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GONG LI and YIMOU ZHANG on
'CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER'
Contributed by Michael J. Lee, Executive Editor
for Radio Free Entertainment
November 13, 2006
Based on one of the most culturally significant literary works in China's history, Curse of the Golden Flower uses the lavish decadence of the Tang Dynasty as a backdrop for one family's inner turmoil. Chow Yun-Fat and Gong Li star as the emperor and empress of a royal clan beset by an internal strife that is masked by a seemingly perfect exterior. Director Yimou Zhang delivers mindblowingly striking visuals and insane battle sequences in the vein of his previous films House of Flying Daggers and Hero, creating an incredible world of color and vibrance that contrasts the darkness of the story's central themes.
In this interview, Yimou Zhang and actress Gong Li (Miami Vice), through their translators, talk about the making of the movie.
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The Interview
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MEDIA: Curse of the Golden Flower is based the dramatic play Thunderstorm, yet they take place in radically different times. Why did you want to change that aspect of the story?
ZHANG: It's indeed based on a modern drama, Thunderstorm, which is one of the most famous works from the contemporary canon of modern Chinese dramatic texts. It's written by Cao Yu and is set during the 1920s and '30s, and is a key work in modern China. It's so important, in fact, that students of dramatic art in China actually are trained with this--it's part of their kind of basic repertoire, that they must perform Thunderstorm during their student days. So this is a work that I've been long familiar with, and it's so popular that it's performed basically every day in China. If you were to pick any random day (perhaps today), it's probably performed in some city somewhere in China--you will find a performance of Thunderstorm. And it's a story about the way that people are twisted and pushed, and they struggle to survive under the feudal system in China. And it has a very strong characterization, very powerful characters that are featured, and I thought, "Wouldn't it be interesting to take this modern play and to transpose it to pre-modern China, to the Tang Dynasty?" And not just any dynasty, but the most glorious, splendid, colorful place where all of this external beauty is heightened. And that would be the ultimate juxtaposition to this dark portrait of humanity that the play is unveiling.
Gong, was it difficult to maintain that very heightened sense of drama in the film?
GONG: Well, for me, the process was kind of like being in a bullfight, where they kind of stick the bull and keep taunting the bull--exciting the bull till he's just in a frenzy and ready to fight. For me, it was like that every day. I had to get all excited. And the director, of course, was the bullfighter and I was the bull, to get me really charged up to perform in the play. And then [we would] get off work, go home, have a nice sleep, and the next day, get up and start the whole process over again.
Zhang, how did you approach the casting for this project?
ZHANG: When I was starting the cast and I had to think about who I should cast for the emperor and the empress in this film, it was really quite clear there were two people that really were suitable for these roles, and that was Chow Yun-Fat and Gong Li, who are without question two of the greatest contemporary Chinese actors that are working today. They both have an incredible power, very strong acting abilities, very rich experience, and I really couldn't think of anyone else I would rather have do these roles than the two of them. And I was very lucky that when I called them, they both agreed to participate in this production, and there we had our two leads. For the other characters in the film, it was a little more difficult because we really needed actors with a lot of stage experience and [who were] very well versed in dramatic art, because this is, after all, adapted from a play. So we were looking around for various people. And for the third son, we cast Jay Chou, who is a pop sensation throughout Asia. He's from Taiwan. And he actually came at the recommendation of my producer. And I suspect there was a kind of business strategy there because of the marketability of this young face. But he's truly a young king in the pop world. And there was something really wonderful about his performance. There's a simpleness, but really a power that comes through in his performance.
Gong, your costume is very elaborate. How long did it take to get into it?
GONG: For the whole process every day of getting ready, including hair and makeup and costume, it took maybe about three hours total. By the time I got into the hair stage, I began to feel like, "Yes, I'm getting into the mood of the empress, and the bullfight is ready." So by the time we got onto the set, it was [ready with a striking] color scheme, with everything sort of red and gold and very splendid. Then the bullfight really took off after that.
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How important is the extravagant color scheme in relation to the story, and what is its significance?
