My right to fright
While her much-celebrated film academy mate Zhang Yimou has been focusing his lens on grand costume epics, Li Shaohong has constantly pointed her camera at fresh new subjects. In 2004, Li impressed audiences with the visually over-the-top Baober in Love, which follows a Chinese yuppie who leaves his wife and runs off with an "ageless" Beijing girl. A year later, she set her sights on the murky world of adoption in the drama Stolen Life and now her latest offering is a thriller, paying homage to the master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock.
Rising star Chen Kun (right) plays an urban white-collar trapped in his own delusion. |
The Door (Men) opened this month in Chinese cinemas and revolves around a young man's jealous and suspicious delusions about his girlfriend. The most interesting piece in Li's panoramic puzzle is pure Hitchcock. Did he kill her or didn't he?
Overwhelmed by the non-stop crossover between reality and the hero's fantasy, viewers may struggle to follow the plot. However, this confusion is exactly what Li sets out to create.
"The story is like a jigsaw," she said. "The biggest fun comes from re-organizing the fragments in your own way to find your own answer."
The film, according to Li, is designed to "bring new ideas, new discoveries, and new visual wonders" to the viewer.
Li was born into an army officer's family, and joined the People's Liberation Army when she was only 14. She later worked in a PLA hospital as a doctor and her office was next to the mortuary.
This could explain why the veteran director may not be too squeamish about shooting a horror film.
Chinese female director Li Shaohong hits the big screen with a scary film The Door. Jiang Dong |
In 1978, when the Beijing Film Academy reopened after the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), she applied for a position in the department of direction and became a classmate to Chen Kaige, when Zhang Yimou was studying photography in the same college.
Li became famous when her fourth film Blush (Hong Fen) won a Silver Bear at the 1995 Berlin Film Festival. Her following TV series, such as Palace of Desire (Daminggong Ci), featuring Shakespearean-style lines and grand settings, added to her fame as a director with extreme aesthetic sensitivity.
Although she is a powerful woman in the Chinese film industry, Li does not like to be called "an iron lady".
However, she doesn't seem to mind the nickname coined by her husband Zeng Nianping, the first photography master in the Beijing Film Academy and photographer of all her movies.
Zeng calls his wife "the devil who wears Prada", because of her elegance in daily life and ruthlessness in the work place.
The 52-year-old wears short red hair, and often matches her outfit and fair complexion with red accessories.
After shooting finishes, she enjoys putting on a pair of Prada sandals to feel better.
Designer clothes were not always her cup of tea. The director would wear a black waistcoat, and when a garment was worn out, she would wear it to work under her vest.
"I joined the army very young, so the girls' thing, like make-up and beautiful clothes were not very important in my life," she said.
She used to call herself "Ugly Duckling", and her old friend Li Xiaowan "Snow White" when the two hung out together as little girls. Years later the friends become business partners, and Snow White urged the Ugly Duckling to look her best even when working.
Gradually Li realized a nicer look brought positive influence to everybody on set.
In the eyes of The Door's leading actor, Chen Kun, the niceness stops when the cameras begin to roll.
In the movie, Chen had to fight with another character in a speeding car while it raced over a bridge 90 meters above the Jialing River. The car was only centimeters away from the edge, and there was no railing.
Chen initially refused to do the scene but was rebuked immediately by an indifferent Li. "You will be OK, I am here with you," Li said.
The scene proved to be one of the most thrilling and eye-catching moments in the movie.
Li admits she becomes a totally different person on the set and becomes "like an obsessed demon".
For her next movie, Li is venturing on yet another path less travelled and will create a fictional lover for Guan Yu, an ancient Chinese hero.
The general is known for his loyalty, however nobody has ever heard of his love story before. "I will make a new kind of costume blockbuster," Li said.
(China Daily 01/26/2007 page21)
