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

Sub head:
Cinefile: Five Questions For ...
Alexi Tan, director of John Woo-produced gangster drama Blood Brothers

Alexi Tan’s star-studded directorial debut, Blood Brothers, can be described as a character-driven period film with a modern attitude. Entirely shot in China and set in the 1930s, the film concerns three friends (Daniel Wu, Tony Yang, Liu Ye) who move from the countryside to Shanghai, a glittering city of vice and decadence. There, they do whatever it takes to become rich, risking their friendship in the process.
Educated in London and New York, young director Tan has impressed with a string of award-winning commercials and short films. One of these – Double Blade (2003), shot in LA and starring Taiwanese idol Jay Chou – convinced filmmakers John Woo (The Killer, Bullet in the Head) and Terence Chang to help produce Blood Brothers, a film that Tan sees as a tribute to various film masters.
Indeed, the gangster drama was inspired by themes of honor and brotherhood from Woo’s Hong Kong films, storytelling from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns, and modern attitude from the likes of Quentin Tarantino. Tan sat down with that’s Beijing to discuss his Chinese answer to the western genre.

that’s: Is this a John Woo film or an Alexi Tan film?
Alexi Tan: It’s a combination of all my collaborators' work [costume designer Tim Yip; action director Philip Kwok; cinematographer Michel Taburiaux; producers John Woo and Terence Chang]. John’s hand is there and every time he had an opinion or a say, I would always tell somebody beside me “a master touched my soul.”

that’s: How did you work on the story?
AT: I actually wrote the film with female writer and Beijing native Zhang Dan. I am not a native Mandarin speaker so I was not comfortable with writing a Mandarin script. To be honest, at first I was very wary about working with a female writer, because I was doing a movie about brotherhood and she knew nothing about Sergio Leone’s films. [But] I made the right choice because she was able to inject a lot of things from a woman’s point of view into the female characters. Even if this is a film about brotherhood I made sure that women are not merely fixtures. As a matter of fact, we researched Shu Qi’s character, Lulu, extensively.

that’s: How about the action?
AT: John Woo’s very strong with action and he would tell me how he thought the action of a scene should be done. However, I would tell him I really see this movie like Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West where the action is real and fast; it’s all about the build up. Like the long wait for a train in the film opening and then the kill is made in a second.

that’s: Indeed, you build tension, whereas Woo can do a non-stop action scene for 30 minutes.
AT: Yes, and … because he can do those things the best, there is no need for me to do a B-grade level of that. This is what would have happened if I had done it that way. He’s done the two guns and dove thing; we have too much respect for him to try and redo it ourselves.

that’s: Did you ever imagine what your directorial debut would be like?
AT: I dreamt about it, that’s for sure. When I was shooting the film it was really strange; it never really occurred to me what was going on. After the film, I really realized that John Woo produced the film and he was telling everyone he was supporting me. When I am watching the film now there are, of course, many elements that I’d like to redo. If they let me re-shoot now I would delay the whole premier – I am my own worst critic.

Blood Brothers hits cinemas across town on August 16.

(c) that's Beijing Magazine
Deputy Chief editor: Oliver Robinson
August 2007 issue

For those in the film industry, thinking outside the box often appears to be mission impossible. Actors, particularly after they’ve won an award, are easily typecast. Directors, well, once they have a hit in one genre, are expected to follow suit. Take, for instance, the actor Liu Ye, who is forever cast in the role of weak coward. Or director John Woo, who is stuck with action films despite his decade-long desire to make musicals.

Yet Academy Award-nominated independent documentary filmmaker Christine Choy (Cui Ming Huei) has artfully avoided labels. Although many have tried to define her. The Shanghai-born, 53-year-old might be variously described as “a versatile artist”, “a hip teacher”, and “a prolific activist filmmaker” as well as “an open-minded, free-spoken lady”. Indeed, she’s an attention-grabbing speaker, one who never runs dry of anecdotes.

In the 1970s, Choy gave Tsui Hark (Seven Swords) his first script-writing job after he graduated from the University of Texas. She’s also a good friend of Chen Kaige (The Promise), with whom she often argues politics. But in addition to hobnobbing with the industry elite, she teaches film at New York University (NYU) classroom, where she’s nurtured the talents of then unknowns, such as Todd Phillips, Bianca Jagger and Marla Hanson.

Her own journey began early, at eight she left China for South Korea; at fifteen she left her family to study in New York. Later, after receiving a degree in architecture from Princeton University, and another in urban planning from the Columbia University, Choy, in the 1970s, found herself in New York in the company of a group of anti-everything activist filmmakers from the Newsreel film company. It was there that she learned her craft, producing political and militant films on topics Hollywood couldn’t care less about.

Since then, Choy has made more than fifty non-commercial documentary films on a wide range of issues, and in the process given voice to countless individuals who would otherwise never have been heard (or seen). She’s made films about child care (Fresh Seeds in a Big Apple, 1975); civil rights (Who Killed Vincent Chin?, 1988); kung fu (Shaolin: Art of Zen, 1994); the Nanjing massacre (In the Name of the Emperor, 1995); her family home in Shanghai (Ha Ha Shanghai, 2000); and America’s fear of China (Agent Yellow, 2003), to name but a few.

And along the way, she’s won both critical praise, and numerous awards. More recently, she’s returned to Shanghai, and now works at Shanghai Television.

