Zhang Ziyi sits on a couch with two giant pillows sandwiching her slender body. She has kicked off her shoes and curled up under one of the pillows, on top of which she balances a cup of tea. She holds it so nimbly as if her fingers are barely touching it.
In a black T-shirt that matches her long black hair, the actress looks casual and relaxed, beaming her signature smile. She is making herself comfortable in a suite of Shangri-La Hotel Singapore.
A few minutes earlier, the Chinese movie star was sharing her thoughts about food with the hotel's executives and staff. Standing around a table filled with fruits and finger food, they chatted about what they liked about Asian cuisines. She laughed, and her laughter was infectious. Nervousness on the part of the hotel staff gave way to cordiality.
Zhang Ziyi knows how to make people around her comfortable. For all her movie-star glamour, she has the uncanny ability to put people at ease, attracting the spotlight yet spreading enough halo around that nobody is engulfed in darkness.
The star of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Wohu Canglong) is a "brand ambassador" for Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts. A television channel in the hotel has programmed non-stop a show called Five Elements with Zhang Ziyi, in which she offers her personal insight into Chinese philosophy while basking in such luxury treatments as jade massage in the hotel chain's Beijing property.
It was not a regular television commercial, but more like a cross between an educational documentary and a lifestyle demonstration through a gauze-like lens.
"That was last year's project," explains Sari Yong, Shangri-La's corporate public relations manager. "Our relationship with Zhang has been going on for three years now, and both sides have enjoyed it very much."
The new project took Zhang outside the hotel's exquisitely decorated environs and out into the wild.
She spent a night at an Inner Mongolia yurt, talking about the rich ethnic culture. She rode a camel in the Oman desert, hours away from the nearest modern facilities.
"It was an unforgettable experience," she says. Of course, an entourage of cameramen and make-up artists followed her making sure not a strand of her hair was out of place.
She is the movie royalty who does not blink in the face of hardship.
Asked about the difference between the Shangri-La project, which will be aired on the National Geographic channel, and her movies or commercials, Zhang cites an "affinity" for the hotel brand.
"What we have in common is our pursuit for that special touch. Shangri-La is a family business, and as such it treats its staff like a family."
The partnership has also taken her to an orphanage in Kunming, which was sponsored by Care for Children, a Beijing-based non-profit organization.
Besides, it has given her a peek into the business world. "No job is easy. Take a hotel manager. You see him commanding a battalion of employees, but he has a lot of responsibilities on his shoulder."
Zhang Ziyi could have been talking about herself.
The biggest complaint about China's biggest global star inside her home country can be summed up as: She had it easy.
One plum role after another seemed to fall into her lap, and she always works with the best directors. She did not seem to have the "apprentice" period normal for most careers.
"That's because people didn't see me working hard. They saw only the result."
Last year, she jumped from one project to another, leaving little time for vacation.
For Sophie's Revenge (Feichang Wanmei) this summer's release, she was a producer as well as the star, securing the investment and learning the trade beyond that of creating a new role.
The movie has so far grossed 60 million yuan ($8.78 million), she gushed, which is a handsome profit for a mid-budget comedy like this.
However, even though she was perceived as having it easy, for whatever comes her way, Zhang Ziyi takes it easy.
Contrary to what people surmise, she did not plan her career moves, she insists.
She brushes aside the suggestion that taking on a comedic role would soften her public image of the iron lady with steely determination and build up a girl-next-door persona.
"I decided to do the movie because I wanted to support new talent - in this case the director - just as someone offered me a helping hand while I first started out."
Zhang is so clear-headed one may wonder where she draws her power for her dramatic roles. While all her countrymen have been enthusing about, and envying, her "Hollywood career", she herself dismisses it as simply being "a well-treated guest" when she crosses the Pacific.
Apart from Hollywood productions, she has participated in Hong Kong, Japanese and Korean movies and endorsement deals that take her all over the world.
Amazingly, she is securely rooted and does not for a single moment sound like a globetrotting superstar.
Many Chinese used to have the feeling that Hollywood poured too much adulation upon her, but now more and more of them are changing their view and starting to see her as a fair representation of the country, at least a screen representation.
But "nobody can represent a whole country," she adds.
Zhang Ziyi has enjoyed a very productive decade with many memorable roles and public appearances.
Yet, according to herself, she is not someone who multi-tasks. "I focus on one thing at a time," she says, modestly calling it a "weakness".
That partly explains why she is a perfectionist, making sure everything she participates in comes out just right.
"I've learned the importance of leadership from the Shangri-La project," she recognizes. "Everything starts from details."
In a society where quick results are often the objective, such attention to detail could be a luxury.
Planned or not, Zhang Ziyi is a risk-taker. She'll travel more for the Hong Kong-headquartered hotel chain, and her more recent movie project is a thriller called Horsemen.
"The character I play is a little psychotic because she did not have a normal childhood. But I like the challenge."
Given all the previous challenges she had faced down, she may again make it look so easy that people may say it's a piece of pie falling out of the sky and into her hands.
(China Daily September 1, 2009)
