In the middle of a cold Beijing March, the Canadian casting director called me about the job. "You will be working as the assistant to the lead actress in a movie starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li," she said.
"You will have to go to Hengdian for a few months. That's in Zhejiang Province, have you heard of it? It's kind of like China's Hollywood. I've been there before in the summer - it's hot, humid and dirty and I never want to go back."
This recreated scene from Zhang Yimou's Hero in Hengdian attracts a large audience.
As a young American hoping to break into the film business, my head spun for days. Images of my name in big lights, joking around with Jackie on the set - the glamorous Hollywood life in China?
Moving into Hengdian's best hotel, the VIP (or Hengdian Grand Hotel of International Convention Center), it was already apparent that China's Hollywood might be a few decades behind the actual Hollywood in terms of facilities. I was working for one of China's hottest young stars, yet our rooms had an unpleasant bathroom odor.
The small exercise room housed a handful of weights and pull-up contraptions, there were four different machines, but the electric bike had no plug, and a colony of mosquitoes nested inside the Stairmaster.
Yet this "Grand" hotel truly was for VIPs. It was where all of the actors and most of the producers and directors stayed, not just for our production, but for any big project in town.
When we first arrived, a Canadian Broadcasting Company TV mini-series called Iron Road was almost wrapped, and Hollywood legend Peter O'Toole could be seen daily waiting for his car, looking dapper while dabbing his sweat with a folded handkerchief.
The reason foreigners are willing to withstand the heat of Hengdian is because of the conveniences it offers a production shooting in China. In Hengdian everything is so close together, a one-stop shop for various historical-era settings, soundstages, prop workshops, office space, and services for casting extras.
Actor Edward Norton (right) takes part in a ceremony to mark the start of shooting for The Painted Veil, in Hengdian.
Hengdian offers close to full-scale replicas of different dynastic-period architecture, colonial streets and palaces, including Beijing's Forbidden City. These sets are fully constructed buildings with usable interiors, making Hengdian a mammoth "theme park" of Chinese history, even though most of the structures are barely five years old.
However, aside from the substandard accommodation in "Chinawood", there are other reminders that it still has a way to go. For example, Fedex does not deliver here. Instead, they deliver to Yiwu, an hour's drive away, which is also where the closest train station and airport are located. Still, Yiwu's airport is so small it only has one flight a day to Beijing.
Considering the number of people, props, equipment, costumes and other items that need to reach Hengdian in order to fulfill the needs of just one big-budget film, its isolation is sometimes an obstacle. Often production assistants have to drive the five-hour round trip to Hangzhou several times a week just to collect things like champagne and cake to celebrate the birthday of important crew members, like cinematographer Peter Pau.
The ordeal of securing a couple of dummies for a scene in June provides a good example of what a foreign production deals with working in Hengdian.
Several high-class dummy corpses were ordered from the United States. They were shipped to Hong Kong, then flown up to Beijing. There, a production assistant flew with them to Hangzhou. Then the dummies were driven two-and-a-half hours to Hengdian, then another two-and-a-half hours to our location in nearby Xianju.
For the crew, being in such an isolated place required a bigger lifestyle adjustment than shooting in Shanghai, Beijing or Hong Kong. Hollywood veterans used to hand-served hors d'oeuvres on set were now living in a place where the pedicabs far outnumber taxis.
No one in the hotel service staff spoke English, so foreign crew members were dependent on production staff or translators. When the American star of our movie, Michael Angarano, wanted to order room service, he knocked on my door for help ordering in Mandarin.
Yet it was possible to accommodate most foreigners' needs. Appliances like microwaves and toaster ovens, and Western brand food products ordered through a service called City Farm, were brought in from Shanghai. If a restaurant could provide a translated menu, it stood a chance of becoming an English-speaking crew hangout.
Compromising between a typical Chinese shooting schedule of seven days a week, and an American work week of five days, we worked six days and had Sundays free. The crew was so busy there was no time to be disappointed at the lack of nightlife in Hengdian.
Every Saturday night, we took over the bar in town called "1798". There we could put on our own mix CDs, rearrange the tables, and the place wouldn't close until we went home. Even though she didn't speak English, most of the foreign regulars knew the bartender by name.
Hengdian offers close to full-scale replicas of different dynastic-period architecture.
In order to give us time to sleep off our hangovers and get some exercise, we organized a weekly late Sunday afternoon basketball game.
With players ranging from Chinese producers, crew workers, American assistants and every so often a movie star or two playing fierce pick-up ball, this game was a testament to the way working in Hengdian brought a whole crew of foreigners and Chinese people together.
Not only that, Hengdian is a place that brings movie stars together. One day in May Jackie Chan ran into Hong Kong actor Tony Leung in the VIP Hotel gym. Leung was in Hengdian for the Canadian production of Iron Road, and the two of them got to talking about Hengdian Studio's development.
Even the stars agree that Hengdian is improving. That day Chan posted on his Website, "Tony first came here five years ago. At that time Zhang Yimou was filming Hero and the entire Hengdian Studio had only the Qin Dynasty palace set for filming. But now, five years later, it has constructed many different film sets ... It's really amazing! I have been all over the world but I have never seen such a big film and television studio."
(China Daily December 20, 2007)