In our interview with Choy, she discusses her career, filmmaking in China, and her enthusiasm for new projects.

that’s: In addition to your film work, you’ve spent considerable time in University both as a student and a professor. What is your attraction to academia?
Christine Choy (CC): One day I woke up and thought about how I might send my children to university as I had no savings. One of my friends said that if I became a university teacher my children could attend for free. At that time, I had already won some [film] awards and was nominated for an Academy Award. I didn’t care about awards, but universities seem to think highly of them. So I was accepted by NYU. I had never taught at university before and I didn’t know what I was doing. [Yet] I was a very popular teacher back then, because I let everybody smoke in the classroom, drink coffee and take their shoes off. I focused a great deal on internationalization, as I believe creative energy has to come from many different perspectives.

that’s: After teaching, you left New York for Hong Kong.
CC: In 1998, the Hong Kong government wanted to set up a school for creative media and asked me to start it. They just had money and a garage. I was born in a Shanghai house designed by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, went to America, became an architect and came back here to design a garage! Still, I hadn’t been an architect for too long, so the offer to design a whole school made me feel as if I were in heaven.

that’s: Even so, 2001 was a terrible year for you …
CC: In 2001, my contract in Hong Kong City University was over and I left for the US. Then, 9-11 happened and the whole country became sadistic; it was a nightmare. That year was the worst year I ever experienced. I saw people turn very reactionary; Muslims categorized as evil. It was depressing, but what could I do? I did another three years at NYU and then I took a sabbatical and came to Shanghai.

that’s: Are you here permanently?
CC: I like the idea of Shanghai as my hometown. In any case, the stories in the US have dried up, and there is much that is interesting in China. In England or France for example, it took hundreds of years to get industrialized; China was instantly industrialized. As a result, this country is facing a lot of contradictions, and contradictions make good movies! I am glad China produced 350 films last year; more than Hollywood. A lot of them were garbage, a few were good and some films were loved by the audience, like Crazy Stone.

that’s: Recently, the documentary medium seems to have reached a wider audience. Both Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9-11 and Al Gore’s The Inconvenient Truth, for instance, had widespread success.
CC: Scare tactics! They scare you, both Moore and Gore. It’s a very simple formula. Moore is with these gun lovers and describes what’s going to happen and the big man behind it all is Bush, of course! Gore also uses this tactic: “If you don't watch out, you’ll soon see what will happen to the earth -- fifteen years from now, Shanghai will be under the ocean, so let’s do something about it.” It’s all very emotional.

that’s: It’s also very manipulative.
CC: Of course. All movies are manipulative but when it’s manipulative for a good cause I think it’s wonderful.

that’s: You view the documentary film as a quest for truth. That was your aim in films such as Who Killed Vincent Chin?, In the Name of the Emperor and Agent Yellow.
CC: I did. I tried to find an answer. But none of these films actually provides an answer. It gives the audience a direction; audience may decide what is true or not. I give an angle to it, but the angle, of course, is manipulative and is subject to a point of view – mine.

that’s: For In the Name of the Emperor, a film about the Nanjing massacre, you tracked down some Japanese soldiers. How much of the truth did you uncover?
CC: The project began in 1992, but at a time the Koreans and Japanese were investing heavily in China. I couldn’t make the movie at the time because the Emperor of Japan was about to visit China. I was so mad. Later, my producer suggested I go to Shanghai, which is not far from Nanjing. She went to Nanjing, found some survivors and started asking questions. But we couldn’t use their answers because they were uniform. Then I had another crazy idea. I gathered some students from Fudan and Jiaotong Universities in a hotel room, and asked them what they knew about the Nanjing massacre. Guess what? None of them knew anything. Next, a friend of mine who lived in Japan said she knew some soldiers. We went to Japan, very hush hush, drove to a crazy little town in the mountains not far from Tokyo, and went to the soldiers’ homes. After the interviews, I returned to NY, read the transcriptions and found I was sitting on a gold mountain. This was incredible stuff. Later, I got a phone call from an American banker who had some old footage of Japanese soldiers torturing Chinese citizens in Nanjing, and their victims in the hospitals. He gave me that footage. I put it together with the soldier’s testimony. The film was very successful and Iris Chang used the manuscript of the film for her book The Rape of Nanking.

that’s: In retrospect, is it easier to make films in China or in the US?
CC: Financially, it is easier in China because the labor is cheap. But aesthetically the local industry is weak. Their approach is formulaic and they’re not into experiments. In the US, the labor is expensive, but you get what you pay for. A documentary editor in the US costs about USD 3,000 a week and a cameraman about USD 700 a day. But they are really good! And they take their time; they know how to do the details. Here, the editor just needs two days to cut a film. I couldn’t believe it. Soundtrack composition is also weak here. No matter what the film’s subject is, they add piano music or violin solos. Yet China has so many different instruments; it’s musical tradition is so rich, but they never use it. In America, you can mix singing; hip hop; blues; jazz; country music; etc.

that’s: Talk about your current projects in collaboration with the Shanghai television and the Zigen Fund.
CC: The Zigen Fund is a non-governmental organization that has been in China for 20 years. Its main focus is rural areas; they provide educational support to girls from the Miao ethnic minority, for example. At USD 10 a year per person, they have already given support to 17,000 young women, at least up to high school level. None of them were able to go on to college, but they are the first generation of Miao people able to read. The previous generation was illiterate. My film The Shanxi Story deals with rural education in China, while The Guizhao Story is about Miao people and their health issues. In a village [where I shot the film], there is only one doctor. She’s a Miao, trained in Western medicine, but she has to play other traditional roles as well -- she’s a farmer and a mother. She’s a very dedicated woman. I found her story very interesting. It was like a symbol; in times of progress you cannot just get rid of traditions. You need a kind of process so traditions are not cut off. And especially these people, the Miao, who have lived in the same mountainous region for more than 1,000 years. This film is about modernization, what it brings to society, but also about the idea of preserving traditions.

