote and directed Manhole (2004), which I thoroughly enjoyed. He asked me to read an early draft of OFOTG and I just loved the characters and asked if I could work on it, developing the script with him. Together, via the Internet mostly, we worked on focusing the story and the comedy and emotion. Then he got financing from the [Beijing-based] Huayi Brothers to make it. I was in Sydney at the time doing Superman Returns, so I couldn’t go to Kaifeng for any of the shooting. But I went to Beijing in January [2006] and worked on the final cut with [producer] Henry Wang. Then in April I went to Bangkok to supervise the sound mix at Technicolor. I’m very proud to be involved and look forward to making more movies with Chen Daming.

that’s: What sort of film is OFOTG?
CL: It’s very much a comedy with heart. If I had to categorize it I’d say it’s similar to Four Weddings and a Funeral (Mike Newell, 1994) with multiple story lines, laughter and tears.
It is very Chinese, but it’s very universal as well. It’s about surviving in changing times and dealing with the people we love. The conflicts and dilemmas are recognizable for any audience. Yet I was [also] excited by the opportunity to make a film about contemporary Chinese society. There are already enough martial arts epics and woeful villagers' movies – these are characters I think Chinese audiences will embrace as their own.

that’s: How familiar are you with the work of OFOTG’s investors, the Wang brothers of Huayi Brothers (The Banquet; A World Without Thieves)?
CL: They’re interested in actually developing a script before shooting it and applying marketing to selling them. They seem very supportive of their filmmakers. I know that they’re very successful and I enjoy working with them. I think they’re mostly successful because they’re audience driven; they’re not interested in making films just for the filmmakers. They remind me of Hollywood producers in that way.

that’s: How can Chinese cinema benefit from foreign expertise?
CL: I think script development could help some filmmakers. I also think better marketing would bring the films to a broader audience. Again, I’m sure there are many ways to define ‘Chinese cinema’ but as a Hollywood producer, I am always interested in pictures that speak to the broadest audience.

that’s: There’s a growing trend in Chinese films to use more CGI effects? Is that progress?
CL: CGI’s just a tool, and it can certainly be overused as it is in many Western films that just end up looking like cartoons or video games. It’s more important to care about the stories and characters. You know, some of my favorite Hong Kong pictures were things like A Chinese Ghost Story (Tsui Hark, 1987) and The Storm Riders (Andrew Lau, 1998), which used all kinds of SFX to tell their stories. So I think there’s a history in Chinese cinema to use SFX. And I think CGI provides an opportunity to tell many of the mythical stories of Chinese folklore in ways that could not be done before – similar to what we do with our superhero films.
I love what Zhang Yimou did with CGI in Hero (2002) and also House of Flying Daggers (2004). I loved the use of color and the CGI sets.

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
October 2006 issue

In late November last year, a statue of Bruce Lee was erected in the Bosnian city of Mostar. One resident said the martial arts’ icon was equally popular on all sides of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, in other words, a symbol of universal peace. ”We will always be Muslims, Serbs or Croats,” said Veselin Gatalo of the youth group Urban Movement Mostar. “But one thing we all have in common is Bruce Lee.”

In light of such widespread appeal, it should come as no surprise that film director Antti-Jussi Annila, aka A-J Annila has produced the first ever Finnish kung fu flick. After all, he’s been hooked on the genre since he was a boy. In the summer of his tenth year, he viewed a martial arts movie 36 times. That’s enough to traumatize a kid for life. And to sow the seeds of an unconditional passion for kung fu and wu xia pian (a film genre derived from wu xia or Chinese ‘martial-arts chivalry’ literature).

Now 29, Annila has translated his passion to the screen with Jade Warrior (JW, Jadesoturi), a work five years in the making, but one that he’s been preparing for decades. As a youth, he borrowed the family video camera to make his first action-packed films. Later, at the School of Art and Media in Tampere, Finland, he applied his obsession with swordplay, high kicks and flying chops to five short films which he wrote and directed. Entitled Hard Student 1-5, they were shown at several domestic film festivals. His thesis, if you haven’t guessed already, was based on Hong Kong action films.

