News Article

Zhang Yimou Crawls out of Woodwork

Merchant Times, 21 March 2001
Liu Shu-De

Last year, before sealing his lips during the last interview, Zhang Yimou promised Merchant Times (Shi Dai Shang Bao) that should he ever breathe a word on Hero ( ), readers of Merchant Times would be the first to learn of it. Yesterday, Zhang Yimou finally fulfilled his promise.

Sometime back, all kinds of news related to Hero were churned out endlessly. During its active production period, many media tried to visit the production, hoping to gain some information. However, Zhang Yimou issued a strict order preventing any of its crew and cast from saying anything about Hero. Just when discussions about Hero are subsiding, Zhang Yimou came out of woodwork in Hengdian of Province Zhejiang yesterday to talk about the movie.
 

I have Always Liked Wuxia

Everyone always has the impression that I only like shooting films set in rural villages. Actually, I am a big fan of wuxia novels. My first wuxia novel was the 17-volume King of Eagle Claw. I still remember the characters very well. I have also read Jin Yong (Louis Cha), Gu Long, etc. Jin Yong's novels are more traditional; Gu Long novels are atmospheric.

Ever since I became a director, I had always wanted to produce a wuxia movie. I had already been looking for script writers three years ago, had always wanted to adapt a Jin Yong or Gu Long novel. I hoped to get the adaptation script right before purchasing the rights. However, the adaptation was not satisfactory, so I decided to handle the script myself. It took me about three years. By the time our script was done, when I was happy with my script, Lee Ang's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had already been released and was immensely successful. And thus, people are saying that I am merely following the trend, imitating others.

 

The Characters in Hero

There are four symbolic persons in Hero. These four people are called Flawed Sword ( ), Flying Snow ( ), Without Name ( ) and Like Moon ( ), and are played respectively by Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung, Jet Li and Zhang Ziyi. They seem to have no surnames, and their names are but a metaphor. Chen Daoming acts as Emperor Qin, and doesn't have a name either. We don't call him Yingzheng or Ershi, just Emperor Qin.

The story is set mainly in the Post Warring Period. At that time, there are Seven Kingdoms, with  Kingdom Qin being the strongest. To prevent Kingdom Qin from conquering them, the Six Kingdoms keep sending assassins to take Emperor Qin's life. Flawed Sword, Flying Snow and Like Moon combine forces to assassinate Emperor Qin but die in their failed attempt. Eventually, Without Name gains Emperor Qin's trust and enters the inner palace. When Without Name gets close enough to the emperor to be able to murder him, he changes his mind. For Without Name realises that Emperor Qin is a true Hero... This is the premise of Hero.

Many people tend to compare Hero with Lee Ang's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. However, I believe that Hero is not only a wuxia pian but also a nursery tale that happened in ancient China.
 

I Hope to Retain My Personality

I don't know much about the West, unlike Lee Ang who is familiar about the Western market and popular in the West. I don't have Lee Ang's good command of English, and I am known as a folk of the countryside, a rural, a farmer director. The world is a big market and there are people who enjoy my movies. I hope to retain my traits in Hero, to lend a rejuvenating feel to the work. As I am the one who wrote the story, it bears my traits.

Hero is a commercial action movie. I'll be incorporating my personal understanding of Chinese culture into the film, to make it more meaningful. Wuxia is a fictitious world. Sometimes, you may discover that it's so fascinating to transform intangible figments of the imagination into material objects of the real world; It's also very difficult. For example, a wuxia novel may paint a very vivid atmosphere of that very short moment, the speed, the strength during that instant when the sword is unsheathed, giving you plenty of room for fantasy. It's very exhilarating. But in a movie, that instant is but a quick flash, which leaves little room for imagination. Then you have to feel the mood. This is the first time I am shooting a wuxia pian and I want to portray this type of atmosphere, to produce something that shows my idiosyncrasies.

In reality, Hero is a movie that combine elements of commercialisation with a sense of uniqueness. It's not justifiable to merely talk about its novelty; That would be tantamount to saying that Hero is an experimental movie which may be a commercial failure. Elements of commercial feasibility relate to greatness of the story, the mood, the pacing and the panoramic vastness of the scenes.

Source: Sina

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