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
Photo courtesy Mick Ryan www.mickryan.com.
August 2007 issue

While most war films begin with the origin of a conflict and build to the climax of a decisive battle, in The Cold Flame, however, director Leon Yang Shupeng has forgone the fireworks to focus on the aftermath. Set in Northern China, near the end of the war of resistance against Japanese aggression, the film examines the lives of soldiers recovering from the horrors of battle, and locals bonding with their saviors.

And bond they do. Indeed, the 37-year-old director seems far more interested in romantic conflicts than in military ones. The film is shot from point of view of a dishonest orphaned teenage girl (Gong Siyu) who falls for an older, badly-injured army officer (Zhang Hanyu). She helps him dress his wounds, all the while spinning a mesh of lies in the hope of winning his love. But the object of her desire, cannot find it in his father figure heart to return her feelings. In reference to the pair’s obvious age gap, and the attraction of a young woman for an older man, Yang says, "When [children] grow up and learn about sex and love, many [of them] become interested in the people around them, especially adults.”

That said, while a decent effort at portraying a difficult subject, the film is not without flaws. Some enigmatic flashbacks, uneven pace and emotional strings pulled a tad too tight, detract from the story, but not enough to cripple the work entirely. Yang deserves credit for bringing a fresh perspective to the genre. The performances he elicits from the 14-year-old girl, and her little brother (both non-professional actors), are both touching and vivid. That said, the most colorful personality of the film is undoubtedly Yang himself.

Though he worked at a variety of jobs – from firefighting to journalism – before entering the filmmaking industry, this self-taught scriptwriter and filmmaker has clearly benefited from his studies at the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute where he majored in painting. The Cold Flame is beautiful to watch, and Yang is acutely attuned to the visual impact of color, structure and light. It’s not surprising to learn that the film was inspired by a 1940s painterly photo of a young girl dressed in ill-fitting army fatigues.

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
August 2007 issue

China’s unique landscapes have made it an irresistible draw for foreign co-productions such as Jade Warriors, Shanghai Kiss and Painted Veil; yet when it comes to Chinese directors, very few have been brave enough – or perhaps foolish enough – to produce films abroad. True, the cost is prohibitive, but this hasn’t deterred Guangdong-born Taiwan-based director Hou Hsiao-hsien (Flowers of Shanghai).

Hou’s most recent film, Flight of the Red Balloon (Le Vol du Ballon Rouge), shot in French with a French cast, was produced by France-based Margo Films and the Musée D’Orsay. The film celebrates the 20th anniversary of the latter, a temple of impressionist and Art Nouveau. The story explores the life of Suzanne (Juliette Binoche), a self-absorbed single mother overwhelmed by the complications of modern existence, and her seven-year-old son, Simon (Simon Iteanu), who is followed around Paris by a mysterious red balloon.

Red Balloon isn’t the first project where Hou has employed the concept of ‘delocalized’ Chinese productions. Indeed, after filming Café Lumière (2003) in Tokyo, he realized he could export his filmmaking style to pretty much anywhere. “During the Café Lumière shoot,” explains Hou, “I gave the [Japanese] actors certain freedoms to do things their own way, and the results were quite pleasing. And so I approached [Red Balloon] the same way.”

Hou usually starts a project by scouting locations to discover characters and eventually writes a script which typically mixes reality with fiction. In Red Balloon, the 60-year-old director blends elements from Albert Lamorisse’s short film Le Ballon Rouge (1956), which offers a French vision of 1950s Paris, and Adam Gopnik’s book Paris to the Moon (2001), a contemporary American take on the French way of life.

Somewhat surprisingly, the result is fresh and free of nostalgia. Hou offers an international eye on Paris; the film is shot in colorful and authentic locations, including the producer’s apartment. “The first day of principal photography,” says producer François Margolin, “Hou came and started to do the washing up in my kitchen. It was his way of getting into the mood and the locale.”

And it worked. Even French critics showered the film with praise when it premiered in the Cannes sideline competition, Un Certain Regard.

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
July 2007 issue

This month, Chinese filmmakers and moviegoers celebrated the tenth anniversary of the return of Hong Kong to the motherland. Arguably, very few works on the big screen have come to represent this decade as aptly as Andrew Lau’s and Alan Mak’s trilogy Infernal Affairs (IA), starring Andy Lau, Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Kelly Chen. Immensely successful and influential, the film relates the uncertainties of the Hong Kong people (citizens and filmmakers alike) prior to and after the 1997 handover.

“The IA trilogy speaks of the times,” writes Gina Marchetti in her insightful and accessible book, Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s Infernal Affairs – The Trilogy. An Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at the University of Hong Kong, Marchetti has written several volumes on Chinese cinema. In her new book, published this year and edited by the Hong Kong University Press, she explores, among other things, the significance of IA in the last decade. It’s hard to compare the history of the new Special Administrative Region and its cinema with anything that came before. In the period following the handover, the people of Hong Kong have endured much hardship (the SARS outbreak; the Asian financial crisis, the death of superstar Leslie Cheung; rising unemployment and the collapse of the local film industry). Hence, this decade might be termed the era of existential doubts.