Since graduating in 2002, Annila has pursued his dream in earnest, working full-time to bring his first feature-length film to fruition. To do so, he sought and won creative and monetary support from film professionals in Finland and China, but also in Estonia and Holland. In this first ever Finland-China co-production, Annila blends Finnish mythology with Chinese martial arts, and he highlights this unusual combination by setting the story in ancient China as well as in modern-day Finland. The RMB 27.5 million (USD 3.4 million) sword and romance film was shot in location in Finland, Estonia and China (in Fangyan, Zheijiang Province, 500 km north-east of Shanghai).

The plot concerns an ancient Chinese warrior, Sintai, (played by Finnish actor Tommi Eronen from Producing Adults) who while battling a Chinese demon (Cheng Taishen from Jia Zhangke’s The World), falls in love with an equally deadly Chinese beauty named Pin Yu (China’s rising starlet Zhang Jingchu from Peacock and Seven Swords). So far, so good. But from this point on, the story becomes rather more complicated. Sintai not only loses his loved one, but also loses track of her. He takes up the quest after being reincarnated as a blacksmith (Kai) in contemporary Finland.

As mentioned above, the storyline stems from Finnish legend, namely the Kalevala, and from the tradition of Chinese martial art films. The Kalevala is a 19th-century Finnish epic poem of 22,795 verses and 50 chapters, wherein rugged Norse warriors pine for battle, as well as the love of a good woman. Needless to point out, this work alone offers the director plenty of melodramatic material. But add to the mix the graceful representations of flying bodies engaged in swordplay and other kung-fu staples and you’ve got something altogether unique.

Last month, Jade Warrior premiered in the Vanguard category at the 31st Toronto International Film Festival. The film has been sold in 20 territories (from Japan to Poland) by France-based Rezo Films International, and will be released by Warner China Film HG Corporation in China this month.

In our interview with Annila, he discusses his love of the martial arts’ genre and its influence on his craft.

that’s: You seem to have spent your youth living in a sort of fantasy world.
Antti-Jussi Annila (AJA): In my childhood, I spent my time in the forest with nothing but a knife as if I were the son of Tarzan. When I was ten, I watched Sam Firstenberg’s Revenge of the Ninja [1983] with Shô Kosugi 36 times in one summer. When I was twelve, I dreamed to someday win the Wimbledon tennis tournament. I still have that dream, though I haven’t played tennis for years.

that’s: What are your favorite Chinese movies?
AJA: There are a lot of them: Tsui Hark’s Once a Upon a Time in China; Liu Chia-liang’s 36th Chamber of Shaolin; Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Eat Drink Man Woman; Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love; and John Woo’s The Killer.

that’s: What attracts you to wu xia pian?
AJA: I love the melodrama and the melancholic portrayal of emotions in wu xia pian, as well as the way emotions are connected with action scenes. In the original kung fu films, the action often feels separated from drama, but in wu xia pian they seem to go hand in hand; feelings and drama are conveyed through physical movements. Wu xia pian also has a lot of fantasy elements, and I love stories that blend emotion and fantasy. This doesn’t happen in real life, yet this film genre offers feelings you can also experience in real life.

that’s: Wu xia pian is a Chinese art form. Is there a Finnish version?
AJA: My inspiration for the story came from the Kalevala, but the idea to set it in ancient China came from my love for Chinese wu xia pian. And I discovered that these two sources of inspiration are really close to each other. The film is a mixture of the two cultures. It is not Chinese or Finnish; it’s a combination of both. JW is a melodramatic love story, with elements of Finnish and Chinese myth, and action scenes inspired by the wu xia pian genre. It is the first of its kind, and I hope it will come across as something different.

