It’s always a little difficult to do an interview when there is a translator in the room. Not only due to the language barrier, but due to spending half your time waiting for the translator to repeat your question back to the person you’re interviewing. So if you’re given twenty minutes, it’s really more like ten.

Thankfully Zhang Yimou (Hero, House of Flying Daggers) had plenty of time to talk about his newest work which is about to open here in the states, Curse of the Golden Flower.

Curse is not your typical Asian export. Most of the Asian films that appear stateside are usually more action oriented, and while this film has plenty of that, it’s more focused on the inner workings of an imperial family and what’s really going on behind the scenes. Chow Yun Fat plays the Emperor and Gong Li plays his wife, the Empress.

The film spends a great deal of time showing things that we normally don’t get to see in an “action film” like how the emperors palace really worked and something which I found fascinating to view - the unbelievable opulence that the rulers had all around them in their daily lives. The film really does an amazing job of capturing the lifestyle of the leaders in the Tang Dynasty of 10^th Century China. And while I could go on and on about the visuals and costumes I would just recommend you watch the trailer so you can see what I’m talking about. They’re on the level of Lord of the Rings.

The interview was done in roundtable form but there were only four of us, and everyone asked great questions.

While I normally recommend downloading the audio of an interview, in this case you might want to just read the transcript as I didn’t cut out the Chinese that is spoken back and forth. But if you can speak Chinese, you’ll really love the download. If you want to listen to Zhang Yimou then click here, otherwise here is the interview.

And remember Curse of the Golden Flower opens this Friday.

Question: The scale of this movie is overwhelming I think to the audience; the brilliance of the color and also the scope of the environment where the story is taking place in. How do you choose to use that as a character at that scale?

Zhang Yimou: The film actually has its origin with a early modern drama called Thunderstorm which is set during the 20's and 30's.  This is a very famous work that even dramatic art students in China are required to perform as part of their repertoire.  So it's almost a household name type of play. Everybody knows the story.  Several years ago I decided I wanted to make a film based on this. But the twist is I wanted to take this modern drama and set it the Tung Dynasty which has what you referred to as this kind of massive scale, this opulent, splendid backdrop with which to place the story. The reason I did that was that the original story is really a critique of futile society and the way it twist and impresses human nature beneath the weight of its tradition.  I thought by taking that theme and placing it in the Tung Dynasty where you have all this riches and splendid visual kind of access and the power and the luxury. All it does is add to the impressive feeling of this story because it creates this very strong dichotomy between the beauty of the inside and the inner darkness that's going on within the story, within this family.

Where did they shoot it and did they do a lot of dressing? Obviously the interiors are dressed but for example that big circular staircase. Is that art department or just questions like that?

Zhang Yimou: So the film was primarily filmed, the exteriors where we shot Hero.  And at the time we were shooting Hero they were building a new studio there an external palace and it was supposed to be a one-to-one scale of the Forbidden City, a massive palace they were building. I remember when we were shooting Hero and I said to one of the guys who worked there, "what are you building this for" he said "for this movie". I said "who can use something so large, this is immense".  He said "I don't know we're just building it". In the end it turned out it was too immense because when it was finished two years later nobody used it.  The scale was too awesome and nobody knew what to do with such a huge place.  It was about that time that I finished the screenplay for this current film. I decided we should use it.  That's how we got that location in Hung Dien and once we had the location we took it even further. We went and bought tens of thousands of chrysanthemums. Most of them are real chrysanthemums and some are artificial made from silk. We covered the entire square in this palace with these chrysanthemums. It was really a huge effort to do that and then the interior shots were shot in the studio in Beijing. 

Because this is so brand and so beautiful, so creative and everything, I was just wondering where does he get his creative fuel from?  What sort of things inspire him or where does this vision come from?

Zhang Yimou: I'm not sure where my inspiration comes from.  It's hard to pinpoint just one place.  I've always had a very strong attachment and sensitivity to these aspects of visuality especially colors. In several of my films colors are so important.  I think stylistically these all become a major voice in the dramatic world that you keep seeing recurring over and over again.  As for this particular film, I think a lot of inspiration just came from the setting of the Tung Dynasty had read a lot of historical books about the history of the Tung, the history, the culture, literature, art and we looked at a lot of Tung painting. All of that gave us a great amount of inspiration. Especially the fact that we were setting this film, not in a public house, this isn't about emperors sending out edicts to generals and such. It's about the inner palace where the emperor lives with the concubines and a few eunuchs and a very private world. This is one of the first films that deals with that private world of the inner palace. That was incredibly inspiring, getting to deal with that aspect of the imperial life.  One thing I wanted to make sure was in the middle of this splendor the details never got lost. We always went to great extent to pay special attention to all the details.  I'll give you one very clear example during the big battle sequence that takes place as the palace is being stormed. That was shot over the course of 20 days or actually 20 nights. We shot from sunset all the way until dawn the next day; 20 consecutive days. For the first time in my career what I actually did was split my crew up into 2 units. A unit and B unit.  A was responsible for taking all the macro shots and getting all the big battle sequences mostly long shots.  And B, I gave them about 20 soldiers, these were all extras from the People's Liberation Army, and they were only shooting close-ups, of details, of chrysanthemums and swords, of carnage on the ground and that's how we worked every day for 20 days with group A on the macro shots and the other one really talking into account the details. Then in the end we edited them together and that's the kind of balance we tried to maintain thought the film.

What about reuniting with Gong Li and how has she changed as an actress over the past 10 years? Or has she changed at all?  How have you changed as a film maker?

Zhang Yimou: When I decided to cast this film and thought about the role of the empress, there was just one person that came to mind and that was Gong Li.  I thought she was the perfect choice. I couldn't think of anyone else I'd rather have play that role.  There was no other choice.  She was it.  I was so happy that she was willing to take on this role.  Working with her again after all these years, I really feel she's matured incredibly as an actress. She has this new emotional reservoir she's brought to the table this time.  She's also willing to explore different aspects of the character that in the past I just hadn't seen. She really brought a whole new sensibility to this character. At the same time overall her approach to film making has changed as well. In the past she'd basically just play the role and she didn't raise too many questions. She always did a wonderful job, but it was pretty straightforward. This time she paid incredible attention to the characterization. Not just her own character but other characters, to the screenplay, to the overall cinematic vision.  She gave me advice about dialogue. She was very much more hands on than she had ever been in the past. That's just a sign of her maturity and where's she is now as an actress and it was wonderful to work with her.

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