“Not all films or film series lend themselves to book-length study,” says Marchetti, who has peeled away IA’s multiple layers to reveal its underlying themes. The deceptively simple plot is much more than a cat and mouse tale about two moles, one a triad member working in the Hong Kong police department and the other a cop passing as a mobster. The film also concerns Hong Kong history, Chinese religion and moral philosophy, global capitalism, the dynamics of the Hong Kong film industry and much more besides.

If the trilogy speaks of the times, its depth also speaks to the audience. After years of avoiding the cinema – in part because of rampant piracy, but also due to the rise of home video and cable TV – the release of IA saw locals once again queuing for tickets. Indeed, box office receipts broke new records (HKD 54 million, HKD 25 million and HKD 30 million, respectively for each of the three films).

In short, IA was soon regarded as a significant cinematic achievement, one that few industry observers had predicted. And that success came at time (2002) when confidence in the industry was very low indeed. Explains Marchetti: “[Infernal Affairs] helped to show that Hong Kong could still produce a film that could make a profit.” Even Hollywood took notice. Last year, the first entry in the series was re-made (and re-set in south Boston) by Martin Scorsese; the resulting film, The Departed, featured a US superstar-studded cast and won multiple Academy Awards. Scorsese’s version grasped the film's universal appeal: the struggle with identity in a complex urban environment. “The experience of Hong Kong as a place [as portrayed in IA] – constantly changing, global, at the cutting edge of economic and social trends – speaks to viewers who live in similarly cosmopolitan, highly competitive, consumer-saturated environments,” says Marchetti.

But many critics of the American version argue that Scorsese failed to capture IA’s depth. Comments Charles Leary, a professor of Hong Kong film history at New York University, “The Departed does not have the epic scope of the IA trilogy and the sense of history in the making.”

That said, Marchetti insists that though many viewers prefer the original, “both films need to be taken seriously.” While IA depicted Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland in the decade following the handover, The Departed has a lot to say about the state of America today and its institutions, especially post-9/11. “If Hong Kong suffered a crisis in its identity and the legitimacy of its key institutions after 1997,” says Marchetti, “then the US suffered a similar crisis after Bush’s response to 9-11 with [for instance] the bankruptcy of its political institutions after the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.”

Info on Marchetti's book is available at: http://www.hkupress.org

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
July 2007 issue

Published in a different version in that's Beijing
Chief editor: Oliver Robinson
July 2007 issue

In Proust’s Swan’s Way, he uses a peculiar literary devise – a madeleine dipped into a cup of tea – which releases a series of memories in the mind of the protagonist. Beijing filmmaker Zhuang Yuxin employs a similar device in his directorial debut Teeth of Love. Zhang uses injuries to call up spectral suitors and old love affairs, radiating pain in the same way nerves signal the presence of a phantom limb.

Though the premise of Teeth is somewhat harder to swallow than Proust’s soggy cake, the film nonetheless promises to be an interesting cinematic experience. The story unfolds through a series of flashbacks triggered by Qian Yehong’s (Yan Bingyan) dreadful visit to the dentist.

Sitting in the big chair, she falls into a series of reveries which are no less dreadful than having one’s teeth yanked. The first flashback takes her to the beginning of China’s reform era, where she humiliates a school mate before realizing the true extent of his love. In the next, she engages in a sordid affair with a married man, while in the last she reluctantly ties the knot with a third aspirant.

Each affair is etched upon her body through a physical injury (back pain, abortion and extracted tooth) and each time the pain flares up, the memories come flooding back.

“I found that pain and love are closely related to and rely on each other,” explains the multi-talented Zhuang, who in addition to being a film director, works as a television screenwriter, producer and distributor, and teaches literature at the Beijing Film Academy. Zhuang believes that contemporary romance lacks the pain necessary to engender deep romantic memories. “In the end, people really do not respect the experience of being in love,” he says. Unlike other more bitter cinematic efforts which use the reform era to explore the effects of change upon the individual, Zhuang sidesteps the social commentary to deliver a touching, albeit sometimes cruel, tale. Here, he doesn’t so much tackle changing times; rather he chooses to focus primarily on the complex interactions between pain, love, memory and the human experience.

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
June 2007 issue

Lost in Beijing (LIB) revolves around an odd love rectangle, a ménage á quatre, to be precise. It tells the story of two couples living under the same roof, bound by emotional and financial ties. A creation of the young, Shandong-born filmmaker Li Yu (Dam Street,2005), the film offers a unique, albeit awkward, premise that has stirred much controversy at home and abroad.

Two outsiders, Liu Pingguo (Fan Bingbing) and her husband An Kun (Tong Dawei), venture into the big city to search for employment. Liu finds work as a masseuse while An works as a window cleaner. One evening Liu finds herself at a company party and while highly inebriated is abused by her boss Lin Dong (Tony Leung Kar-fai). An witnesses the assault and is furious, yet when he realizes his wife is pregnant, he considers the financial rewards of blackmail. Eventually, Liu, An, Lin and his wife find themselves an unconventional solution.