that’s: How do you merge wu xia pian and Finnish myth?
AJA: I have been watching kung fu and wu xia films since I was a young boy. Wu xia pian is a form of Chinese action film that visualizes themes such as the way of the warrior, courage, hate and love. Our national epic Kalevala could also be described as such; the men are very skillful warriors in battle but they’re totally incapable in love affairs. Which seems to fit quite well into the wu xia pian world.

that’s: Time travel is another unusual element in the film. Why is JW set in ancient China and present-day Finland?
AJA: The story has elements of reincarnation, so from the beginning, in pre-production, we set the story in ancient times and the present. The connection between ancient China and contemporary Finland is [represented by] an iron chest that travels with our hero [Sintai/Kai]. Kai is a blacksmith stuck in the past and living in seclusion on the edge of an industrialized city. His forge is a gate revealing visions from ancient China, what really happened in the past and whom he can trust in the present. The connection is not only material but also spiritual, because our main character really sees and feels his memories from his past life in ancient China. We tried to make these worlds and times connect in material and spiritual ways, so, no matter how far apart they are, they’d fit into the same story.

that’s: Why did you cast Zhang Jingchu as the character Pin Yu?
AJA: We wanted to find an actress who could be strong and vulnerable at the same time. We didn’t want to cast somebody just based on their name and star-power. At the casting session, Zhang Jingchu stood out amongst other Chinese actresses – all of them were really good. But after the screen test, I was sure she was the one. And I think she was excellent in her performance.

that’s: The warrior Sintai isn’t played by a Chinese actor. Why?
AJA: The story stems from the Kalevala and the main plot happens in Finland, so the lead actor portraying Kai is Finnish (Tommi Eronen). The same actor is also present in the Chinese part of the story as Sintai. Sintai’s father is Chinese but his mother is Finnish; he is a son of two nations. The main character is a fusion of two cultures – like the film itself. Our hero is based on Kalevala’s heroes but has a story of his own. He is not a typical hero from an action film; he’s a man with multiple flaws. He fights against his destiny – like we all do sometimes.

that’s: How did you design the fighting scenes with Chinese action-choreographer Yu Yan-kai?
AJA: We didn’t have any specific movies in mind because we wanted to make our own style, mixing Chinese kung fu and Finnish fighting. Yet, following the tradition of the wu xia genre, [we let] the actors perform the action scenes themselves, which gives their movement authenticity. The action idealizes movement and the beauty of battle rather than violence. We also designed the action choreography to reflect the drama. The fight scenes are not just action, but also narrative elements. They set the pace for the melodramatic story.

The weapons vary from spears to swords, from birch branches to iron fans, from chopsticks to smith hammers. The skills of smiths and warriors aren’t that different after all, and here they finally become one. The ultimate battle between the demon and Sintai/Kai is waged with hammers and anvils. What’s more, all the action sequences have an element of difference. Sometimes the action is like a dance between two lovers; sometimes it’s really brutal between two enemies.

that’s: Are you feeling satisfied now that your dream has become reality?
AJA: JW is a dream come true. To bring together [my] culture with the culture I have come to love has been an adventure. I hope this feeling is conveyed in the film. My [next] humble dream is to someday direct a ninja musical. After that, around year 2029, I hope to have more time to spend on my favorite hobbies: clearing the forest, cutting down trees and working on something really concrete, like a tree house, for example, one similar to Tarzan’s.

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
October 2006 issue

Lei Feng (*) would not approve. In Shanghai, the shining citadel of modern China, it seems that fundamental values – civility, courtesy and selflessness – have all but vanished. In short, the model citizen spirit, prizing good manners and high ethical standards is on the endangered list. In its place, one finds the hustler, whose conduct is governed by the law of the concrete jungle: every man for himself.