ZHANG: Color is indeed very important in the scope of this film, especially gold colors and jade colors. And you see that very prominently displayed throughout the visual scheme of the work. And this really comes from this kind of saying we have in China, where gold and jade adorn the outside while the inside is dark and rotting. And that's the kind of theme that we really wanted to emphasize here--that although you have this very splendid exterior packaging, what's going on inside is very different and very dark. So to emphasize that gold, we got this kind of gold colored dust from Tibet and from all different places, and used that in the various set designs. We also had glass handicrafts, which were sometimes in the form of pottery vessels. Also, you see them in the columns in the palace. And the real version of this glass handiwork is actually very expensive, and we couldn't afford to use the real thing for the whole film. So we actually spent about four to five months experimenting with different replacements that could be less expensive, but really capture that same kind of opulent feeling. So in the end, we used that as well to heighten this splendid, beautiful feeling of the Tang Dynasty. And the color is not just for show. It's really a theme of the work, and it emphasizes this very strong discord between form and content, between the darkness of the family and this beautiful glitter that's all adorning the outside. And I think in the end, that really heightens the tragic feeling of the story and of these characters.
Gong, after the grueling shoot for Miami Vice, was it a relief for you to return to China to work on Curse?
GONG: Yes, going back to film Curse of the Golden Flower, everything did in fact go very smoothly and very efficiently, and so it was a very good experience, and we're very happy with it. But as far as being satisfied with it, actually I feel a little bit unsatisfied with Curse of the Golden Flower, [in] that my own part in the film...I wish it were longer. I wish they could give me another 20, 30 minutes. I could actually do an even better job with the performance. [laughs]
The film features exceptionally beautiful scenery. Were these real places or constructed sets?
ZHANG: The exteriors are all real locations. The palace that you see for most of the film is actually a set palace that was built several years ago in Zhejiang province in a place called Hengdian. And this palace was actually under construction during the filming of Hero. They had already started making it, and it was supposed to be for some other film. I don't know what film was going to use it, but in the end, nobody used it because it was too big. And they finished construction on it about two years ago, and it was just sitting there because no filmmaker knew what to do with such a massive location shoot. And in the end, we finished the screenplay for this and we thought, "Let's use this place." So that's where most of it was shot--all the exteriors, anyway. The interiors were shot in the studio in Beijing, and we tried to make everything look as realistic as possible.
Did you make heavy use of computer effects to enhance the visuals?
ZHANG: One place we did use CG was in some of the battle sequences. We have between 800 and 1,000 extras. These were actual soldiers from the People's Liberation Army that were working for us as extras. And [for] some of the scenes, we actually needed more people. So there were a few that we used CG technology to kind of duplicate people to make them look like there were more people in certain scenes. But we were very reserved in the way in which we did this. And there is probably just twenty, at the most, shots in which we have the CG people created in there. But most of what you see are real people, real battle sequences. And that's something I'm actually quite proud of, because I think one thing I do well is taking limited human resources and making them look much bigger--getting more bang for my buck and making them look much more than they really are. And that's something that I've always prided myself on doing well.
How would you compare Curse of the Golden Flower to your previous films, such as House of Flying Daggers and Hero?
ZHANG: I think the major difference between these sets of films are Hero and House of Flying Daggers are really in the tradition of traditional martial arts films, and they very much follow that tradition. This film, however, is quite different because it's more an amalgamation of a melodrama and an action film, and that's something I very consciously wanted to do. The plot, the story, the characterization...All of this comes from the original play, Thunderstorm. And with that, I was given a wonderful foundation upon which to build on. But then by taking it and setting it during the Tang Dynasty and all of this splendid, opulent set design, I really was able to take it somewhere much further. At the same time, I wanted to make sure that those splendid scenes were always in service of the screenplay and service of the characterization, and we never got lost in the middle. So I think it was an interesting amalgamation of these different genres.
Were you forced to make any regrettable changes or compromises?
ZHANG: One thing that's really a shame is all the things I had to cut. You know, I shot a lot more of this splendid, opulent stuff than we showed you in the film. But precisely because I wanted to make sure that everything we showed you was in service of the story and service of the characterizations, there were certain scenes that just didn't work with the pacing of the film. For instance, we did one scene in which we shot Chow Yun-Fat and Gong Li's characters getting dressed, and you see them putting on all five or six layers of their clothing one at a time. And it's a beautiful scene, and you really, for the first time, get to see what they're wearing underneath all of those layers of clothes. But the thing is, it affects the pacing of the film. And my rule was anything that's going to affect the pacing, it's just got to go, and we have to maintain the integrity of the story.
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