Li’s third directorial effort focuses on the urban nouveau riche and young rural workers against the backdrop of a fast-changing society. We caught up with 34-year-old Li to discuss just how she became lost in Beijing.

that’s: What inspired you to make this film?
Li Yu (LY): The concept of this film is to explore the value of life in today’s China in the context of its fast-growing economy and material modernization. Film to me is a dream that reflects my feelings about our world. The inspiration comes from my feelings of excitement and also my concern about these changes. Changes in our material circumstances often challenge our priorities in regards to money, love, family and friendship. I just hope that people won’t get confused during this period of transition. I hope this film will not upset people but remind them that there is something else, something that may be more important than money. We have to face reality and think carefully about the importance of love in our lives.

that’s: With its setting and multiple perspectives, LIB would make a good premise for a TV series. Did you have that in mind when you created it?
LY: I don’t know if LIB is suitable for adaptation. I personally don’t like TV series. I was working for CCTV for a while but I mainly shot documentaries. I benefited a lot from that experience in terms of exploring the lives of Chinese.

that’s: How was the experience of working with veteran Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Kar-fai and Chinese mainland actress Fan Bingbing?
LY: Even though I am a young director, I don’t consider these actors as stars. Rather they are partners working together with me to make the film. I respect their experience, but I pay more attention to their attitudes toward the characters. I am thankful for their effort and their contributions to this film.

that’s: Dam Street (which won the C.I.C.A.E. Award at the Venice International Film Festival in 2005) drew much more attention overseas than in China. With LIB were you trying to make a more commercial film for the Chinese audience?
LY: Dam Street could have had better distribution [in China] if we had experience, and worked with a more experienced domestic distributor. In general, I respect the producer (Fang Li) and the way he gave focus and direction to our film even while writing the script. We wanted to share our views with the audience, not just tell them what we think and feel.

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
May 2007 issue

Also published in a different form in (c) that's Beijing Magazine
Deputy Chief editor: Oliver Robinson
May 2007 issue

While Chinese screens are often dominated by over-hyped, over-blown, over-budgeted epic films, a new, more subtle, more realistic and ultimately more relevant genre is beginning to emerge. Best described as down-to-earth tragicomedies, this genre places colorful working-class protagonists in tragic situations. Jiang Wen’s In the Heat of the Sun, produced in 1994, was arguably the first, followed by Peacock (Gu Changwei), Still Lives (Jia Zhangke), Getting Home (Zhang Yang) and The Postmodern Life of my Aunt, directed by Ann Hui On-wah.

The latter, set in Shanghai and Anshan (Dongbei), depicts Shanghai as a morally bankrupt city largely populated by shysters. The victim is played by sexagenarian Ye Rutang (Siqin Gaowa), a naïve, kind-hearted Dongbei lass, well schooled in the arts of honesty and citizenship. She thus becomes a magnet for dubious sorts, such as amateur opera singer Xiao Pan (Chow Yun-fat), who cajoles her into lending him money for trachoma meds and non-existent cemetery plots. Then there’s Ye’s roommate, Jin Yonghua (Shi Ke), who throws herself, porcelain vase in hand, in front of oncoming traffic in an effort to bilk insurance companies. Even Ye’s nephew Kuan Kuan (Guan Wenshuo) cons her by faking his own kidnapping to pay for his love interest’s plastic surgery.

This fresh and rambunctious script is the work of prize-winning novelist cum scriptwriter Li Qiang (Peacock) whose meticulous observations of Shanghainese lifestyle add depth and authenticity to the characters, especially its protagonist, Ye Rutang. In one scene, Ye, old-fashioned to a fault, knits herself a full-body swimsuit, but when she plunges into the pool the suit releases a slick of red dye.

“Our ambition was to shoot a movie which was highly entertaining as well as experimental and heartfelt,” says Hui. And that it is.

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
May 2007 issue

"Everything you want to know about drugs, but never knew” is the tagline of Derek Yee’s entertaining yet frequently disquieting police drama Protégé, which opened last month nationwide.

A Hong Kong version of Traffic, the film, produced by Peter Chan (Perhaps Love), probes the seedy depths of the city’s heroin trade. Nick, an undercover cop (Daniel Wu), is the protégé of one of Hong Kong’s most powerful drug barons (Andy Lau). Torn between duty and greed, Nick seeks redemption by helping a young woman kick her habit, though her abusive, junkie husband played by Louis Koo works to opposite ends.

The director’s interest in this sordid topic began while researching his 2005 crime drama, One Nite in Mongkok. Yee was intrigued by the stories of drug addiction and trafficking told by his friends in law enforcement, and consequently spent eight months researching the topic before writing the script. Eight months is long by Hong Kong standards, but Yee felt the investment was necessary if he was to fully comprehend the complexities of the drug scene. Even so, Yee says his film barely skims the surface. “If we wanted to dig deeper into the topic, ten films wouldn’t have been enough.”

That said, Protégé does offer a fairly in-depth account of this very lucrative trade, from the farmers and drug lords in Thailand to the chemists, mules, pushers, junkies, prostitutes and drug barons scattered along the heroin food chain. As a result, the film is one of the most beautifully written and directed Hong Kong-Mainland co-productions to emerge of late, featuring some of the finest acting we’ve seen in years.

Zhang and Koo (the junkie couple) also did extensive research into the habits of drug addicts and deliver award-winning performances. Indeed, Zhang eclipses the two leads (Wu and Lau), while Koo goes further – challenging, and vanquishing, his pretty-boy image. With such powerful and convincing performances, perhaps those tempted by the money and false glamour associated with drugs will think twice before accepting an apprenticeship.