To be fair, Shanghai is not the only city suffering from a lack of feeling for one’s fellow man. But such is the depth of the problem that the authorities have taken action. Recently, city officials have arranged public seminars on etiquette, and reinforced the message with a number of publications, including the good manners manual, A Million Families Learning Etiquette, and Recognizing Phonies, a consumer’s handbook that might have helped Lei Feng spot bogus beggars unworthy of his goodwill. Even ‘Little Emperors’ and ‘Little Princesses’ are now being instructed to employ the all-but obsolete phrase “thank you, Mum” or “thank you, Dad”. And not least, there is the anti-corruption campaign.

The success of these efforts remains to be seen, but in the meantime Shanghai’s moral dissipation has provided material aplenty for Hong Kong-based filmmaker Ann Hui. Her latest film, The Postmodern Life of my Aunt, opens nationwide this December, and features a cast of reprobates straight out of The Threepenny Opera.

With all the ingredients that have won praise at home and abroad by critics and viewers alike, The Postmodern Life of my Aunt is an exceptionally good, character driven comedy-drama, albeit one that is suffused with topical societal issues.

Hui’s 21st film revolves around a 60 year old woman, Ye Rutang (award-winning Mongolian ethnic actress Siqin Gaowa), who after losing her job leaves her hometown, the northeast post-industrial city Anshan (and incidentally Hui’s birthplace), for Shanghai. Ye’s trusting nature is severely tested in sin city where she falls victim to a series of scam artists who aim to cheat her out of her life’s savings. The list of con men includes her 12 year old nephew (Guan Wenshuo), who fakes his own kidnapping to extract pocket money from his aunt; a charming opera singer (Chow Yun-fat, absent from Chinese productions for six years) who deals in the futures market for funeral plots, and Ye’s new neighbor (Shi Ke), who claims she needs cash to pay her daughter’s hospital bills. Eventually Ye is bled dry, forcing her reluctant daughter (TV heartthrob Zhao Wei) to come to the rescue.

Adapted from the eponymous novel by Yan Yan, the film portrays Shanghai as a moral vacuum, where only the most ruthless types can survive. At first, this jaundiced view might peg Hui as a cynic, but beneath its bleak surface this film reveals Hui’s sympathy for victim and exploiter alike. “Shanghai is an extreme representation of all the fast-moving cities in the world,” says Hui, “and the fate of all those people who cannot catch up, those who can, and the marginalized.”

Indeed, as with all the films Hui has made in the past 20 years, Postmodern Life is about people – and for people. “I’d call Ann Hui’s films examples of ‘humanistic cinema’,” says David Bordwell, author of Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment (Harvard University Press, 2000) and Professor Emeritus of Film Studies at the University of Wisconsin. “She’s less interested in technical experiments or physical action than in psychological dramas that reveal unexpected sides of human beings.”

Put another way, Hui has remained true to her ideals. Like other members of the so-called New Wave of Hong Kong directors that came of artistic age in the late 70s, she studied abroad and then worked for television before directing feature films. The New Wave, she jokes, was “an injection of new life into the mainstream cinema”. New Wave refers to the earlier French film movement of the 60s, though its Hong Kong incarnation was in reaction to escapist Mandarin-language studio-based productions – read fantasy kung fu films – rather than French conservatism.

“New Wave filmmakers sought to forge a new vision for Hong Kong cinema, focusing on local subjects, relevant to people’s lives, and spoken in the language people could understand – Cantonese,” says Assistant Professor of Contemporary Chinese Cultural Studies at the Santa Barbara University of California Michael Berry, who interviewed Hui for his book Speaking in Images: Interviews with Contemporary Chinese Filmmakers (Columbia, 2005).

In the mid-1970s, Hui shot dozens of documentaries and TV dramas before successfully turning to feature filmmaking with The Secret (1979), The Spooky Bunch (1980) and The Story of Woo Viet (1981). The New Wave movement, it must be said, lasted just a couple of years, but Hui’s work has maintained its relevance, first to the people of Hong Kong and later to their compatriots on the Chinese mainland. No matter the genre.

