From right to left: Hong
Kong director Peter Chan, Jet Li, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Xu Jinglei and
Andy Lau. Jiang Dong
Hong Kong director Peter Chan cast Jet Li, Andy Lau
and Takeshi Kaneshiro in The Warlords (Tou Ming
Zhuang), but the three famous faces are covered in mud and
ash. He hired production designer Yee Chung-man, creator of the
magnificent costumes in Curse of the Golden Flower
(Mancheng Jindai Huangjinjia), but the film's hues are
gray. He teamed up with action choreographer Ching Siu-tung, famous
for the dazzling kungfu scenes in House of Flying Daggers
(Shimian Miaofu), but forbade him from using a single
wire.
Set in southern China in the 1860s, the film opens with a bleak
battlefield scene which sets the tone. The screen is filled with
the bodies of soldiers impaled by spears, blood seeping out of
their armor, and yellow dust in the air.
Pang Qingyun is an ambitious social climber played by Jet Li,
who has two blood brothers Zhao Erhu (Andy Lau) and Jiang Wuyang
(Kaneshiro). Theirs is a tale of betrayal and revenge. The stage is
set against the backdrop of civil war, the Taiping Rebellion
(1851-64), a large-scale revolt initiated by village teacher Hong
Xiuquan, who formulated an ideology combining the ideals of
pre-Confucian utopianism and Christian beliefs.
"This is a down-to-earth blockbuster," says Chan, who has won
plaudits for his delicate love stories Perhaps Love
(Ruguo Ai) and Comrades, Almost a Love Story
(Tian Mimi). "Why should ancient China always be so
lavish?"
Chan is not a fan of the early Chinese swordsman films because
he thinks they are too far removed from real life. The Chinese
costume epics of recent years, he believes, have developed from the
swordsman genre.
"I wanted to shoot a different ancient China. The one we are
used to seeing in films is special enough to arouse the curiosity
of Western audiences, but what I'd like to show is neither
exceedingly good nor bad. It has these aspects, just like any other
nation, but it does not always have to be gorgeous."
Production designer Yee recalls that Chan asked him to
"represent the war through actors". At one of the studios, the crew
spent a month shoveling tons of earth on the streets, before
pouring water on it to create a muddy set, on whihc the crew had to
wear boots all the time. Chan even researched the Afghanistan civil
war to get the feeling for what a real battlefield looked like.
Li has only several minutes near the end of the film to show off
his kungfu skills, while Lau jokes that he has never been made to
look so poor and ugly. Rising mainland actress Xu Jinglei, who
plays the only female character, Zhao's wife and Pang's lover,
looks like a coal miner when she shows up.
When promoting the film at this year's Cannes Film Festival,
Chan showed international distributors a 35-minute trailer, in
which Li and his soldiers besiege the city of Suzhou. International
buyers were surprised to find that, for the first time in a Chinese
period film, there were no martial arts.
"What I wanted to convey is that Chinese films can also win over
audiences through drama, not only by kungfu scenes," Chan says.
The $40 million film, which will premiere in China today, will
screen in 2,000 theaters in America next autumn. Jet Li, who has
starred in several successful Hollywood productions, says the first
aim is to win over the Asian market.
"This film is not the kind of Chinese blockbuster Western
audiences are familiar with, so, as for the Western box office, we
can only hope for the best. We know very well the old type (Chinese
movie), which puts together many money-friendly factors, but this
time it is a different story," Li says.
As eye-catching as the war scenes are, Chan strongly believes
the film does not use violence for the sake of it. Rather, he says,
the depiction of war's cruelty is different from the "violent
aesthetics" of many other Chinese films.
"In many Chinese action films, fighting, even killing someone,
must be in a beautiful, or so-called cool style. That is the really
dangerous thing. War is cruel and violent. All the fight scenes
serve the main theme - the horror of war. If the film does not show
the horrors of war, how can I expect my viewers to detest war?"
Li says he accepted the role of Pang Qingyun because the film is
not about action but is anti-war.
"What I want to tell the audience is holding a broadsword is
dangerous, not beautiful."
Chan and Li agree that it is the war that pushes the characters'
fates. Li's "elder brother" character betrays his two close
friends; the wife of Lau's character betrays him; while Kaneshiro's
role experiences a dramatic twist in the understanding of brotherly
love, at the end. Chan, however, insists these are not bad men,
because the environment plays a role in their choices. Although the
story is fictional, he says, their characters unravel as they would
in real circumstances.
The middle and late 19th century was a time when the world was
experiencing great changes. The German empire was established,
there was the American Civil War (1861-65); Japan was to enjoy the
fruits of the Meiji Restoration; while China was yet to recover
after two disastrous Opium Wars. The Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) was
collapsing, while a new system had not arrived. In such times, Chan
suggests, old moral standards faced a severe test.
"There are no bad people in my stories, only bad events," he
says.
Scenes from the The
Warlords featureing Jet Li, Andy Lau and Takeshi
Kaneshiro.??? File photos
(China Daily December 12, 2007)