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
March 2007 issue

On Valentine’s Day, moviegoing couples have two choices: romantic flicks or scary pics. The first choice is obvious, but the second is more useful primarily for the shudder that melts into a cuddle. Beijing-born filmmaker Teng Huatao (Sky of Love) and his backers, the film company Huayi Brothers, are releasing The Matrimony (Xin Zhong You Gui) around Valentine’s Day because they’re betting that lovestruck moviegoers will take objects of their infatuation to theaters in the hope of experiencing this phenomenon.

Teng says that when he and his producers planned the making of The Matrimony, they realized that China had a lousy track record with ghost stories, and that it fell to them to correct that. “In the past there were never really superior [Chinese] ghost movies, despite their popularity with audiences and critics,” says Teng. “There were only small budget films with simple stories.”

For this reason, he and his crew felt that they had to pack The Matrimony with the best in the business – a great cast, solid story, eerie ambiance and believable effects. The 38-year-old film director harnessed a budget of RMB 30 million (USD 3.83 million) to whip up something to please couples on Valentine’s Day: a piece blending romance with spooky intrigue.

The film’s plot concerns a newlywed couple who become mixed up with the world of ghosts. When the husband (Leon Lai) forbids his wife (Rene Liu) from entering the attic of their new house, the nosy wife inevitably defies his wishes. Inside the attic, she discovers a restless, spectral former girlfriend (Fan Bingbing) who died in a car accident before the two could get married.

The Matrimony is set in 1930s Shanghai, which evokes an era caught between tradition and modernity. Mainly shot on location in Shanghai, the film plays off the clash of ambiance between the thrilling, macabre moments and the romantic scenes.

Teng said that he wanted to avoid clichés from Western horror movies in order to achieve a more “Chinese approach” to ghost tales – that is, a ghost story with sexy specters. Ghost movies in China have often been associated with young beauties that passed away, but got stuck in the world of the living because there was something they couldn’t forget or forgive. A fine case in point was Tsui Hark’s 1980s trilogy A Chinese Ghost Story, which was set in ancient China and wherein a ravishing female ghost seduces a tax collector.

Teng’s choice for the role of the ghost was therefore key. He says that Fan Bingbing, with her full yet slender face, dark brow and huge, round eyes, was the best candidate for the challenging role.

“I’ve always thought she looked like a female ghost,” jokes Teng. “In China we have many famous novels in which ghosts are all stunning beauties, so inevitably people will associate her with ghosts.”

To beef up the movie’s star power, Hong Kong superstar Leon Lai was cast as the husband who cannot get over his late fiancé. Lai’s mellow personality matches his low-spirited character.

Still, Teng says that a good plot, a moody backdrop and big names aren’t enough to draw a crowd; top-notch production values are essential. “For a ghost and horror movie, the soundtrack is essential – if you turn off the sound, scary movies don’t seem horrific at all,” says Teng.

The visual and sound effects were processed by Hong Kong-based Chibi Digital Vision, which was responsible for the audio-visual extravaganza that was 2006’s Dragon Tiger Gate. Besides the soundtrack, the effects are responsible for metamorphosing Fan into a ghastly gui (Chinese ghost) desperately looking for love.

And while love draws Fan’s haunting spirit to the human world, Teng trusts that similar emotions will draw those in the mood into theaters – and into the embraces of their paramour.

(c) that's Beijing Magazine
Chief editor: Gwynn Guilford
February 2007 issue

Horror and romance are generally not compatible, but Beijing-born filmmaker Teng Huatao and China’s Huayi Brothers have created a match made in heaven, or so they say.

Set within the framework of a Chinese ghost film to its credit, The Matrimony boasts stars, story and special effects aplenty. “In the past there were never really any high-end ghost movies, despite their popularity with both audiences and critics,” says Teng. “They were mostly small budget films with simple stories.”

Indeed, the film promises to be a sensory extravaganza, with sound effects and visuals processed in Shanghai by Hong Kong-based Chibi Digital Vision (Dragon Tiger Gate). “For ghost and horror movies,” explains Teng,” the soundtrack is essential – if you turn off the sound you won’t think it’s horrifying at all.”

The emphasis on dazzle may seem a bit of a surprise for audiences familiar with the young director’s best known work, the art-house flick One Hundred (2001). For one thing, this latest work is definitely aimed at the mainstream. Set in the 1930s, a period that Teng says “was a bizarre time that fits the story”, The Matrimony was shot in Shanghai (at the former Dong Feng Hotel, next to Three on the Bund and the Science Hall on Nanchang Road).

The plot concerns a secret Shen Junchu (Leon Lai Ming) keeps from his wife Sansan (Rene Liu): in the attic of their home is a locked room which she is forbidden to enter. Unable to restrain her curiosity, she opens the door and finds a restless ghost, her husband’s former girlfriend Xu Manli (Fan Bingbing), who’s still desperately looking for love.

Implausible? Yes, but not within the context of the Chinese ghost genre. Compared to Western horror conventions, this is a whole different world – one where ghosts are not necessarily evil and scary, but coexist on the same plane as the living.

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
February 2007 issue

When Sun Yat-sen proposed in 1919 to build a dam on the Yangtze River, he probably didn’t appreciate just to what extent such a Herculean project and the colossal impact it would have on the local population. Seventy four years later and the Three Gorges Dam (in Yichang, Hubei Province) eventually started and was completed in May last year, becoming the largest hydroelectric dam in the world, and involving the relocation of more than 1.3 million people.

Despite being such a huge project, director Jia Zhangke takes his usual insightful look into human struggle that has seen him hailed overseas for his depiction of contemporary China in Still Life (Good People of the Three Gorges), his fifth film to date and his second movie to be released in China nationwide after The World.