Hui has directed ghost stories, political dramas, martial arts epics, romantic melodramas and comedies. “From the start she tried to make genre films that carried a personal touch,” says Bordwell, adding that her vision is distinct in genre.

Perhaps because she considers film something more than just a commercial entertainment. Hui has often said that she is not a very social person, so it may be that the medium offers her a means of expression; a proxy for life, if you will. In the 1950s, she was sent to an English primary school which did wonders for her command of that language, though at the expense of her Chinese. That said, Hui’s fluency is best expressed visually. In Berry’s book, she revealed that she views cinema as a language, one that can be understood universally, and one that helps her to express herself on contemporary issues.

That command of visual language is evident in films such as Summer Snow and Visible Secret, both of which happened to be commercial successes. There were failures, too. Ordinary Heroes (1999) was lauded by the critics, but it lost HKD 5 million. After which Hui was unable to attract investors and forced to take a teaching job for the next two years. In spite of all her festival awards and critical acclaim, she’s often had trouble financing her films. “It’s very difficult for me to find money in Hong Kong for the kind of films I make,” says Hui. Indeed, at one point, such was the parlous state of her finances that she couldn’t afford an office.

Still, she never sold out. Hui’s humanist approach to filmmaking is, as Bordwell says, “a consistent factor in her career”. Which is not to imply her work is repetitive. In addition to moral issues, exile is a recurring theme in her films (Song of the Exile; Love in a Fallen City) which is not surprising considering her background. Born in 1947 in Anshan, Hui’s father is Chinese, her mother, Japanese. She grew up in Hong Kong where she graduated in English and Comparative Literature in 1972. In 1974, she studied at the London Film School before returning to Hong Kong to work on TV productions. In 1990, she made the abovementioned Song of the Exile (1990) starring Maggie Cheung, a film with strong autobiographical elements. The story is built around Hui’s relationship with her Japanese mother, and their shared search for an identity, no easy task considering the post-war relations between China and Japan.

Likewise, The Postmodern Life of my Aunt is a study of identity and exile. Ye Rutang, a native of Anshan and the product of an era strikingly different from modern Shanghai, is also caught between two cultures. Granted, Hong Kong, or indeed any large city, might have served just as well as Shanghai as a symbol of moral decadence. But with financial backing coming largely from Cheerland Entertainment Organization, Class Ltd., and Beijing PolyBona Film Distribution Co., Ltd. – the setting, for marketing and monetary reasons, had to be set in a city on the Chinese mainland. And so Shanghai was the obvious choice (audiences will note scenes shot in Changfeng Park and along Sichuan North Road).

Unfamiliar with Shanghai, Hui commissioned prize-winning novelist Li Qiang (Peacock) to write a screenplay based on elements peculiar to the city. In the end, however, Hui discovered that “the Shanghainese way of life is very much similar to the Hong Kong lifestyle. Since the early 1950s,” she says, “many Shanghainese came to Hong Kong and chic Hong Kongers adopted, at least in part, a Shanghainese style in terms of clothing, entertainment and food.”

Hui regards consumerism, and the accompanying change in social values, as the inevitable consequence of any fast-growing economy. “Present day Shanghai,” she says, “is reviving the [consumer] lifestyle, and along with it the 1970s/1980s Hong Kong spirit of go-getting.”

Needless to say, the anything goes attitude is part of the parcel.

Although contemporary Shanghai serves to exemplify the materialism and venality of a developing society, Hui doesn’t judge its inhabitants too harshly. “The film begins in a light-hearted way,” she explains, “then moves towards tragedy, but it never quite reaches its grandeur.”
END

(*) Lai Feng was a soldier of the People's Liberation Army. After his death he was characterized by propaganda as a selfless and modest person who was devoted to Chairman Mao. His lifestory was used as an education tool for the masses.

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
December 2006 issue