Shot on HD, and using a documentary-style approach, the 36-year-old filmmaker offers a contemplative look at the emotional malaise within the rubble of Fengjie, a city at the foot of the dam. Two unconnected individuals from Shanxi, a coalminer (Han Sanming) and a nurse (Zhao Tao), search for their loved ones while wandering in an odd Imagelandscape of ruins, mountains and flooded lands. Eventually, they found something they didn’t expect they would.

Just as unexpected, was Still Life’s last-minute entry in competition at the 63rd Venice International Film Festival in September where Jia pocketed the Golden Lion award, the Western world’s ultimate sign of acknowledgement of Jia’s cinematic significance.

Jia talks with that’s about Still Life’s balancing act of realism and surrealism.

that’s: What is Still Life about?
Jia Zhangke: The focus of this movie is the impact of the Three Gorges Dam construction project on the lives of common people. I didn’t want to elevate the film to a sociological piece; it isn’t a movie to address societal problems actually. What I wanted to do was to look at the dam project from the angle of the locals. Of course they’re always affected by the society, but I didn’t want to just stop there. I wanted to show the strong will of the residents to confront the difficulties and how they survive.

that’s: The number of displaced locals exceeds the State of Idaho population. Did you witness any of it?
JZK: I didn’t witness the departure of people. Everything was just gone forever. It is very surrealistic; 1.3 million people left their land instantly. When I arrived there, there was even no trace left [of their lives] on this land. The saddest thing is that such an old city just disappeared under waters. The city has more than 2000 years of history and is attached to some wonderful cultural heritage such as the poems of Li Bai and the story of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

that’s: Why was Still Life presented at the last minute at the Venice Film Festival?
JZK: After I completed the rough cut, the Venice selection committee watched it and loved it. Unfortunately my father passed away during this period and I suspended all my work. Even so, they were still very persistent and wanted me to go back to work in July 2006 [to complete post production]. We all were afraid that I wouldn’t be able to finish it on time for the festival. Therefore we reached the agreement to present it as a surprise film; if I couldn’t finish it on time they would have found another movie.

that’s: Some scenes are bizarre, surreal even; there UFO flying around, a tight-rope walker and a building launched like a space shuttle. Explain.
JZK: The movie blends the reality with the two lead-character difficulties, their memories and their hope and imagination for the future. At the end of this movie, there are acrobatics to show this surrealism. It’s true that it’s kind of magical. Actually surrealism might just be the reality of modern China. China develops at an amazingly fast pace and there’s strong surrealistic side effects resulting from this development. Here, a city with a 2,400-year history got demolished in two years and more than one million people vanished instantly. From a certain viewpoint it shows the situation in China.

that’s: The movie’s a slow pace, with sometimes comedic moments. Why?
JZK: It’s the real pace of this city. From this languidity, you can understand the quickness of the [city] demolition and the departure of people. [So] this reality is sad and heavy. The contrast between the sad parts and the humor serves to emphasize the vitality and optimism of these people.

that’s: The humor works very well; your next film might as well be a comedy.
JZK: I haven’t thought about that yet, but I do like humor. I think Chinese people don’t lead a daily life with a long face and a sad mind. People should live with a smile.

c) that's PRD Magazine
Chief editor: Phil Boyle
December 2006 issue

Published in a slighlty different form in that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
February 2007 issue

and in that's Beijing Magazine
Deputy chief editor: Gwynn Guilford
January 2007 issue

Chen Kaige (The Promise) and Zhang Yimou (House of Flying Daggers), the two most successful art-film directors to bring Chinese mainland film to the world stage, have now become synonymous with empty commercial fare. Of late, Chen and Zhang have been engaged in a battle to gain the recognition of both international audiences and film festivals. Yet, ultimately, Zhang’s costly wuxiapian (chivalrous martial arts film) which employ an expensive formula of jaw- dropping visuals, high-tech special effects, an all-star cast and a wafer-thin plotline, fails to shine like his earlier art-house films.

With Curse of the Golden Flower, Zhang’s latest effort simultaneously released in China and the US this past December, the 55-year-old director has upped the ante. Even before CGF’s shooting started, Zhang proclaimed some grand ambitions: to compete for the Oscars, to break the RMB 300 million mark in China and to exceed the American box-office takings of Hero in 2004 (over USD 50 million). This was a conspicuous attempt to surpass the USD 42.5 million Chen earned for The Promise released in December 2005.

CGF, which will come in at a mere USD 45 million, is nonetheless China’s most expensive film to date, and promises more gaudy costumes and sets and breathtaking cinematography. The director has marshalled 20,000 Chinese extras to play the troops, along with a team of tailors to sew 3,000 handmade costumes at a cost of USD 1.3 million. All in all, the battle scenes account for a sizeable chunk of the budget. Zhang recalls that “several hundred thousand RMB disappeared in one cut.”

His all-star cast also did little to rein in the film’s mushrooming budget. To connect with foreign audiences and critics, Zhang gathered a cast of bankable and internationally-famous movie stars, including his former girlfriend Gong Li (Miami Vice, Memoirs of a Geisha) and Chow Yun-fat (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) supported by two local sensations, Taiwanese pop idol Jay Chou and Chinese mainland thespian Liu Ye. What’s more, the lavish cinematography of cameraman Zhao Xiaoding (House of Flying Daggers) and the bombastic score of Shigeru Umebayashi (2046) help lift the film to international standards. Zhang is only frugal when it comes to CGI (computer generated imagery) as he has sworn to ”avoid bragging technology”.

Like many wuxiapian that came before it, CGF is an exotic and at times erotic piece. The story takes place in a harem with an array of luscious Tang Dynasty babes, complete with spilling cleavage, as was the fashion of the time. The original story, Thunderstorm, written by the ‘Chinese Shakespeare’ Cao Yu, was set in the 1930s and chronicles the disintegration of an aristocratic family before the Japanese invasion.

Set in the Tang dynasty, the film version takes the court intrigues and familial feuds to an almost excessive level. The film begins with Prince Jai (Jay Chou), who returns to the palace to reunite with his mother the Empress (Gong), whom he hasn’t seen for years. The Emperor (Chow) has had a falling-out with the Empress over her affair with Crown Prince Wan (Liu Ye), her son-in-law. Wan wants to elope with his sweetheart, Chan (Li Man), the daughter of the Imperial Doctor (Ni Dahong). Seeking a neat solution to the problem, the Emperor orders the doctor to drug and incapacitate the Empress.

The tragic conspiracies are intriguing, but the unravelling plots and unlikely revelations make the story hard to digest. CGF certainly has more to it than The Promise, with a plethora of twists and turns and some truly moving scenes, but when it’s too much, it’s too much. Zhang’s fifteenth movie will, no doubt, make film history on account of its excesses. One can only imagine what Chen will do to match it in his next effort (Mei Lan Fang).

(c) that's Shanghai Magazine
Chief editor: Steven Crane
January 2007 issue

Though set in the Warring States era, a period in Chinese history marked by vicious factionalism, A Battle of Wits (ABW) is all about friendly ties. Indeed, this project, designed as yet another vehicle for Andy Lau and Fan Bingbing, might just herald a new age of Asian film co-production.

At a recent producers’ workshop, titled “Border-crossing Co-productions”, organized by the First Annual Asian Film Market and held in Pusan, the film was hailed as a model of Asian co-production. No small feat considering the diversity of the production team: Chinese mainland’s Huayi Brothers, Korea’s Boram Productions, Hong Kong’s Sundream Motion Pictures and Japan’s Hark & Co. Kwan Jae-Hyun, the workshop’s coordinator, said ABW served as a test case for regional cooperation and passed with flying colors.

From its source material to its production methods, the film is 100 per cent made in Asia. Based on the Japanese comic book Mak Gong, which was, in turn, inspired by an ancient Chinese story, ABW tells the story of a war strategist employed by a small state to protect it from imminent invasion.

Director Jacob Cheung Chi-leung took six years to bring the USD 16 million production to the screen, taking his time to assemble a talented team of actors from across Asia, including Lau and Fang, Shanghai-born Wang Zhiwen, Korean Ahn Sung-ki and Taiwanese heartthrob Nicky Wu.

Six years may seem excessive, but the result, at least in business terms, should be of great benefit to regional filmmaking. “Before shooting, each investor would calculate the profit versus the cost in their respective territory and invest accordingly,” explained Sundream Motion Pictures producer Tsui Siu-ming.

That said, the hottest topic at the workshop wasn’t profit, but rather the importance of establishing “mutual trust” among partners in the long term. And some of the key players – Iseki Satoru (Hark & Co.), Lee Joo-ik (Boram Productions) and James Wang (Huayi Brothers) – have made efforts to do so before, for example on Chen Kaige’s The Emperor and the Assassin (1998).

But with ABW, all parties have taken a giant step forward.

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

Liu Jie swears to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. In that, he’s a rare breed: a fledgling director with little experience (though he worked with Wang Xiaoshuai on Beijing Bicycle and Drifters) but plenty of high ideals. Indeed, his directorial debut, Courthouse on Horseback (COH), is a poignant, unflinching exposé of China’s rural judicial system, one that earned him a Horizons Prize at the Venice Film Festival this past September.

COH is a low-budget film shot in semi-documentary format and is set in the isolated Ninglang County in Yunnan. It is based on a real-life character – a venerable old man named Feng, an itinerant, circuit court judge, who delivers justice to the backwater hamlets of the province; until one day, such are the demands of the job, he dies of exhaustion.

Like judge Feng, Liu is something of a martyr – he sacrificed his wedding money to finish off the film. At the same time, he sees himself as something of a visionary – one who will hopefully influence other Chinese film directors to resist the temptation of profit over integrity.

“Due to the impact of commercial culture in the past half decade, Chinese cinema has become more and more superficial,” laments Liu. Indeed, he views Chen Kaige’s Yellow Earth (1984) as an example of the golden age.
Unlike Chen, who has all but surrendered his artistic vision to special effects of late, Liu champions a minimalist approach to filmmaking. “I discarded all filmmaking techniques and filmed this movie using the most simple and unadulterated means possible,” he says.

Indeed, in COH the scenery is real; there are no special effects and with the exception of seasoned actor Li Baotian (Judou, Shanghai Triad) and the up-and-coming, Lu Yulai (Peacock), the cast is made up of non-professionals. As an unknown director with limited means, Liu, of course, had little choice. Still, his tale of a judge on the bumpy road to truth has much more relevance than many another current screen offering. The big question is: will it draw a crowd? Well, it might have, had it been given a fair trial, but with a mere five day theatrical run, and just one screening a day and not everywhere in China, one might say the jury is still out.

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